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

[catmisgivings@stranger.social]

@aeva @evan so much this. People are the "what" or the "who"; instances are the "how".

Although you could do both, it is very much more important to me to draw how I know Ben than line-trace wires from one instance to another.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@mayintoronto that's the question!

[mayintoronto@beige.party]

@evan oh I see!

[mayintoronto@beige.party]

@evan In that case, I'd argue the nodes are clusters of people who eventually end up following each other due repeat interactions.

There are probably identifiable individuals who would be central to several nodes of people who gather around central interests!

[deborahh@cosocial.ca]

@mayintoronto @evan so, I was thinking in terms of visibility and moderation.

But in terms of function, I'm with May. It's a social-graph isn't it?

[miblo@mas.to]

@evan [Instances] I think this maps onto the idea in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node_(networking) that "many physical network nodes are host computers", in the sense that both a host computer and an instance is the bit on which people have their accounts.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@stefan @andypiper Servers would have been better. Can we live with instances?

[stefan@stefanbohacek.online]

@evan

I mean, I can definitely live with it. I just wonder if it's an additional concept that will need to be explained when talking about the fediverse with a more general audience.

I feel like I'd probably be saying "instance, also called server" a lot, same as when I sometimes say "Mastodon and the larger fediverse".

Although, admittedly, I'm relying on personal and other anecdotal experience when I assume that less techy people are familiar with "servers". (Eg. Discord using the term, my own conversations at work with non-developers, etc.)

@andypiper

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@stefan @andypiper I meant, can we live with me leaving it on this poll? Actually, I shouldn't ask; I really rarely change polls once they've started.

[stefan@stefanbohacek.online]

@evan Ahh, got it. Yes, changing it would just reset the votes, so definitely best to keep the current options.

@andypiper

[gnomon@mastodon.social]

@evan

Critterball

#monsterdon

[sberson@app.wafrn.net]

@evan@cosocial.ca @gaditb@icosahedron.website

I see illustrations like this of interconnected Fediverse platforms, kind of often, and from an end users point of view, it just isn't that true. E.g. I need a completely different user account for the "threadiverse" platforms (Lemmy/Kbin/Mbin/Piefed) versus all the blogging ones (Mastodon, Gotosocial, Wafrn, Pleroma, Misskey, etc.) and neither of those accounts get me logged into Mobilizon, etc. And claiming general interconnectedness & interoperability is way misleading to potential new users.

[jgamble@fosstodon.org]

@evan

Being a literal-minded person, I chose Instances (/servers) because that's what handles the data.

But an alternate graph might be best described with hashtags.

[andres@mastodon.hardcoredevs.com]

@stefan @evan @andypiper
When you say "server" I imagine hardware hosting different software so an ilustrated node would imply multiple instances and it doesn't sound right.
I'm in with the software option because it highlight the diversity in contrast with centralized solutions.
Communities is a great one too.

[Guest]

@evan I would try to use instances in different colors by the software used with different sizes depending on the amount of people using that instance.

[mcneely@indieweb.social]

@evan I think this is a sneaky good question actually. It reminds me of a blog post @laurenshof wrote a few months back about how communities form. I voted software which I interpreted as the type of platform (Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed etc) but I think it could just as easily be any of the choices

[supermoosie@mastodon.au]

@evan

E) All of the above.

You can do the one diagram, but different copies with the different words, then stack them all on-top of each other to make the Fediverse

[soapdog@toot.cafe]

@evan pretty sure it is mostly cats and elephants.

[andypiper@macaw.social]

@evan @stefan yes definitely - I was making an observation not suggesting a change!

[uastronomer@mastodon.monoceros.co.za]

@evan I reckon people, but have them clustered in supernodes which represent the instances they're connecting through.

But then I'm assuming you want to show the data flow, how the connections work between people and how those connections can fail or be blocked.