4 ms·

What's with the asterisk in the name?

chestervonwinch 11y ago
> The word “diaspora” refers to the dispersal of seeds (or people) over a wide area. That’s why our motif is the dandelion, and the asterisk in our name represents a fluffy dandelion seed. We refer to individual accounts on diaspora* as “seeds,” and the servers in which those accounts are collected as “pods.” You’ll get used to it soon! https://diasporafoundation.org/getting_started/sign_up https://diasporafoundation.org/getting_started/sign_up
- javert 11y ago
  I find it totally cringeworthy. I read it, mentally, as "diasporastar." It's like if someone types "I <heart symbol> you," I read it as "I heart you," which is cringeworthy. Do some people not do this? Also, their URL needs the star, too. Diaspora(asterisk)foundation.org. I just can't stand in consistency. How you do it matters less than being consistent. If you can't put a * in a URL, don't make the asterisk part of your name. Finally, it made me look for a footnote. That symbol already has a meaning in that context---you can't just re-appropriate symbols to mean whatever you want when they already have an established meaning. I mean, clearly, you can---but it's considered bad form, and for good reasons. I bet the Diaspora* people are sick and tired of hearing this shit over and over, but you know what? They deserve it.
  - c22 11y ago
    Why not just practice reading it "I love you"? A more charitable interpretation of the writer's intent and less likely to get you so frustrated.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      Because basic UI functions should not require ambiguous interpretations, charitable or otherwise. I personally read heart symbols as 'love' as in 'I love New York' on the famous t-shirt, but many people say 'I heart New York' and while I find this asinine in the extreme (because 'heart' is obviously not a verb, but hearts are a well-known metaphor for love) it's not going to change because unfortunately there are a great many ill-educated people out there. So now you have a very basic UI component (which is sadly not very innovative, being just a different version of Facebook's 'like' feature) but people are likely to attach two different names to it. Notice, by contrast, how FB constantly reinforces the use of 'like' as the operative verb. You don't hear anyone saying 'thumb-up this post on facebook' even though everyone recognizes the thumbs-up symbol as being synonymous with liking something.
      - c22 11y ago
        I think when someone verbally says "I heart New York" their intent is to invoke the popular-culture graphic as an aide to their point, a (possibly completely) different usage from the more natural phrase, "I love New York". I don't really think of ascii art as a form of basic ui function though...
      - egypturnash 11y ago
        YMMV. Personally my circles (20s-40s Seattleite nerds) say "Hearts" to each other on a regular basis. Depending on context, it expands to either "I love you" or "I love the thing you just said", just as if we were typing "<3" into an instant messenger window. That said, the spurious asterisk in 'diaspora' does look pretty inexplicable, and needs way too much explanation to people who haven't drunk the kool-aide already. Add in the fact that 'diaspora' is never capitalized, even if it begins a sentence, and you're kind of way off into the eccentric orthography zone.
    - javert 11y ago
      Becuase our language is not pictographic, it is alphabetic. So that is wrong. Reading a heart symbol as "I love you" is just as wrong as reading it as "I heart you." A symbol is not a word.
      - c22 11y ago
        Then either interpret the sentence in context as an atomic concept or conclude that all sentences are merely strings of symbols devoid of meaning and without informational content (this way lies madness).
      - some1else 11y ago
        🎩
  - btdollar 11y ago
    Breaking news! User javert is resistant to linguistic shift! Stop the presses, because this is a humdinger of a story!
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  This sort of in-group nerdiness is a barrier to adoption. Nowhere is this explained on the https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/ landing page, for example. So the mildly curious end up looking for the footnote instead of reading the text closely, can't find it, get frustrated, and leave. Same thing with 'And show your love for other people’s work by ♥ing it.' By hearting it? by loving it? This sort of thing is not compatible with spreading by word of mouth. Likewise, the landing page urges visitros to 'choose a pod!' - yet the concepts of seeds and pods aren't articulated up front - your one-sentence explanation of seeds and pods above should be the first or second sentence on the landing page. To be honest, I'm not sure how reliable that metaphor is, as people may not care to be referred to as 'seeds' which sounds like some sort of cult terminology...but it's no worse than routers and nodes in Tor or seeders and leechers in torrent networks so that's probably not a big deal. Also, why are there no screenshots on your landing page? I had to click around for 5 minutes before I found a picture of what the software looks like. The landing page is full of reasons about why you might want to use it, but does a terrible job of explaining what it's for. You can't assume that everyone is going to know that, and even for people who do know, there's no visual representation of it being a Thing That Is Fun To Use.
  - chestervonwinch 11y ago
    > your one-sentence explanation of seeds and pods above should be the first or second sentence on the landing page I don't think this was aimed at me, but to be clear, I'm not affiliated with diaspora. I just happened to be reading the page relevant to gp's question at the time. I agree with that their exposition could use improvement.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      OH, I had the impression you were part of the project. sorry for the confusion.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    What's a + in Google+? The name is a name. If you want an explanation, you can dig into it, but it's not a barrier for adoption.
ISL 11y ago
They want to match all strings with Diaspora as a prefix?
- xorcist 11y ago
  No, but to allow for an unlimited number of a's. "Diasporaaaaaa!" (As in "Spartaaaaaa!") "Diaspor" sounds silly though. Definitively should have gone with Diaspora+.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

> The word “diaspora” refers to the dispersal of seeds (or people) over a wide area. That’s why our motif is the dandelion, and the asterisk in our name represents a fluffy dandelion seed. We refer to individual accounts on diaspora* as “seeds,” and the servers in which those accounts are collected as “pods.” You’ll get used to it soon! https://diasporafoundation.org/getting_started/sign_up https://diasporafoundation.org/getting_started/sign_up

javert 11y ago
I find it totally cringeworthy. I read it, mentally, as "diasporastar." It's like if someone types "I <heart symbol> you," I read it as "I heart you," which is cringeworthy. Do some people not do this? Also, their URL needs the star, too. Diaspora(asterisk)foundation.org. I just can't stand in consistency. How you do it matters less than being consistent. If you can't put a * in a URL, don't make the asterisk part of your name. Finally, it made me look for a footnote. That symbol already has a meaning in that context---you can't just re-appropriate symbols to mean whatever you want when they already have an established meaning. I mean, clearly, you can---but it's considered bad form, and for good reasons. I bet the Diaspora* people are sick and tired of hearing this shit over and over, but you know what? They deserve it.
- c22 11y ago
  Why not just practice reading it "I love you"? A more charitable interpretation of the writer's intent and less likely to get you so frustrated.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    Because basic UI functions should not require ambiguous interpretations, charitable or otherwise. I personally read heart symbols as 'love' as in 'I love New York' on the famous t-shirt, but many people say 'I heart New York' and while I find this asinine in the extreme (because 'heart' is obviously not a verb, but hearts are a well-known metaphor for love) it's not going to change because unfortunately there are a great many ill-educated people out there. So now you have a very basic UI component (which is sadly not very innovative, being just a different version of Facebook's 'like' feature) but people are likely to attach two different names to it. Notice, by contrast, how FB constantly reinforces the use of 'like' as the operative verb. You don't hear anyone saying 'thumb-up this post on facebook' even though everyone recognizes the thumbs-up symbol as being synonymous with liking something.
    - c22 11y ago
      I think when someone verbally says "I heart New York" their intent is to invoke the popular-culture graphic as an aide to their point, a (possibly completely) different usage from the more natural phrase, "I love New York". I don't really think of ascii art as a form of basic ui function though...
    - egypturnash 11y ago
      YMMV. Personally my circles (20s-40s Seattleite nerds) say "Hearts" to each other on a regular basis. Depending on context, it expands to either "I love you" or "I love the thing you just said", just as if we were typing "<3" into an instant messenger window. That said, the spurious asterisk in 'diaspora' does look pretty inexplicable, and needs way too much explanation to people who haven't drunk the kool-aide already. Add in the fact that 'diaspora' is never capitalized, even if it begins a sentence, and you're kind of way off into the eccentric orthography zone.
  - javert 11y ago
    Becuase our language is not pictographic, it is alphabetic. So that is wrong. Reading a heart symbol as "I love you" is just as wrong as reading it as "I heart you." A symbol is not a word.
    - c22 11y ago
      Then either interpret the sentence in context as an atomic concept or conclude that all sentences are merely strings of symbols devoid of meaning and without informational content (this way lies madness).
    - some1else 11y ago
      🎩
- btdollar 11y ago
  Breaking news! User javert is resistant to linguistic shift! Stop the presses, because this is a humdinger of a story!
anigbrowl 11y ago
This sort of in-group nerdiness is a barrier to adoption. Nowhere is this explained on the https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/ landing page, for example. So the mildly curious end up looking for the footnote instead of reading the text closely, can't find it, get frustrated, and leave. Same thing with 'And show your love for other people’s work by ♥ing it.' By hearting it? by loving it? This sort of thing is not compatible with spreading by word of mouth. Likewise, the landing page urges visitros to 'choose a pod!' - yet the concepts of seeds and pods aren't articulated up front - your one-sentence explanation of seeds and pods above should be the first or second sentence on the landing page. To be honest, I'm not sure how reliable that metaphor is, as people may not care to be referred to as 'seeds' which sounds like some sort of cult terminology...but it's no worse than routers and nodes in Tor or seeders and leechers in torrent networks so that's probably not a big deal. Also, why are there no screenshots on your landing page? I had to click around for 5 minutes before I found a picture of what the software looks like. The landing page is full of reasons about why you might want to use it, but does a terrible job of explaining what it's for. You can't assume that everyone is going to know that, and even for people who do know, there's no visual representation of it being a Thing That Is Fun To Use.
- chestervonwinch 11y ago
  > your one-sentence explanation of seeds and pods above should be the first or second sentence on the landing page I don't think this was aimed at me, but to be clear, I'm not affiliated with diaspora. I just happened to be reading the page relevant to gp's question at the time. I agree with that their exposition could use improvement.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    OH, I had the impression you were part of the project. sorry for the confusion.
- shmerl 11y ago
  What's a + in Google+? The name is a name. If you want an explanation, you can dig into it, but it's not a barrier for adoption.

ISL 11y ago

They want to match all strings with Diaspora as a prefix?

xorcist 11y ago
No, but to allow for an unlimited number of a's. "Diasporaaaaaa!" (As in "Spartaaaaaa!") "Diaspor" sounds silly though. Definitively should have gone with Diaspora+.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]