When illustrating the Fediverse as a network, what should the nodes be?

[danso@mtl.rocks]

@evan@cosocial.ca @gaditb@icosahedron.website no Pleroma/Akkoma

[gaditb@icosahedron.website]

@evan I think that's a map of the development ecosystem and of developer communities/the social construction of software,

so not nothing but very distinct from what making Instances nodes would be a map of.

[seize@mastodon.social]

@categulario @evan blahajs

[django@social.coop]

@evan potentially as software Types:
Blog, Microblog, Photoblog, Forums, Bookreviews!

[gaditb@icosahedron.website]

@evan But, probably for what I think you want this for, it should 100% be instance.

Again being a parody of myself, but with acknowledgements to Virginia Shea (1995):

> "The ActivityPub Matrix" refers to all the computers in the world that can exchange JSON-LD Objects.
> "The Fediverse" means almost the same thing. It's sort of a psychic superset of the ActivityPub Matrix -- it's the psychic space in which people interact when they communicate via ActivityPub. "Cyberspace" and "the Fediverse" are used synonymously in this book.

[andypiper@macaw.social]

@evan I prefer “servers” as a synonym for “instances”; I picked another item from the poll but that’s an aside to the options presented.

[django@social.coop]

@evan I’m not a fan of relying on specific software because it becomes either referencing niche (little known outside our tech circles) software OR silo clones but interconnected which also adds a layer of abstraction

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@gaditb It says "Fediverse" in the title.

[alisonw@hachyderm.io]

@evan
What instance/server/software someone might be using is irrelevant, we all follow *people*.

[gaditb@icosahedron.website]

@evan I know I mean, functionally.

If I draw something that's a map of Ellenville and label it Springfield it still works as a map of Ellenville.

(And like, it's a (maybe, I assume) map of the developer communities/social landscape around the software construction /of Fediverse software in particular/, so arguably that's not an inaccurate label on it...)

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@gaditb You asked for clarification, and I gave you an example of the kind of diagram I meant, from https://www.britannica.com/technology/fediverse .

There are a lot of others. This is not an unusual way for people to diagram the Fediverse. Here's the one from Wikipedia.

Fediverse - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

I think the people who made these diagrams intended them to be diagrams of the Fediverse, which is why they labelled them "The Fediverse".

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@andypiper I think it's better too!

[gaditb@icosahedron.website]

@evan Oh! Sorry, I thought that was like, an example of what you were thinking about in the conversation ij general. I didn't realize you meant it as example-of-existing-usage, my bad.

[rickscully@heads.social]

@evan Wow. This is a tough one. Bravo.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@rickscully Thank you!

[tassoman@orwell.fun]

@evan@cosocial.ca @andypiper@macaw.social didn't found servers then I chose softwares diversity must be clear. I'm bored of CEOs and branding.
Communities.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@evan i picked people, because ultimately federation is the implementation detail and people communicating is the reason why any of us are here, not vice versa. buuut it really depends on what the diagram is meant to communicate and to whom

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@evan I think Topics could just as well have the same rational, and it's interesting to me that it has scored so low so far.

[mayintoronto@beige.party]

@evan What are nodes in this case?

[deborahh@cosocial.ca]

@evan @mayintoronto but I wish the geeky "instances" word could be made more general-public friendly.