I've now seen one person call it a herd in the wild and yes I am taking all of the credit

@hauntedlatte ohmygod.

@hauntedlatte actually, why are they not called herds?

@hauntedlatte This reminds me of how uninstalling games on Steam was called "Delete Local Content" for ages because only programmers had ever written the UI copy. :grin:

@hauntedlatte 🤔

@hauntedlatte Why is the GNU Social federation not called Hurd? 🤔

@hauntedlatte I feel like this was a critically missed opportunity. Maybe due to Yik Yak "Herds"?

@hauntedlatte I don't think they really want the association with gnu/hurd.

@hauntedlatte One Mastodon instance is the tail, another is a leg, another is a tusk, another is the trunk, another is an ear. No one knows the whole mastodon.

@hauntedlatte that makes so much sense

@hauntedlatte Did mastodons live in herds?

@hauntedlatte That's it. I'm writing a Mastodon book just so I can make this the default term.

@hauntedlatte so as not to be confused with GNU Hurd, probably...

@hauntedlatte They really should be.

@hauntedlatte @nite0wl That is a -very- good point.

@hauntedlatte an instance is a Mastodon. Many instances, a herd.

@hauntedlatte #mastodon Creation of a new Mastodon instance should be called a "De-extinction Event".

@hauntedlatte you just called them herds. You can do it again and again. No one is stopping you. There's no TOOT Police. Yet.

@hauntedlatte Because the collective noun for instances of Mastodon is a federation. :)

@hauntedlatte @bortzmeyer there's one, on !gnusocial though: herds.eu which is !troupeau 😄

@hauntedlatte GNU/herds

@hauntedlatte I love the idea, bu technically speaking wouldn't a herd be a group of instances? As in:
- 1 instance = 1 mastodon = 1 pacyhderm (with many cells: its mastonauts)
- 1 herd = many mastodons; may or may not be the whole of the fediverse