TIL that there's an #openstreetmap feature that shows #fediverse instances.

@josh@fediscience.org look to this map
https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/map/

This map gives you a much broader overview of fediverse instances, not just Mastodon and a handful of Pixelfed.


@jaz@toot.wales

@josh @jaz Oh this is cool. (Not completely current tho. I clicked on the Nigerian instance and it doesn’t seem to be up anymore)

@runoutgroover @josh I may have dug myself a hole here, time to go through and re-check all the entries...

@jaz @josh I guess the Nigerian instance might’ve just been temporarily down. It’s still a very cool map!

@crossgolf_rebel @josh that's a really good map also, very different purpose than mine but super detailed.

@benjamim I don’t think so! The project page says that the instances listed are “catering to a certain locality or offering specific language support.” Which doesn’t really describe our instance. Very cool project, though!

@josh

@crossgolf_rebel @jaz @josh That map is... weird.

Masto.pt is in... Dunkerk?!

Outmo.de is in... the Azores?!

@jorgecandeias @crossgolf_rebel @josh I believe that map uses server hosting location, not audience/membership. I see toot.wales in England (which is where the host is)

@jaz @crossgolf_rebel @josh That's quite likely, and if so it paints a misleading picture of the whole ecosystem. To establish how european something is, ownership is more important than membership and way more important than hosting location, I think.

Otherwise would be a bit like saying something is American because it uses Cloudflare.

Also, the map is incomplete. Where's venera.social, for instance? Nowhere to be seen. (It's a German Friendica instance)

@jorgecandeias @crossgolf_rebel @josh this is why I built a map that is curated to determine if the service is actually in the place or of a place, and to not rely on hosting data. Both have their uses.

@josh @jaz Europe number 1!

@jaz Would https://toot.lv for Latvia have to be manually added?

@josh @jaz that one node chilling — literally — in Siberia...

@josh @jaz no sign of @organica

@strule @josh @organica

I've created an intake form, would you mind testing it out for me?

https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/Ric8ThY+rCmnp3FnYh9iDID+btsSuNJHNPyWb-+mNOw/

@crossgolf_rebel @jaz @josh And that's fine, but woudn't it be more accurate in terms of ecosystem portrait to prioritize largeish instances instead of ignoring them while adding tons of single-user self-hosted stuff? I mean, those are also part of the ecosystem, but they inflate the number of instances for a pretty low overall quantity of users.

@crossgolf_rebel @jaz @josh I won't go into the pluses and minuses of small vs. large instances. I'm thinking exclusively about what kind of map would be more effective in showing the realities of the fediverse to the outside world.

And, to the outside world, a map where every other instance people find is a self-hosted one, will be ignored because "bah, there's nobody there".

That's how they think. And we won't change how they think unless we show them that "actually, there IS people there."

@crossgolf_rebel @jaz @josh Ideally? Sure.

Unfortunately, we have to deal with things and people how they are, not how they should be.

@jaz @strule @organica
I submitted a test for the instance I use and the form seems to work fine. I don’t represent my instance and some of my answers were guesses.