Herein lies a problem I’ve had for a while, actually. It’s hard to tell people about Lemmy, because “Lemmy” isn’t really a website, or an app, or even a platform, really. It’s a protocol that anybody can use. For instance, we’re not really posting comments here on Lemmy, as much as we are posting comments via Lemmy.

Yeah… I agree.

One problem is that the names of software projects like “Mastodon” and “Lemmy” get mixed in with the names of servers like “mastodon.social”, “mastodon.art”, “lemmy.world”, “lemmy.ml”, etc.

That creates a lot of unnecessary confusion for potential new users, because they end up conflating the software with the server, thus missing the big idea of the fediverse completely: that a bunch of servers, even those running different software, can talk with each other to form one big social network.

But it’s kind of a moot point because there probably isn’t much that can be done about that now.

I just hope that in the future people will avoid using software names in their server branding, because it only confuses people.

You’re probably right about Lemmy/threadiverse communities. I really don’t put much thought into what server someone is posting from.

But when it comes to Mastodon I kind of wish that I was on a server with a tighter local community so that I could make more use of features like the local-only feed and local posts. Obviously I can switch to a smaller server or make my own, so it’s not really a problem, but with Mastodon there are features that theoretically benefit from having stronger local communities.

Still, the meat of this suggestion is really just to use invites as yet another way to bring people into servers, in addition to having a big list of fully open servers, as well as application-based closed servers.

The beauty of FOSS though is if someone wants it bad enough, they can implement it themselves.

For sure. I’ve contributed to FOSS projects before. There are a few big hurdles between idea and implementation though.

Personally I don’t know enough about web development or the software stack involved in various fediverse projects to be of much help with implementation right now. So the only thing I can really do at this point in time is put the idea out there, whatever little that’s worth.

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So not closed off as in non-federated, just invite only?

Yeah. We’re talking about using invites to onboard people onto servers.

So a barrier like the ones that have applications, but based on something other than fiktering who joins the community? Not only is that counter to the entire point of federation, but invite only approaches only works for closed systems. Nobody is going to wait for an invite when they can just join any server.

Would you rather be invited to an event or fill out an application?

There’s way less friction involved in sharing an invite code.

I also don’t think that closed servers are “counter to the entire point of federation”. Federation is about servers talking to other servers, it has nothing to do with how individual servers grow.

And if people don’t care to wait for an invite to join a specific server, and they’d rather take the initiative to join a different server right away, that’s fine too. They’re still in the fediverse either way.

The topic of sharing invite codes is geared towards the type of people who aren’t going to take that initiative in the first place. We get rid of the need for them to understand how the fediverse works by just giving them a ticket into some specific server. They can take it or leave it.

I’m open to the idea but I’ve never run a fediverse server of any kind. I don’t have much web admin experience.

Do Lemmy, Mastodon and the other big fediverse projects already support invite-based registration using codes?

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Other than the benefit of being part of a more tight-knit community, you’re taking one of the biggest points of onboading friction away by giving them a code instead of asking them to pick from a list of servers they know nothing about.

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It kind of does matter which instance someone joins, because not everything is federated with everything else. Also the rules and the overall vibe of the community can vary wildly from server to server.

But that’s not really the point. The point is that potential new users think about joining “Lemmy” only to find a big list of servers that they don’t know anything about, and that scares people away. Giving them an invite removes the need for them to choose anything at all.

Fair enough, but you sound like the type of bitch-made brat who didn’t return the everlasting gobstopper. Just saying.

You could. I think invites to closed servers are probably more appealing, but the gist of the suggestion here is just to have a feature where existing users can invite other users.

Well, I’m not really that interested, to be honest. Sorry…

I just wanted to remind you that you’re not this dude’s manager, and it’s probably not really your place to be worrying about his rate of progress.

If you want him to do something for you, maybe find out some way to pay him, otherwise just sit on your hands and wait for him to do whatever he ends up doing, because pestering people on social media is never going to achieve anything other than getting you blocked. People don’t like being bothered, especially not by random dudes on social media.

If you’re excited about loops (or any other FOSS development), then the best way to express that is just by telling people how excited you are, not trying to grill them like you’re their boss or something.

That’s just my opinion as a FOSS developer of 6+ years.

Come to think of it, even semi-open communities (like the kind that require users to apply to join) could benefit from a user invite code system as an alternate way to get people in without applying.

I don’t really know who he is, but then again, who are you to be “calling him out” for “making no progress” on anything?

Don’t take that as a personal attack, by the way. I just think you should probably be less invested in trying to manage random strangers on the internet, and instead focus on your own progress with whatever you’re trying to do in life.

If you’re excited about Loops and you want to see this dude make progress faster, you’re not going to achieve that by bugging him about it on social media–that achieves nothing at all.

Well, that’s fair enough, I guess.

I think the difference between servers and what it means to be on one server vs another is not exactly obvious. On the other hand, if picking a Mastodon or Lemmy server gives a person choice paralysis, I don’t know how they can pick anything in life without getting choice paralysis.

Like, how do you know which bread to buy? I guess you just arbitrarily pick one and if you like it then just stick with it, and if you don’t then you try something else.

But listen, I’m no stranger to overthinking things, so I guess I do get it, even if it is a bit frustrating as someone who wants people to take the internet back from corporations and oligarchs. Sorry for being a bit overly dismissive. I think it’s just that I’m a bit of an old school guy, and so I mostly just hate the idea that the entire internet needs to be centralized around one website/app/platform and that any small degree of choice or distribution is a bad thing.

The fediverse being “endless wars about who is federated” is not really true, is it?

Sure not everyone is federated with everyone else, but legacy social media is federated with nobody at all. Federation is the entire point of the Fediverse, you connect with people you want to connect with and you don’t connect with people you don’t. It’s as simple as that.

Plus, do people really want to be on a single platform with everyone else in the world? Because that’s a big part of what broke the internet in the first place…

99% of users are going to check out when you ask them what server to join.

I’m so sick of this dumb ass argument…

People who complain about “servers” need to tell me what they think “the internet” is. The existence of servers didn’t stop online video games, email or discord/slack from catching on with hundreds of millions of people, so why is it suddenly a problem when it comes to the Fediverse?

Onboarding obviously needs to be better, but I’m going to be totally honest honest here: I don’t think these are legitimate, actionable or useful critiques.

These are merely excuses from people who are addicted to legacy social media and who don’t give a shit that the internet is owned and controlled by a few rich corporations.

I love the idea of online communities that are run by the people and not by massive tech corporations.

The idea that we had a free and open internet back in the day, only to surrender the entire thing to fascist corpo fuckwads like Musk and Zuckerberg, or hostile authoritarian government pawns like ByteDance, is a perfect example of the tragedy of the commons.

The Fediverse feels like our one and only chance to take the internet back on behalf of all people, all over the world.

Instead of hoping your instance does something, just make your own instance. That’s the whole idea.

The way I see it, the most important thing right now is breaking up the biggest platforms. The biggest advantage that places like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok have right now is the network effect from having a fuck ton of users. But in a more fractured social media landscape, the tools that are the most open and federated will eventually come out on top.