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 think the portmanteau “threadiverse” works for this situation and it’s what I’ve been using to refer to anything in the general Lemmy/kbin side of the fediverse, but I think people just referring to the platform is inevitable. People talk about posts “on Mastodon” even though there’s like 15 different services you can use to post to the blogging side of the fediverse, like Pleroma, pump.io, etc. It’s worth thinking about in situations where you’re like “Hi Lemmy” because you’re definitely talking to more than just Lemmy, but any time you’re talking about your personal experience of where you saw a thread I think it’s perfectly accurate to use the name of that platform rather than having to say you saw it “on the fediverse”.
Busted! I have been thinking about how “threadiverse” is complicated a lot by Threads existing. It could easily mean “the part of the fediverse that is attached to Threads” (uppercase) rather than “the part of the fediverse that revolves around threads” (lowercase). Maybe we already need a new name. Eggheadiverse?