@rwg@aoir.social @rra@post.lurk.org @noracodes@tenforward.social @jonny@neuromatch.social @Lady@cat.family I wanted to run a couple of definitions by you and see what you think ...

a fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is a decentralized social network of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers, and the people and organizations with accounts on them, that communicate through one or more protocols, bridges, and hubs.4 Participants in a fediverse can be social networks (either centralized or decentralized) in their own right; participants can also be part of multiple fediverses.

"the Fediverse" is a fediverse whose boundaries, culture, software, protocols, and over time and means different things to different people but typically include a network organization based on instances, a specific kind of server

"fedi" is either a shorthand for "the Fediverse"; the culture of the Fedivere; or, a set of cultural attributes that came to the Fediverse with the 2017 Mastodon/Glitch wave. Of course if you ask different people you'll get a different list of attributes, but many long-timers include things like pro-LGBTQIA2S+, anti-Blackness, reply guys, dislike for algorithmic feeds, and defederation in their list

Thoughts about those?

In
https://privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/ I talk about different definitions of "the Fediverse", including "Seven Theses"' characterizations, Nora's from "The Fediverse is Dead", and the discussion of covenantal federalism and non-centralization in Robert's work. And of course I mention "olde fedi" as well.

@jdp23 @rra @jonny @noracodes @rwg i would define “The Fediverse” as the set of servers and resources on the Internet which encode social interactions and relationships in a linked, machine-readable, open(-protocol, not necessarily public), and interoperable fashion, drawing on the definition of the Web as the set of servers and resources on the internet which encode human-readable documents in a linked, open(-protocol, not necessarily public), and interoperable fashion

the The for me emphasizes that all of these networks are ultimately connected, by nature of being open platforms sharing the same Internet

this is perhaps a more progressive definition than is really vernacular

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@jdp23 @rra @jonny @noracodes @rwg but i think about “the blogosphere”, which was, at once, every person who ever had a blog with an RSS OR an Atom feed, as well as a distinct cultural community with its own practices and norms (and there were also “multiple blogospheres”: food blogs, writing blogs, photo blogs, podcasts…)

when you start talking about the community, something you can belong or not belong in, and something you can talk to and expect better from, that’s “fedi”, to me, because now you’re not just talking about protocol conformance, but something else

I can see that ... I'm using "the fediverses" to mean something along those lines (because I want to emphasize the multiplicity), although your meaning's more specific. I have a paragraph on how different people use the terms differently, is it okay if I quote you in that?

Also, I have

And "the fediverse" is often used as synonym for "the Fediverse" or "today's Fediverse", sometimes as a synonym for "the fediverses," and sometimes in the cultural sense of what I'm calling "fedi".

If you're thinking that this is kind of messy and confusing ... welcome to the fediverses!
@Lady@cat.family @rra@post.lurk.org @jonny@neuromatch.social @noracodes@tenforward.social @rwg@aoir.social

@Lady@cat.family As always the question of how to attribute it.

Do you prefer

GlitchCat Administrator Lady, sometimes described as a "Fedi Cassandra,"
or
GlitchCat Administrator and Fedi Cassandra Lady
or would you prefer I leave out the Fedi Cassandra? Or something else?

@jdp23 typically these days i sign things as “Lady of ladys.computer” or something similar, but if you prefer to emphasize my link to the fediverse, i think “Lady, admin of glitch.cat.family” would be fine

(where ladys.computer and glitch.cat.family can be replaced with Ladys Computer and GlitchCat if you prefer prose names over domains)

@jdp23 (you can call me fedi cassandra if you WANT but that’s a description, not a name)

@Lady@cat.family I saw satsuma's description of you as a Fedi Cassandra on your profile and liked it -- it's accurate! but yeah it wasn't clear how best to phrase it to make sure it's a description from others, not a name or an egotistical self-description. So, I'll just go with Lady of gltich.cat.family for now.

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📟🐱 GlitchCat

A small, community‐oriented Mastodon‐compatible Fediverse (GlitchSoc) instance managed as a joint venture between the cat and KIBI families.