On Coining a New Term
Edit: alright I'm sticking this up here because a number of people seem confused--this post isn't trying to convince you that "fediverse" is a bad term--rather it's a discussion of why I think "threadiverse" is a good umbrella term, for the forum-based part of the fediverse specifically. (lemmy+kbin)
So; we've got something special right here; a federated, thread based forum; but we're still on the forefront right now; most people are still stuck on the old thing; reddit--they'll come in time, but they usually have a hard time getting here--largely because they don't know what "here" is.
Say Lemmy or Kbin, and you've already got problems; you've got to explain all the details of the platform, and how Lemmy and Kbin are really the same thing, etc, etc--too specific--
Say Fediverse, and you've got the opposite problem; too broad and vague, such that nobody will know what you're talking about unless you unload a whole pile of overwhelming details--we need a term that talks about only this segment of the Fediverse; the thread based forum portion--just as the World Wide Web could only really catch on once terms like, "internet" or "web" became widespread, the federated alternative to Reddit will only catch on once it has a name too--it's a branding game.
Thus, if we want to beat Reddit at branding, we need a better name than them--In my opinon, "Threadiverse" is the best name for the job, for reasons I'll lay out below:
First off; any good name communicates a lot of information--like how "Reddit" contains both "Read+it" and Red, the colour associated with their brand--it's made up of those three parts, plus the company name:
"Reddit"=Read+It+Red+Reddit
We, however, don't have a company, and are thus not bound by a need for that kind of recognizeability--we're looking for a new term; a term like internet; that doesn't need to communicate anything other than what the platform is.
So enter Threadiverse;
Like "Reddit", "Threadiverse" is made up of a number of parts--first, and most obviously to an outside observer you've got thread+universe. Simple, and easy to remember, just like "Reddit" is from Read and it. But we've got more depth too, just like Reddit does; but unlike Reddit, our term has two deeper meanings; first, again, more obvious to an outside observer we have "diverse"--what we want our platform to be: a diverse marketplace of ideas; where reddit has "red" the colour of their brand, a superficial bit of brand information, and representation of their existence as a corporation, we have another descriptor of ourselves--all this is not even to mention "Fediverse", the term we take to get "Threadiverse" in the first place, but that part is not relevant to the outside observer who knows nothing of the platform, its makeup, or its history.
so in short; within that name we've got one more bit of meaning than they do, and, rather than using most of our meanings to communicate superficial brand information, as Reddit does with having their company colour as part of their name; we have "diverse", as our goal is not to be a company, as Reddit's is, but to be diverse marketplace of ideas, and an exchange of useful information.
TL:DR:
"Threadiverse": Thread+Universe+Diverse+Fediverse+Threadiverse
"Reddit": Read+it+Red+Reddit
More info = good; therefore "Threadiverse">"Reddit".
And therefore "Threadiverse" is probably one of the best names our platform can have.
I'm certainly not the first person to use the term "Threadiverse"; but I haven't seen much discussion of why it's the name we ought to be using--and none about why that in particular matters for getting people to understand the platform--hence why I'm making a post about it--a post which I meant to make two weeks ago, but accidentally deleted instead; so here it is now.
Thanks to @cat 's post, and a lot of the top comments, for getting me to think about this a bit more--check that out for more reasons why we ought to be using a name like "Threadiverse".
Anyway; those are my 2 cents (or 20) on the matter of names, and why Threadiverse is a good one; thoughts?
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