When you talk about the network of servers that enable you to read this message, do you and/or people you know normally say "mastodon" or "the fediverse" (or something else entirely)?
@blaine I say either "fediverse" or "social web", "Mastodon" is for when I'm talking about something Mastodon-specific (like the client API, or Mastodon's particular limitations)
@blaine I try and say the Fediverse, but to average people who aren't on the Fediverse at all, I say "Mastodon" so they have a clue what I'm talking about.
@blaine I’d say it depends? I say ‘Mastodon’ if I mean specifically the Mastodon part of the Fediverse (which I sometimes do).
@IPEdmonton @blaine The trick is while your account is on Mastodon the posts you’re reading could be from anywhere in the Fediverse and it’s not necessarily possible to tell unless you go check the server the post originated on.
@blaine when I talk about decentralized social, I talk about the fediverse. But when I talk about the platform I use on it, I talk about Mastodon.
I also used to use the 
icon when I link to my Mastodon profile but switched it back to 
because I thought it was less confusing and more well known brand-wise.
@blaine I say mastodon or social web. The term Fediverse is far too alien for people to get.
@blaine "Mastodon" but I know it's wrong.
It's a Thurber Thing Contained For The Container thing, not that this makes it any better.
@blaine given that you specifically say “network of severs”, fediverse
@blaine @bethroots I’ll admit, I don’t talk about the plumbing. I take it very much for granted. The exception is occasional donations to my instance because I do imagine my use costs real bucks if nothing else, at least in electricity.
@blaine I mean it seems like the line between "Fediverse" and "Mastodon" is blurry? The formal technical definitions notwithstanding, my subjective experience using the things crosses over the lines. I view a peertube video through my Mastodon account, I invite people to subscribe to my activitypub-enabled wordpress blog through Mastodon, I watch peertube videos directly here in Mastodon. I know what these different things all are, I get how they interact and I know what the words mean, but they still overlap. How do I differentiate, in a normal non-technical conversation, between activitypub, fediverse, and my daily user experience in my Mastodon app, in conversation?
@uastronomer@mastodon.monoceros.co.za @blaine@mastodon.social
Well, I mean if you accessed your account strictly through Tusky (or Ivory etc), would you call the Fediverse "Tusky"? Or how about you're exclusively using it through your phone, so how about calling it Android or iPhone or Samsung or Apple?
None of these things are correct, but somehow "Mastodon" is close enough... it's not exactly accurate, it's merely the lowest, most common denominator and conveniently understandable for the masses.
I'm not saying anyone is wrong, mind you. Mass media and even the non-profit Mastodon gGmbH itself has been marketing it like this to you and encouraging you to think of it in this way. In interviews done by the CEO of Mastodon gGmbH, he's referred directly to the Fediverse as "Mastodon".
To some extent the Mastodon machine is trying to take over the Fediverse to become ubiquitous with the Fediverse. And that's even understandable to a certain degree.
Fediverse. And I always share this 
https://axbom.com/fediverse/
EDIT: Equating the Fediverse with Mastodon is like equating all CMS(es) or Blogging software with WordPress, which is unfair to the other CMS/Blogging software developers out there.
@blaine “social web” is my “something else” which I try to say, else “fediverse”.
@blaine
For me, Fediverse is a catch-all that includes things like Pixelfed, Peertube, WriteFreely etc., which are all different sorts of media. Mastodon is more specific for this particular use of ActivityPub for short messages.
@voxpelli
Was it y'day, that there was a thread discussing the diff between "federation of servers" and "decentralization of users" and some people opining that while the latter should be our goal but many stop with the former. I think Fediverse/Mastodon is the former and Indieweb is the latter.
@blaine
@aswath @blaine Yeah, I agree, federation mainly refers to larger instances that talk to each other while #indieweb is when everyone can fully own their own individual presence.
Some design choices differ between designing for federation between larger instances and full on decentralization between individual users.
The IndieWeb eg works with static sites and pushes for a plurality of implementations whereas Mastodon mainly focuses on their dynamic instances.
They are all “fediverse” though
@aswath One can participate in the #IndieWeb through eg WordPress, making one a dynamic participant, or through eg @eleventy or some other approach to generating static HTML files.
The IndieWeb is much more granular in its features and standards than rg Mastodon, so one can pick and chose what to support.
I eg made two projects for my static setup:
* #webmention endpoint: https://github.com/voxpelli/webpage-webmentions
* #MicroPub endpoint: https://github.com/voxpelli/webpage-micropub-to-github
They are both dynamic services that help me
@blaine I know the difference, but a lot of people I interact with don’t. Mastodon has effectively become Hoover, Kleenex, Thermos, etc and any future contender will need to say it’s Mastodon-compatible, not Fediverse-compatible.
@blaine
'The fediverse' when chatting with insiders. 'The federated social web' when welcoming newcomers.
@blaine I say "Mastodon" instead of "Fediverse" just like I say "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux"
@blaine Actually also tend to say "Ubuntu" instead of "Linux" :)
@blaine we would be best off calling this the #openweb for outreach because the #Fediverse is a tribalistic rebooting of this #openweb you can call it both, but for outreach the more generic term is better.
@blaine It depends on the audience. When talking about the Fediverse to people who aren't on it I usually say "Mastodon" because they're more likely to have heard of it
@blaine I only say "Mastodon" when speaking about the #Fediverse in the generic sense one uses the word "googling".
@blaine since you post this message on Mastodon and I read it through a Mastodon client, I would call the network “Mastodon”. But if you posted the exact same question on a Pixelfed server and had mostly followers using the Pixelfed app, most people would probably reply with “Pixelfed”.
@blaine It depends on who I'm talking to. If I speak to a tech savvy person or someone already familiar with the fediverse, I say fediverse. If it's someone to whom I want to explain what Mastodon is, I never mention the fediverse to keep things simple.