FOSSDLE PieFedIf you use Mbin, what's the difference between a thread and a post?
submitted by Lost_My_Mind
I wish the fediverse would just stick to one set of jargon, and everybody uses the same terms to mean the same thing. Even "instances" should just be called "servers". That's all it is. This server talks to that servers, and information is exchanged.
So, if I understand this right, "magazines" on Mbin are the same as "communities" on Lemmy, are the same as subreddits on reddit. Three names to mean the same thing.
And a "Thread" is just a post. Like I'm making a post right now on Lemmy. If I did this on Mbin it would be called a "Thread".
But then I see there's also "comments" which is self explanitory (I hope...)
And there's also "Posts". But if Threads are posts, then what are Posts?
QUIT FUCKING AROUND WITH TERMS, FEDIVERSE! LETS ALL JUST KEEP THINGS SIMPLE!!!
........I keep thinking I have things figured out, until someone says "yeah, but have you tried this?" and then I look into it, and I'm confused again. Arg!
I'm guessing it's an artifact of them supporting both platforms like Lemmy (who's users make Threads and Comments in Magazines) and platforms like Mastodon (who's users make Posts and Replies in Microblogs).
If you don't like that, you're really not going to like what they call downvotes ...
Don't leave us hanging like that!
They call them 'reduces'
Well you were right. That definitely rubs the wrong way lol.
Thank you!
Ew.
WHO thought that was the right term??? Like was some guy using a yellow notepad and putting the bad ideas on the right, and the good ideas on the left, and "reduces" is the one that they landed on??? How bad were the other options???
The original Kbin dev is Polish, so English is likely a second language for him. Also, it's still very early in development, so a lot of terminology put in use are likely placeholders until something more natural-sounding could be finalized.
Also, it is inspired by a Polish service, Wykop which developed its specific language
I've said it before and caught flak but I'll say it again: I really, *truly* hate the naming conventions Kbin introduced. "Reduces" is maybe the worst offender but "magazines" too is a completely nonsensical name for communities.
I mean, you are free to open a discussion on Github, if you feel that strongly about it. The whole point of mbin was to be more community centric, so feedback is very much asked for.
do they have another name for upvotes too?
Yeah - if you don't like a post you 'reduce' it, and if you do then you 'thicken' it.
Only kidding: they use 'favourites'
There's also "boosts", sort of like an extra upvote but also a "favorite" kinda thingy.
Iirc from my time on kbin, posts are for the "microblog" part, i.e. the part that interacts with mastodon.
Oh. If thats the case, Mbin seems like it's laid out really smart. It just needs to use a kind of branded name for mastodon. Kind of like how "twitter" had "tweets", and "X" has "racist bullshit". Well maybe Mastodon could have "Snouts". Or someone smarter can think of a better word for Mastodon noises.
But whatever Mastodon settles on, thats what Mbin should call them. "Magazines" should just be "Communities". And "Threads" should just be "Posts".
And what we know as "Posts" would be called "Snouts".
Mastodon has "toots"
............toots? Like farts with a cute name?
Twitter had a tweeting bird. Mastodon has a, well, tooting mastodon.
And Xitter fittingly has X-cretements.
No, like an elephant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon
The thing is this: This may or may not apply to just Mastodon, but microblogging in the fediverse as a whole. There may be other such sites popping up that use activitypub in the same micro blogging manner, but using a different software and names than Mastodon. Mbin could still be compatible to those platforms too, embedding them in the same way, which would make calling the posts "toots" even more confusing and straight up misleading.
To comment on the "instance" term as a systems admin; If you run an "instance" (e.g. fedi.example.com ), it might have multiple supporting servers to balance the load. So using "instance" for a specific fediverse provider does make sense to avoid confusion between that cluster of servers vs a specific server within a cluster.
I guess part of it is that each platform wants to be specific to the purpose of its own network/platform. Mastodon as a Twitter/Tumblr like microblog site, PixelFed like Instagram, Friendica like Facebook, so on and so forth. Align all terminology to one set of terms I think takes away from the uniqueness of each platform. If you want the truly neutral default cross-Fediverse term, then just use the one from the ActivityPub spec. That pleases every Fediverse platform equally, i.e. not at all.
Users = Actors. Upvote/Favourite/React = Like. Post/Note/Toot/Thread = Object. Happy? Didn't think so.
When one network interacts on another, the target will do its best to translate your actions into the way it does things. That's why Link posts from Mastodon appear so wonky in Lemmy, and you can only reply to Mastodon users who posted in a Lemmy community.
I agree. Except boosts. That should die and up/downvotes should just be the thing driving aggregation. Nobody boosts enough to make a difference anyways and some apps just tie the boost button to the upvote button so the feature actually gets used as expected (if enabled). It’s already hard enough to get regular people onboard here, with all the instance and account confusion with hit or miss syncing options and instances disappearing sometimes.
I feel like your preference makes sense when aligned from the perspective of a conventional forum-like platform. However I'd argue that that's missing a core part of what kbin is/was -- and by extension what Mbin is -- which is the microblog integration alongside the forum-like stuff. With that context in mind, boosts (or whatever term you want to use for "retweet") make sense to integrate imo.
Whether or not you think Mbin should try to integrate the microblog side of things is of course a subjective - I personally think it's a cool idea to try at least, but with how dominant lemmy has become it can be difficult to reconcile differences and incompatibilities between it and other software like Mbin.
Think of it like a nesting doll.
Instances have communities (or magazines).
Communities have posts.
Posts have threads.
I made a comment thread on your post to this community on the Lemmy.World instance. Other than the usage of instance for a social media type website, this has been the lingo of the net for several decades. You would have simply replaced "instance" with "specific website." (Though the usage of "instance" to refer to a duplicate server has been around since at *least* the mid to late 90's if not longer)
Mbin has a specific and different meaning for the term "post" as used in the OP, so it's one place where translating from lemmy or other "generic internet forum" jargon doesn't work. It's for microblog posts associated with a magazine that are independent of threads in that magazine.
E.g.: https://fedia.io/m/firefox/microblog has "posts" in Mbin terminology -- though if I had to guess I think most Mbin users will use the qualified "microblog post" or similar if they actually mean to reference the Mbin meaning of the term.
Using "server" instead of "instance" is misleading. An instance could use many servers behind the scenes. It may be more appropriate to simply call it a "domain" instead, cause that's kinda all it is. But instance is also well-understood.
If you really wanted to unify the terminology, you would call communities and magazines "groups", as this is what they are called in ActivityPub. It is a group of all the people following the community.
But I don't think terminology unification is a goal in itself. Different clients and implementations can use different terminology and that's a good thing. There's no need to force anyone to use a certain term. There's no need to nail down language like that - it is a fluid, evolving thing after all.
I agree, Kbin's naming conventions are off-putting to me. Now you have FB's claim on 'threads' too, which just adds to the confusion even more...
I'm sad that this is the first I'm hearing of Mbin at all.