(Reminder: if you have shared the original version in a public post with an old version up, replacing it with this one might be more helpful.)
I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly. I chose to handwrite the text to avoid font copyright infringement.
Feel free to share this poster as you wish, especially on Reddit. All I ask is that you respect the license and don’t remove my socials at the bottom. If anyone’s addition is included, I’ll credit them, and if this gets added onto (or translated) by someone else later, they can add their info as well.
I hope someone can find it useful with the subreddit blackouts right around the corner.
I want to thank the Beehaw admins so much for their amazing work!
(Poster edited; I spotted a duplicated word, mrmanager@lemmy.today noted the lack of whitespace; current version is slightly larger and has been spaced out. You can still request the 800x2000 size, but know it is a little squished.)
(Edit 2: Removed defederation part as it’s not really required. The email analogy blackcoffee@beehaw.org suggested has been added, thanks!)
(Edit 3: Here’s another version making the interconnectivity a bit clearer and mentioning some cool-looking reader apps that have been suggested! Also made the image slightly longer for ease of viewing. I might do some small cosmetic changes tomorrow)
(Edit 4 is here with the date updated towards the bottom. This version contains a reminder to verify your email, lets people know why mlem isn’t showing up on App Store searches, and added fedia.io to Kbin instances. Some colors have been changed slightly to be more mobile friendly, as this is written and edited from a phone tablet. If you have a hard time reading this because of the changes, please let me know. Thank you all for the help and tips!)
Important note for kbin (and fedia.io): if you sign up and fail to click that confirmation link, I think you're basically SOL. So don't make the same mistake I made! Click that confirmation link, it expires in an hour!
I know people have said mastodon is like twitter, but what's kbin? Do I want all three?
Kbin, Mastodon, Lemmy, and others are all "federated apps" connected to ActivityPub. They are just different UIs to connect to it, so you can see posts and content from one on the others.
Mastodon is a UI inspired by Twitter.
Lemmy is a UI inspired by reddit. It is more stable but less feature rich. You can get native apps just like with reddit, such as Jerboa (similar to rif).
Kbin is a UI inspired by reddit. It is more feature rich and less stable (said to be, anyway).
They are all speaking the same protocol though. So while you can load Mastodon posts in this Lemmy ui they might look ... off. Similarly you can load things in Mastodon from kbin etc and they too might seem weird. It's because they're not giving the same context you might get viewing that content in the UI it was made for.
These are all still new with Mastodon being the one most widely adopted already. So expect better features and bug fixes to roll out over time. Especially with so much more demand now, I'm guessing many old 3PA devs have already been working out new tricks for ActivityPub.
What's 3PA?
third party apps.
I think you give some really important information for people to get their head around it. I've never seen it explained like that. Even further, I feel like there should be ELI5 without trying to use terms like protocol for non-tech people.
Kbin = Reddit + little bit of Twitter
Darn, but thanks for the note. I’ll put a reminder to confirm emails on tomorrow’s edit, even for Lemmy; since email is used to recover passwords, no email + lost password = lost account, and that’s not fun!
You're still able to recover your password, you just still can't log in afterwards