What is a Fediverse Galaxy?
As more and more instances are providing multiple services under the same management, we need a term to talk about this type of arrangement. A Fediverse Galaxy is a collection of federated software that is provided by the same admin or collective.
[posted to the @fediverse Lemmy group]
#fediverse #FediverseGalaxies #FediDev
I feel like calling it a galaxy makes it sound like its a bigger deal than it actually is, but I like it.
@liaizon
this is a really good idea. Say #kolektiva providing a mastodon, lemmy, funkwhale, pixelfed, peertube etc. to all users. I think any communities that do this in an organised fashion would gain a lot of new users… but it is a lot of work. Would love to see mastodon.art do this.@fediverse If you have any feedback on this idea I am just now playing with it. The term was mentioned months ago by @e and it had resonated with me since then and I have been wanting to try to give it a more formal definition since then. This is an idea in progress and I welcome any feedback you may have. Is this a useful concept to work on? Should we come up with a different name?
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@iameru @fediverse @e that is exactly what @JoinFediverseWiki was set up for! check this in progress page here https://joinfediverse.wiki/What_are_Fediverse_projects%3F
@fediverse Mastodon and Lemmy federating with each other
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@iameru @bloodaxe @fediverse its both a mastodon thread and a lemmy thread cause we are all in the same fediverse! I started this lemmy thread from mastodon by tagging the lemmy group in the origonal post.
@iameru you can reply to Lemmy threads with your Mastodon account and (sort of) follow communities as well.
@liaizon @fediverse
And kbin too please.
@wason Yes very much. I just started with one graphic, but I want to make a whole bunch to easily visualize different types of federation
Do these galaxies allow you to have one account shared across the various services?
no sadly the fediverse doesn’t really work like that. tho there has been talk for a long time about attempting to do something in this direction
I would think of a galaxy as being some kind of “zone” on the fediverse. Though instances can interact with each other, not every instance interacts with every other one.
Think of a niche subject (a group of instances, or a goup of managers, with interests only related to a particular religion, or political view, or collectors…), their instances might not interoperate with more generic ones and only interoperate between themselves.
Usenet had the notion of an island for groups of servers disconnected from the rest of the “world”.
That’s what I would call a galaxy.
I would find another term for your notion, like a “group”, or “local group”. There has to be a better term.
@liaizon @fediverse I think k Jerry runs a WriteFreely instance too. I was but wasn’t thrilled with it. Although not strictly Fedi, need Matrix on here too.
@liaizon @fediverse Actually @jerry is only missing three from your chart, I believe. Mobilizon, Funkwhale and Plume. See also: https://infosec.exchange/@geekgrrl/110529665917357916
1·1 year ago@geekgrrl @liaizon @fediverse sadly Plume is dead - and I fear that writefreely is also dead software walking. I will have to look at the others…
@jerry @geekgrrl @fediverse we should try to get new people working on Plume, it came so far already
@liaizon @geekgrrl @fediverse agree. I haven’t played with it much, but it seemed a lot further ahead than WF
@geekgrrl @fediverse @jerry oh wow thanks thats helpful, updated!
@liaizon @fediverse @jerry No problem 👍
@liaizon @fediverse see now all I can think is, “Ha! I’m my own galaxy, I’m not just a star anymore mom I’m a God damn galaxy!!!”
@fediverse @fediversereport I would love your thoughts on this
@liaizon@social.wake.st @fediverse@lemmy.ml @fediversereport@mastodon.social the more I think about it, the more important and relevant this feels, especially regarding the entire discussion about meta and federation.
Meta joining means that admins cannot be just system administrators anymore, but will have to make policy choices that are contested, and publically communicate them. Saying that transphobia is banned is a relatively easy policy as all sensible people agree, but either choice regarding meta will come with pushback from current users.
I think this is a healthy move for fedi. It also means that once servers start to define an identity (‘we’re privacy focused!’, or ‘we contact with everyone, including meta, nostr, bsky, etc’), it also makes sense to establish this as a brand. And once you’ve established a brand and identity, it makes perfect sense to export that to the other software.
And thats the point where you’re galaxies come in. Not 100% sold yet on the name, but it gets the point across well.
I think most galaxies you’ve identified so far seem like they would not defederate from meta instantly, which creates significant space for other admins who do want to defederate to offer galaxy services that all defederate.
@laurenshof @liaizon@social.wake.st @fediverse@lemmy.ml @fediversereport@mastodon.social
Another thing that has to be adresse:
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the EU will have to be follow by a big Corp like Facebook. How does this interact with AP and the rest of the fedivers ? Will there be GDPR Compliant “Galaxys” and how do they federate with servers in the US or other parts of the World?
@liaizon@social.wake.st @fediverse@lemmy.ml @fediversereport@mastodon.social yes this makes a lot of sense to me, lemme think about it for a sec
Sounds like a useful new term.
The table does not capture the fact that e.g. @stux is hosting several Mastodon instances. Should those instances hosted for others as a service be counted as part of the same galaxy?
Or would this be a Fediverse family (in analogy to Tor where relays run be the same entity are called a family).
@christian @fediverse @stux I am not sure what exactly you are questioning? just that some admins have more then one mastodon instance?
I’m not questioning anything. I’m just wondering if “galaxy” is the same thing in the Fediverse as “relay family” is in the Tor world.
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@derek@toot.thedoodleproject.net @fediverse@lemmy.ml I’ve made an account, but follows requests to all other services (calckey, pixelfed, kbin) stay stuck on follow pending.
@derek@toot.thedoodleproject.net @liaizon@social.wake.st @fediverse@lemmy.ml this is a really cool project!
@derek @fediverse sure I would happily add you to this list. tho there is no membership per se, since its just an idea I am playing with
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