this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
48 points (98.0% liked)
Lemmy
14239 readers
48 users here now
Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.
For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to !meta@lemmy.ml.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think the main problem is "link aggregator" which doesn't make a lot of sense as the main function is discussion. For a minimal change you could go for "a discussion platform for the fediverse".
If "fediverse" is too obscure; you could try just "a decentralised discussion platform". Decentralised isn't technical, you can't fully describe the fediverse in a sentence but "decentralised" gives a clue.
"Decentralized" may not be technical, but still its a long and complex word. "Fediverse" seems friendlier to me.
I get your point, but I agree with RobotToaster. We're still at a point where the Fediverse is a very niche thing and a very niche term. For most regular people "Fediverse" is a nonsense word that tells them absolutely nothing, while "decentralised" (albeit a technical term) is at least a concept most people can grasp.
But if you tell them fediverse they can look it up and see there are tons of other sites that are part of the same group. If you say decentralized it sounds like you'll be alone and separate
But how many will actually do that, though? That doesn't really sound like how regular people would react. Like, if regular people were capable of reading up and looking into things on their own accord as part of the sign-up process we wouldn't need to have this conversation about a snappy and succinct summary sentence about Lemmy in the first place.
Yeah I guess mastodon has it as 'decentralized social media' so it would be more in tune with that
I'd argue most people would know what centralised and decentralised mean, at least in abstract terms, while anyone that hasn't encountered it before would have no idea what the fediverse is.
When I first heard "fediverse" I thought it was a joke about everyone on mastodon being a fed 😆
I think the word "open instance" could be used in place of decentralized. So when we frame it as open discussion instance, it is a reference to how the instance is open.