I don’t think many people understand that if they use Lemmy or kbin, they are posting to the fediverse. There are other platforms and will be more to come. Referring to a post on “Lemmy” or “kbin” is like saying you saw a post on your Windows or Mac computer.
We should be referring to it as…
- I saw it on the fediverse.
- Hey fediverse users …
- A thread on the fediverse…
New terms may emerge but referring to the platform seems weird, almost ignorant.
edit: A better example is email. You wouldn’t assume everyone is on Hotmail because that is the email provider you use. You say I’m sendingan eamail, not I’m sending a Hotmail.
I like the name fediverse, but I think it’s too broad. I think we need a collective name for platforms like Lemmy and KBin (which are more like each other than they are like Mastodon).
“forum”. It’s correct. Short for web forum. Social media forum if you really want to get picky.
No, “forums” are old style message boards from back when the internet was good, that people stopped using for some reason. If KBin/Lemmy can one day be half as good as real forums I’d consider that to be a success.
What feature is missing from KBin or Lemmy to make them forums? KBin superficially looks like a forum, but I only just got here. My next step is to find out whether Lemmy devs are tenable people to work with on forum software development. They are Marxist-Leninists and run a M-L instance or two, it seems. I’m a socialist but not M-L and I’ve got run out of plenty of “tankie” subs on Reddit, so I’m worried about that. I don’t enjoy being called liberal or a bootlicker.