Tricky thing is going to be the onboarding process for laypeople. Problem with the fediverse is helping people wrap their heads around servers. People think the server is the “community.” And it kind of is, and it kind of isn’t. Servers are a community of people, but severs also host capital C “Communities” within them.
This is probably the biggest thing holding back the adoption of the fediverse. This user experience problem hasn’t been cracked. Onboarding isn’t intuitive.
I definitely agree with this. I’m a very tech-savvy person and while I think I understand how it all works, I am confident there are plenty of people that will look at Lemmy and the fediverse and go “uhhhh…nope I guess?”
The confusion is the signup process and front page
If when you joined instead of picking a user name it was username @lemmy.world or @beehaw.org then people would see it more like an email address.
Then when you reach the front page instead of showing server admin picks, it should show a list of popular communities across servers and then the alternative local version with some text at the top explaining multiple versions of some communities exist and you can subscribe to both.
My understanding is (and if I’m wrong, someone please correct me) instances/servers are like little towns with their own communities. But you’re not limited to just your town and your communities. You’re free to visit any town and join any of their communities.
I’m sure it’s much more convoluted than that, this was just my simple understanding of it.
Tricky thing is going to be the onboarding process for laypeople. Problem with the fediverse is helping people wrap their heads around servers. People think the server is the “community.” And it kind of is, and it kind of isn’t. Servers are a community of people, but severs also host capital C “Communities” within them.
This is probably the biggest thing holding back the adoption of the fediverse. This user experience problem hasn’t been cracked. Onboarding isn’t intuitive.
I definitely agree with this. I’m a very tech-savvy person and while I think I understand how it all works, I am confident there are plenty of people that will look at Lemmy and the fediverse and go “uhhhh…nope I guess?”
That’s unfortunate.
On the upside, it at least limits participants to people who really want to be here.
Absolutely a good point!
The confusion is the signup process and front page
If when you joined instead of picking a user name it was username @lemmy.world or @beehaw.org then people would see it more like an email address.
Then when you reach the front page instead of showing server admin picks, it should show a list of popular communities across servers and then the alternative local version with some text at the top explaining multiple versions of some communities exist and you can subscribe to both.
Oh boy, I’m more confused now!
So there are global and local communities?
well for example there is !photography@lemmy.world and !photography@lemmy.ml
Oh, no, that’s confusing…
Fight to the death between forums I guess
My understanding is (and if I’m wrong, someone please correct me) instances/servers are like little towns with their own communities. But you’re not limited to just your town and your communities. You’re free to visit any town and join any of their communities.
I’m sure it’s much more convoluted than that, this was just my simple understanding of it.
Towns and communities is a really good analogy.
Honestly, a simple little language change like that, if adopted by the developers, might simplify onboarding a for people.
When you introduce new tech, the best way to onboard folks is to use metaphor and to reference patterns they’re already familiar with.
They are like town full of holograms of buildings in other towns.
This explanation helped, thanks!