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

[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.

[mans@mastodonsweden.se]

@evan Cute kittens?

[lovestha@floss.social]

@gaditb @evan Yeah, "topics" is the only wrong answer.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@LovesTha @gaditb it's not multiple choice.

[jmax@mastodon.social]

@evan Cats.

[gatesvp@mstdn.ca]

@evan

I think you have to start with instances, but I don't think you call them that. An instance is a technical term that is completely meaningless to almost everyone.

Call it a Community.

That's the core of the hierarchy.

• A Community decides to host a Social Platform
• That Community selects the types of content they want to share and then runs the appropriate software (Mastodon, PeerTube, PixelFed, Friendica, etc)
• That Community enables its members to join via the software they've set up
• That Community can then communicate with other Communities via the protocols available (ActivityPub)

The software is really secondary here. A community could run multiple pieces of software for their own purposes. In fact they probably should. The CBC Community should run both Mastodon and PeerTube.

It's not "one instance", It's a community running instances of all of the software they need.

I know you have an option for "people", but I don't think that is specific enough. It's "Communities of People".