decentralised social media is a really amazing idea that will live or die on the successful communication of the concepts

unfortunately "instances" and "federation" are not even a tiny bit self-descriptive and that's a real shame

here's a concept I just pulled out of my ass -
Instances > Planet
Federation > Galaxy

I'm a member of the mastodon planet and can see the planet timeline. to see all other planets at once, i view the galaxy timeline

don't even need to explain that really

@Fiona also you can say "THE GALACTIC TIMELINE" and "THE PLANETARY TIMELINE" in a really sci-fi voice with implied reverb
@Cube @Fiona
ANOTHER DIMENSION, NEW GALAXY
INTERGALACTIC PLANETARY

@Fiona instances - tribes, federation - planet (or.. you know, federation).

PS: going real interplanetary requires switching to FTN and delays would be huge.

@Fiona if we have a pizza instance it can be called "pizza planet" C:
@blacklemon67 well I already own http://fiona.pizza so I've already got the domain :P
@Fiona O:!!! I didn't even know that was a TLD!
@blacklemon67 there's all kinds of TLDs! I'm partial to .cat hehe
@Fiona I got the "squishiest.fish" domain and I'm extremely proud of it C:
there's nothing there yet tho
@blacklemon67 That's a proper dorbs domain :D
@Fiona then twitter is just a different galaxy oh no
@Fiona That's great, thank you for the image that conjures up too: "We may find planets that are a bit odd... but there's space for everyone out there.
Oh, and make sure you look after your own planet!"

@Fiona I like this idea, but I am not sure if the reasoning is correct. I don't think that most Facebook users actually understand the client-server model of communication either.

That said, the federated model may be more difficult to understand. I may say more about this in a bit.

@inmysocks people who use Facebook and Twitter are used to interacting with a single point of contact service. They understand the client-server relationship even if they'd never understand the correct terms for it.

This is different though, it's a whole bunch of very similar services that interconnect in a global fashion, and none of that is clear. Rethinking the analogy in the terminology would go a long way towards dealing with that IMO.

@Fiona History shows that platforms live based on how many of it's Ambassadors are famous. Fame does not need to be taken in the wrong sense of it's implication here; Fame held by a person who has naturally become well-known by being super-extroverted and getting away with it a lot to the advantage of others! Sometimes you here people call them "fun" people to be around -- If all the "fun" people to be around are here being social then all the best Ambassadors are here - permanent win-win.. no?