cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/3658116
or maybe some other terminology would be better? lots of people get confused when you ask them to choose an instance, sometimes I think even the word “proxy”, “host”, or “hub” is simpler
the specific terms aren’t my point, just a discussion to see if we can come up with a better name
Of all the words I would come up with to replace instance, proxy would probably be very near the bottom of the list.
For me the first thing that comes to mind is the websites we used back in school to circumvent the school network filters. I suspect that’s probably the case for a lot of people who would be confused by the term instance enough to be put off by it. Others would probably think “it’s proxy for what? Why shouldnt I go right to the actual source instead of going through a proxy?”
Server would probably be my first choice if we wanted to ditch the instance terminology, and off the top of my head, host, home, hub, portal, access point, provider, node, center, affiliate, axis, and core, would all come to mind before proxy (and most of those I wouldn’t consider to be better terms than instance, though still far better than proxy)
Choose a tour bus.
Instance are far from being simple proxies. While instances can act as proxies for other instances, the aim is to have each instances to have their own communities and be somewhat self sufficient. If you remove the federation, Lemmy (and other fediverse software) still work, it’s just that it is more difficult in that case to reach a critical mass of users.
yea I understand, but I think the term “instance” confuses new users
I would only use terms like “proxy” or “hub” if the instance actually had federation enabled, otherwise I would probably just call it a “server” or “host”
The thing I like about proxy or hub is that they imply you can access the other content out there and the choice isn’t super important
the point of this post is to reevaluate our terminology because it’s a huge source of confusion for new users, I don’t know what term is best but I’m pretty sure “instance” is not good
It would be simpler if users didn’t need to understand the details of federating to join in the first place.
Instance is the best name for it as instance implies replication and federation. Server isn’t incorrect but also a server doesn’t necessarily mirror content which is why I think instance is the most correct term for fediverse services. I don’t think change the vernacular for instances is going to make it easier to understand for people who aren’t technical though. I think just referring it to mastodon/lemmy/whatever is fine and then I would tell them to sign up for lemmy at lemmy.world or sh.it.just.works etc like you would tell someone to sign up for email at google or yahoo
This is actually a really good idea. Anyone familiar with Discord will get it very quickly, as the concept is sort of similar and they don’t really need to understand how it works behind the scenes, they don’t need a perfect understanding of how it really works, just how it behaves to them.
And for people who do like accuracy, we’re also in luck, because they are in fact servers!
Let’s do it.
I think “server” is good enough for the appropriate audiences. (Not everyone knows what a server is/does.) However since the accepted term is now “instance” I think the best idea is to mix them up so that audience will be able to pick up contextually that they have similar meanings.
Adults continue to learn new words in their home language at a rate of about 1 word/week through life. [1]^ Many of these words are related to changes in technology. It is not too much to ask for a person to learn some new vocab when trying a new tech. But, having the initial ideas presented in a framiliar way that does not require use of a glossary is helpful.
citation needed ↩︎
“Format” or “initialise”? “Directory” or “folder”…or maybe “drawer”? It’s already termed “instance” for a few years now by the Devs, so…
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