this post was submitted on 07 May 2023
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@rysiek Yeah, people on Mastodon don't do enough to advertise other Fediverse platforms. I've had an account for years and I didn't even realize that stuff like Pixelfed exists until recently and I definitely didn't know that these platforms could interop.
I agree with the OP but I think to say:
is the equivalent of saying, "people on reddit don't do enough to advertise lemmy." It's an illogical jump. People on mastodon aren't there to talk about mastodon or the fediverse (although some do). It would be best to say other fediverse platforms need to work on their marketing and spreading awareness. Every chance I get I'm posting on reddit about lemmy, without trying to look like shill/spammer, because I want this platform to grow.
I wouldn't blame redditors for not mentioning lemmy in an attempt to spread awareness.
Good points. Refreshing to have some good critical thinking skills on display.
But… it is not. Reddit cannot talk to Lemmy, they are not part of the same network, they do not federate.
A better analogy would be "people on GMail don't do enough to advertise other e-mail providers", and while the rest of your argument might hold somewhat, it's quite a different ballgame.
One of the important differences is that at least some people using GMail must be aware that it would make sense to keep the broader ecosystem — e-mail — healthy, and an important step towards this is having a plurality of e-mail providers.
No such consideration even makes sense in the Reddit/Lemmy case.
federation is also broader in this case than email, and has services that can emulate basically all of the major social media platforms of today—presumably it would be advantageous for there to be other active federated platforms, because then people can substitute more of their social media presence out
100% agree with you.
But to continue with the email analogy, it still wouldn't make sense to ask gmail users to spread awareness of ProtonMail if they're unaware of its benefits or that it even exists.
I would say it's up to the other ActivityPub clients to promote and spread awareness - by whatever means are accessible to them (the devs and its users) - to ensure the message gets out.
@rysiek @KLISHDFSDF I'm also confused as to how marketing would work here, considering that there's no algorithm and I'm probably not following any of the hashtags they'd be using. It'd pretty much have to be a grass roots effort by Mastodon users, would it not? Or the platform itself would have to inform users that these other platforms both exist and can interop with Mastodon.
One simple way to start is for UIs (Web UIs, mobile apps, etc) to display information (a simple icon woud suffice) on what instance type a given account is on when displaying posts. That already would show the diversity.
Some instance software projects do that already, I believe Friendica does for example.
Calckey does that, too!
🥳
@rysiek Hm, I do like that idea. A well-placed icon that links to the platform could intrigue people and entice them to check it out.
Exactly. And at the same time would not be obstructive nor "in-your-face".
By "instance type" do you mean Lemmy, Mastodon, Friendica, etc?
Yes.
I'm, currently, talking to an iOS developer about creating an app that would provide more interoperability between Fediverse platforms (i.e. instance types). If all goes well, we will start by combining Mastodon and Lemmy with the future plan to add more platforms. So, I believe that having instance type icons next to user accounts is a good idea.
Great! Some other instance types provide the same client API endpoints as Mastodon. So an app that works with Mastodon should work with certain other instance types too.
Double check this, but I think sure examples include Calckey and Pleroma?
Will do. Thanks.
Relevant I think:
https://i.calckey.cloud/notes/9eizelsi39
Probably too early for us to get involved with but thanks for the heads up.