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Ask HN: How Does the Fediverse Work?
I've been reading a bunch about decentralized networks and communities lately. I don't really use much social media now. A few forums and stuff, hn, but that's about it.
I've been looking into the decentralized social networking options lately. The idea of being sble to make an account that spans multiple social media types and interconnects to them all seems pretty awesome.
Being able to connect with with random people who share interests over multiple platform types, microblogging, macroblogging, facebook style stuff, even music sharing, the funkwhale article was on the front page recently.
My problem is, i can't really seem to figure out how to join any communities, how to connect to any of the disparate communities i have managed to join to any wider communities or any other accounts i've made or how to really connect to people through it in general.
Reading things, it seems pretty straightforward. Pick a platform, pick either a host or host it yourself, make an account and connect with anyone across any platform that can connect to the fediverse.
In practice, i can't seem to even be able to find a few people on one platform let alone all these supposedly interconnected ones.
How does this all work?
- fsflover 6y agoNot sure what exactly your question is. You could try to formulate it more precisely... You don't know which buttons to click? Then try this: https://mastodon.help/#HowFederationWorksPractice https://mastodon.help/#HowFederationWorksPractice. You don't know how to find interesting people? Try this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16741116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16741116 (or ask it again).
- grawprog 6y agoThanks that second link sort of explains. I think maybe I just misundertstood. The way everything i've read about this stuff says all of these platforms and instances should be able easily communication with other instances and platforms. So an account on a mastodon or funkwhale instance should be able to find and communicate with people on other mastodon instances or even other platforms using the fediverse's open communication standards. But, from your second link, people are saying to just make multiple accounts across instances and platforms. I guess i'm not understanding the 'open communication porotocols' part. A bunch of them are listed as using ActivityPub. So does this not mean that having an account on an instance of a platform using ActivityPub should allow you to communicate with other platforms using ActivityPub?
- fsflover 6y agoCross following between different parts of the Fediverse was definitely work in progress during the last Ask HN, but I expect it to work now. Did not use it myself yet though, so cannot comment on the current state.
- afarviral 6y agoI've tried to use social media on the fediverse on multiple occasions but given up or felt let down multiple times. I come from a tech background. If I cant figure out how to set myself up in/on the fediverse then its doomed to be very, very niche...therefore not a good platform for _social media_. I hope it gets easier to understand/use/benefit-from. What are the specific barriers? Like not being able to figure out where to sign up for anything. I might be missing the point or maybe its just in its infancy and the software that will run the big social network or other service that could become ubiquitous just hasn't been made yet.