this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Reddit Migration

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### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Edit: alright I'm sticking this up here because a number of people seem confused--this post isn't trying to convince you that "fediverse" is a bad term--rather it's a discussion of why I think "threadiverse" is a good umbrella term, for the forum-based part of the fediverse specifically. (lemmy+kbin)

So; we've got something special right here; a federated, thread based forum; but we're still on the forefront right now; most people are still stuck on the old thing; reddit--they'll come in time, but they usually have a hard time getting here--largely because they don't know what "here" is.

Say Lemmy or Kbin, and you've already got problems; you've got to explain all the details of the platform, and how Lemmy and Kbin are really the same thing, etc, etc--too specific--

Say Fediverse, and you've got the opposite problem; too broad and vague, such that nobody will know what you're talking about unless you unload a whole pile of overwhelming details--we need a term that talks about only this segment of the Fediverse; the thread based forum portion--just as the World Wide Web could only really catch on once terms like, "internet" or "web" became widespread, the federated alternative to Reddit will only catch on once it has a name too--it's a branding game.

Thus, if we want to beat Reddit at branding, we need a better name than them--In my opinon, "Threadiverse" is the best name for the job, for reasons I'll lay out below:

First off; any good name communicates a lot of information--like how "Reddit" contains both "Read+it" and Red, the colour associated with their brand--it's made up of those three parts, plus the company name:

"Reddit"=Read+It+Red+Reddit

We, however, don't have a company, and are thus not bound by a need for that kind of recognizeability--we're looking for a new term; a term like internet; that doesn't need to communicate anything other than what the platform is.

So enter Threadiverse;

Like "Reddit", "Threadiverse" is made up of a number of parts--first, and most obviously to an outside observer you've got thread+universe. Simple, and easy to remember, just like "Reddit" is from Read and it. But we've got more depth too, just like Reddit does; but unlike Reddit, our term has two deeper meanings; first, again, more obvious to an outside observer we have "diverse"--what we want our platform to be: a diverse marketplace of ideas; where reddit has "red" the colour of their brand, a superficial bit of brand information, and representation of their existence as a corporation, we have another descriptor of ourselves--all this is not even to mention "Fediverse", the term we take to get "Threadiverse" in the first place, but that part is not relevant to the outside observer who knows nothing of the platform, its makeup, or its history.

so in short; within that name we've got one more bit of meaning than they do, and, rather than using most of our meanings to communicate superficial brand information, as Reddit does with having their company colour as part of their name; we have "diverse", as our goal is not to be a company, as Reddit's is, but to be diverse marketplace of ideas, and an exchange of useful information.

TL:DR:
"Threadiverse": Thread+Universe+Diverse+Fediverse+Threadiverse
"Reddit": Read+it+Red+Reddit
More info = good; therefore "Threadiverse">"Reddit".

And therefore "Threadiverse" is probably one of the best names our platform can have.

I'm certainly not the first person to use the term "Threadiverse"; but I haven't seen much discussion of why it's the name we ought to be using--and none about why that in particular matters for getting people to understand the platform--hence why I'm making a post about it--a post which I meant to make two weeks ago, but accidentally deleted instead; so here it is now.

Thanks to @cat 's post, and a lot of the top comments, for getting me to think about this a bit more--check that out for more reasons why we ought to be using a name like "Threadiverse".

Anyway; those are my 2 cents (or 20) on the matter of names, and why Threadiverse is a good one; thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Only problem with all of this is that people might get 'threadiverse' confused with 'Threads' of course...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Which makes me wonder why Meta chose this name. Especially since Threads isn’t really focused on actual threads.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I think that's exactly why Meta chose the name.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Huh, I was just thinking the exact same thing. Seems kinda cynical but then I remember I fucking Facebook and that's not a cynical idea, but rather a very plausible one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, you dig up a piece of a parricide's coffin and make yourself a planchette and pretty soon you got yourself a Hellmouth..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That’s an oddly poetic way to shit on Threads :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Funny that, just like people getting the metaverse confused with Meta..

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a good name and I've heard it proposed before, I think the real problem is it's too close to Meta's new platform (Threads). Since that company has already co-opted "metaverse", and is threatening to invade our fediverse, I think it's too vulnerable to name anything "threadiverse" at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think that's really more a problem with facebook using a broad term for their app name than anything--but yeah; facebook has a habit of co-opting broad terms; my opinion is if we start using it first; we'll probably have it name recognition-wise, since our platform's far superior.

Beauty in this though is that there is no unified "threadiverse" platform; it's just Lemmy+Kbin+whatever comes next; and as such there's not much commitment to using any term over another--if "threadiverse" doesn't catch on; we'll get something better at some point

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I’m happy to see people thinking about this, but I think that the existence of Meta’s Threads makes any use of the word “thread” an unnecessary association with Meta, if not an outright advertisement. Deeper meaning has, historically, never been as important for controlling how a term is used as sheer numbers. Way more people are using “Threads” to refer to the Meta product than are talking about the fediverse at all, and none of them are going to care why we should have dibs on “thread” as part of our name. They’ll just go, “threadiverse? Is that like Threads? Threads is just ads, I don’t know why you’d want to use it.”

As an alternative, I like “forumverse,” because Lemmy and kbin remind me of old-school forums, and it still links up with “fediverse” because of the “verse,” and because the word has the same rhythm. But I usually just tell my friends I’m on Lemmy, since I browse through a Lemmy instance, and that greatly influences my experience. I don’t mind adding that Lemmy is just one platform for accessing the same content, because it launches me into an explanation of how this is not a corporation-owned discussion space.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

meta only owns the concept of threads if we let them; but that aside forumverse is almost as good a term--it just doesn't rhyme with fediverse--

it's not like we're naming any platform "threadiverse"--it's just a useful technical term for the thread-based forum part of the fediverse

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I agree, they're pimping "threads" so hard, any other social media entity will have a tough time with "thread" in the title. The play store is promoting threads on nearly every search page.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

did you seriously wrote like a million paragraphs to explain why it is crucial to start saying "threadiverse" because "fediverse" is bad? 🤣

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think their explanation is valid and important. Early adopters not caring about branding is one of the reasons their software stays in a minority

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think their explanation is valid and important

you mean this explanation?

TL:DR: “Threadiverse”: Thread+Universe+Diverse+Fediverse+Threadiverse

i think it is a joke. people who are staying on reddit right now are doing that because they don't care about fediverse and are still happy with scrolling through w/e they are scrolling on reddit right now. if that changes in the future, it is not going to be because someone changes fediverse to threadiverse.

Early adopters not caring about branding is one of the reasons their software stays in a minority

that is absolute nonsense. it is the product that makes the brand, not the other way around. if you have good product, you will make word-class brand from random mix of characters like "google". if you have bad product, no brand is going to help you.

that is not to say that fediverse is bad product, it is purely comment on people overestimating the almighty brand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

hey; just because I thought it was funny doesn't invalidate my points--and I'm not saying that it's vital we have a good name to sum up this segment of the fediverse for it to succeed; I'm saying it'll probably succeed faster if we have one.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m not saying that it’s vital we have a good name to sum up this segment of the fediverse for it to succeed; I’m saying it’ll probably succeed faster if we have one.

i am saying it does not matter. people go to buy/use product or service because it is good product, not becaus it has nice name.

beside, i question your idea that threadiverse is for some strange reason better than fediverse. it is longer, harder to pronounciate and write, and people really do not care whether it is somehow mix of four different words.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think you've misunderstood my post--perhaps I wasn't clear enough; but I'm not saying fediverse is a bad term that needs replacing; nor am I saying the threadiverse won't succeed if it's not called the threadiverse--

I'm saying that fediverse is a broad term that encompasses all of the connected sites here; not just the thread-based forum ones--it's a broad umbrella term, and a good one.

But in my opinion at least, it's good to have more niche umbrella terms like threadiverse for use beneath the broad ones--

You're perfectly entitled to disagree, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to shut down productive discussion just because you personally don't see the need for more specific terminology.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

perhaps I wasn’t clear enough; but I’m not saying fediverse is a bad term that needs replacing; nor am I saying the threadiverse won’t succeed if it’s not called the threadiverse– I’m saying that fediverse is a broad term that encompasses all of the connected sites here; not just the thread-based forum ones–it’s a broad umbrella term, and a good one.

i get that part, but i am saying that the name is not a reason why people did or did not came here and will have zero name on the speed of the migration.

people who are here now are mostly people who are fans of opensource and were willing to go through the birth problems because of that. they did not came because of the name.

the rest of the people will number of their friends here reach some critical mass for them to notice.

you have live example of this in musk trying to rebrand twitter right now. he thinks he will change the clusterfuck he created by changing the name, but he doesn't get that name is not the problem and will have zero effect.

unless you have real name for changing the brand (like two companies merged and you want the branding to reflect that), changing the brand is usually desperate act of clueless manager who just doesn't have better idea.

You’re perfectly entitled to disagree, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to shut down productive discussion just because you personally don’t see the need for more specific terminology.

  1. having opposite opinion is not "shutting down the discussion"
  2. you are overestimating my powers - i can guarantee that people will say their piece without regards to what i did or did not say ;)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

"Attempting to shut down discussion" is probably the wrong phrasing--regardless calling opposing positions "a joke" will never be conducive to useful discussion.

To actually address your point--yes; that's what I'm saying--we are the early adopters; and yes, nobody ever cares about the name of something--and frankly, the name doesn't matter.

But right now, the platform we are on has no name--hence why I made a post about one particular name I think is good, and why.

As I said before; we have names for the individual access points; Lemmy and Kbin-- and we have a name for the ecosystem they exist within; the Fediverse-- but we have no name for what Lemmy and Kbin are; there's currently no standard umbrella term for the forum section of the Fediverse.

My point is not that having the perfect name matters necessarily; rather that having a name at all is something that is, in my opinion, important--the more useful the terminology the better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I've preferred "Threadiverse" for a while, since the ecosystem is larger than just lemmy and kbin. Those are just the two dominant platforms, just like mastodon is the dominant platform on the other side of the fediverse, but it isn't the only one by any stretch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I agree that Threadiverse is the best choice for a name for combined Lemmy+Kbin. I think I’ll still just say Lemmy when introducing it to friends, but it’s definitely helpful to have an agreed-upon word that correctly represents that Lemmy and Kbin work together in a way that, for example, Lemmy and Mastodon don’t really.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like the name "Threadiverse" so I'll start using it.

With that being said

a term like internet; that doesn’t need to communicate anything other than what the platform is.

I have to disagree that the term doesn't need explanation as a result of it being cleverly created. I think it's because the internet is just so widespread a phenomenon that everyone knows about it. I agree that a good name can help catalyze the popularity, but I think very few things are actually self-explanatory.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

oh yeah; I wasn't saying it doesn't need explaining--but that once it's explained it's easily remembered

what I was pointing out there is that reddit's name contains pointless obfuscation, and random info like the fact that reddit is red--and that when you're coining a term, not forging a brand, you don't have to do that nonsense

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
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