Discussion
We have to stop pitching the Fediverse as the supermarket knockoff version of your favourite social network brand.
"Do you like Facebook? Try FaiceBlouk, a vaguely-related app!"
@evan@cosocial.ca feel free attend my topical presentation "The Fediverse Isn't..." At #fedicon2026 ! 😉
OMG! Now you are doing it on purpose! #eurovision2026 #darksouls
@dandelionutilitarian@mastodon.social gonna be a hell of a fight too. Probably have to take out the 4 and then boss with stages for each minion.
@ozoned@btfree.social oooh, which hostel? Let's make it an ActivityPub House 
@julian@activitypub.space DMed you the link. 😄
@ozoned@btfree.social ah you're going? Nice!
I better sort out my topic soon...
@julian@activitypub.space booked my plane ticket and my hostel reservation already. 😊 We'll see if @reiver@mastodon.social let's me in the door though. 😉
🚨 Call for Speakers — FediCon 2026🚨
The Fediverse is gathering in person once again — and we’re inviting the community to take part!
FediCon is a conference about the Fediverse and the Open Social Web — and we are now accepting session proposals!
We're looking for:
• Talks
• Demos
• Lightning talks
• Panels
Got a project, idea, experiment, or story to share?
📩 Submit your proposal: hello@fedicon.ca
(or DM us on the Fediverse)
🗓️ Submission deadline: May 31, 2026
🎥 Watch last year's talks: https://spectra.video/c/fedicon_videos/videos
...
More about FediCon 2026:
📅 When: August 6th–9th, 2026
📍 Where: UBC campus in Vancouver, BC, Canada
FediCon 2026 is coming up! Follow @fedicon@techhub.social for info.
I'll be there hosting a panel.
Also hoping to do a presentation on "The Fediverse Isn't..." a non technical presentation on how we should view the Fediverse and not stop at just remaking the old walled gardens.
A redraw of an old pizza face.
@dandelionutilitarian@mastodon.social I LOVE this. That's so well done man. Great job.
Testing the latest rc1 of @Bonfire@bonfire.cafe . looking good!
Good day all! Upcoming episode of Fireside Fedi!
Special Guest: @samir@m.fedica.com
Entrepreneur and engineer. Father to 3 amazing kids. CEO/founder @FedicaHQ, Cofounder of @rentcompass, Builder of popular mobile apps, Traveler, pentalingual. Also building tools for Mastodon
So don't miss it!
It will happen on 05/22/26 at 15:30 US Eastern Time ( UTC-4 )
🔥 FIRESIDE FEDI — FOLLOW ALL THREE! 🔥
📺 Live: @ozoned@stream.firesidefedi.live (#livestream)
🎬 VOD: @ozoned@tubefree.org (#Peertube #VOD)
🔔 Alerts: @when@freestreamers.btfree.org (new shows!)
Don't miss out — follow all three! #firesidefedi #fediverse #fedi #interview #freesoftware #opensource #userfreedom #freedom #resistance
@fbinin@mastodon.fbin.in feel free to shoot me an email and we can discuss it! I really enjoy talking and getting to know folks! 😊
@fbinin@mastodon.fbin.in Forgot to give you the email! 😁 firesidefedi@btfree.org or btfree@btfree.org
@FediTips @fbinin @ozoned @firesidefedi @timnitGebru @pluralistic
The interview was great fun.
@NorcalGma2@sfba.social @FediTips@social.growyourown.services
I am so glad you had fun! 😊 I enjoyed it so much. Thank you so much for all of the wonderfulnes you bring here. <3
@FediTips @fbinin @ozoned @firesidefedi @NorcalGma2 Wow, I had no idea that this existed. What a glorious pleasure. Well done to all involved, and thank you! (And a special hello to Summer.)
@baz@mastodon.scot @FediTips@social.growyourown.services
Thank you very much! I greatly appreciate it. I'm @ozoned and created the idea to just talk with folks. My community has helped me improve it tremendously though. And I'm just glad even 1 person finds it interesting. 😊 I started it just to get to know y'all. <3
@FediTips @ozoned @firesidefedi @timnitGebru @pluralistic @NorcalGma2
Perfect. I think I would like to get interviewed hopefully. 🙂
@fbinin@mastodon.fbin.in feel free to shoot me an email and we can discuss it! I really enjoy talking and getting to know folks! 😊
I don't know what their exact criteria are but I think they base it on who people nominate? Some of the interviewees are well-known people such as @timnitGebru and @pluralistic and some are developers of Fediverse projects, but most are simply members of the community that others enjoy hearing from.
I particularly enjoyed this episode about a retired dog owner @NorcalGma2 - https://tubefree.org/w/7HgS4JYMNv4xGZLb14v9hP 🙂
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services @fbinin@mastodon.fbin.in
@NorcalGma2@sfba.social is such a lovely person! Bringing positive energy and beauty to the Fediverse. <3
@FediTips @ozoned @firesidefedi
How do you get the audience and the people go do this? What is the criteria, approach?
@fbinin@mastodon.fbin.in @FediTips@social.growyourown.services
The criteria is that you're a person that would like to talk. 😊 And get to know others. Share a project, talk about your dog, whatever.
So it's been folks that I've found on the Fediverse, that I found interesting and asked. I've had MANY suggestions of people as well. I have to get back on my list actually. Life's been a bit hectic, but hoping to do more in the future. 😊
Fireside Fedi is a relaxed friendly series of livestream interviews with all kinds of people from around the Fediverse. You can follow the stream account at:
➡️ @ozoned
The stream will post in your timeline when it goes live. You can watch previous streams on the Fireside Fedi VOD archive at:
➡️ https://tubefree.org/c/firesidefedi/videos
You can also follow their text-based general account at:
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services thank you so much for the shout out! 😊
And as usual, thank you so much for all you do! <3
@ozoned Thinking this over. If I want to measure what I'm getting out of the Fediverse, one way to look at is, if I post something, does anyone care? And do I care about what other people are posting?
A good measure of this is how many people actually comment on my posts, and how many posts do I comment on.
You could quantify this as "median written responses per post". Note I'm saying written responses, not boosts. Boosts are not enough effort to count.
The reason I'm saying *median* is that some networks have accounts with huge fanbases, and those followers do respond. That's "engagement" useful for marketers to know about influencers. And we do have a few very-well-followed accounts here. Using median means these outliers won't skew the result that much.
I mean, if I post something, and two people say something back, I'm happy.
@14mission@sfba.social It's a difficult one though. "Boosts" are you actively sharing with your community. That's the primary method of organic growth here I'd imagine. Of course I don't even know that for sure. How do folks primarily find others? Hashtags? Boosts from someone they follow? IDK. 😊
But someone else pointed out that even a low quality comment might not be as helpful for a quantitative analysis. How many +1 posts are there? Are they the same value as our conversation here?
IDK! 😁 I just feel passionate that MAU is the completely wrong metric.
@ozoned One thing that's nice about the Fediverse that's not quantifiable, is that I've actually made some friends here that I've never met in the real world.
In all the years I actually was on FB and looked at the "feed", it was zero.
(There have been a couple--ok maybe just one--from FB groups, but in the feed? nobody).
In the days of email lists, I had friends through those. That was pretty much destroyed by social media, mainly FB (and this is why I will curse meta forever).
Anyway, like I said, this is important, but not directly quantifiable.
@14mission@sfba.social Absolutely. And folks should have the option to stay private. We'll NEVER know the true size of the Fediverse. There will be islands, there will be people that just consume and don't respond to anything. All of that is ok.
But people are looking at just MAU and saying we're shrinking. And if we are, so what. It's not a valid number. It's A number yes.
But that's like saying my car is better than yours because it has 120,000 miles on it and your car is brand new. 😁
@ozoned also we need to measure the value of the fact that checking in doesn’t devolve into endless scrolling - I like that it only takes a few minutes of my day to connect, see a few new things and be on my way
@phwolfe940@denton.social OH YES! This place is absolutely not built to be addicting. It's built to be community first and I'd go so far as to say every project I've personally used, do as much as possible to break those bad habits.
@ozoned I'm not a scientist. But from my work with social media I know that the number of comments alone doesn't show quality. You get a maximum of comments with polarising and provoking posts. Or if people shitstorm you.
To measure the quality of highly interacting social media, one should measure the quality of communication: how constructive/long/interesting people are talking with one another.
And algorithms can falsify the results.
@NatureMC@mastodon.online ABSOLUTELY agree with all of this. I guess my underlying argument is the old yard stick of MAU, has zero relevance to us. And though I see folks having the best intentions, there are those that attempt to measure in MAU and indicate the Fediverse is dieing. I think that's absolutely incorrect. We're spreading out. Yes, some people left. But I know I run my own now, when in the past I was on a Mastodon instance.
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