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Mon, 02 May 2022 17:28:35 +0200

hans@social.woefdram.nl

[GAMER] gamer :verified2: wrote the following post Mon, 02 May 2022 16:59:50 +0200

guys, when explaining the #fediverse to new people, just go with the simplest analogy, e-mail. worry about the specifics later. no i don't care if it's not completely accurate, you can make it more "correct" after the fact. you just need to put very basic understanding into new people's heads, you don't need to go

"oh well activitypub is a yoingus sploingus babingyi"

no just say something like

"say you were on outlook, and i was on gmail. we could still send each other emails right? imagine that, but with tweets instead of emails"

i've used this explanation dozens of times, and people always get it.

show all 6 comments

Mon, 02 May 2022 23:53:26 +0200

Witcraft (Hubzilla)

witcraft@hubzilla.fediversum.de

I've used precisely this to explain the principle - Always found it an obvious analogy.

Mon, 02 May 2022 23:59:43 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

Yup, me too. He has a very good point that you should keep the analogy very simple for new users, most of them have enough problems getting their heads around the idea of a "federated Twitter".

I managed to get 3 of my friends on the Fediverse, but the one who has been here for a couple of months now still doesn't seem to understand that his login "for the fediverse" doesn't work on every Mastodon-server, just on my Hubzilla-server, but that that is enough to communicate with all the rest. Agree, I should have sent him to a Mastodon-server, but I thought it would be nice if he could communicate with all the other platforms too.

And he's one of the more tech-savvy ones... :rolling_eyes:

Tue, 03 May 2022 00:04:15 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

It's the same analogy I've always used to explain the difference between #WhatsApp / #Signal / #Telegram and #Matrix btw.

Tue, 03 May 2022 00:23:02 +0200

Witcraft (Hubzilla)

witcraft@hubzilla.fediversum.de

@Hans van Zijst

And he's one of the more tech-savvy ones... face with rolling eyes

It is so easy to forget how self-evident things can seem when you know your way around - and where you have to pick peole up (if they want to know at all). Let us not forget that this is completely counter-intuitive to most Social Network Service users...

Tue, 03 May 2022 00:32:50 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Witcraft 🇺🇦

if they want to know at all

I think that might be the problem, indeed. He's been here for a couple of months now, but hasn't posted anything yet. Too busy on the birdsite, even though he admits it pretty much impossible to have a decent discussion.

But hey, "everyone's on Twitter, hardly anybody's on the Fediverse".

As if he would need an audience of a billion people...

Tue, 03 May 2022 00:44:14 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Tak Short answer: all of them.

Longer answer: it's an IM-platform, much like #WhatsApp, #Signal and #Telegram, only federated and -if you want- self-hosted. Both the source code (server and client) and the protocol are completely open, so you can add your own extensions to it.

Popular extensions are the so called "bridges", that act as an intermediary between your Matrix-server and any other protocol/platform. The Matrix-server I built for my work has bridges to Signal, WhatsApp and Slack, so I can use all those platforms with just one client.

Want to know more? Matrix' website.

If you want to jump right in: download the standard Matrix-client, Element, create an account and start chatting. You'll find my Matrix-address in my profile, for example.