Terminology
During your journey through the Fediverse you may come across words or phrases which are not familiar to you. Here's a non-exhaustive list to help you on the journey.
| Word/Phrase | Definition |
|---|---|
| – A – | |
| ActivityPub | The most commonly adopted protocol (language) used by servers in the fediverse to communicate with each other. |
| Algorithm | In the context of social media, a set of rules a computer program applies to decide what content to show you |
| Alt text | Short for Alternative Text, this is a description of an image on a post to assist screen readers describe images to visually impaired users |
| – B – | |
| Boost | Share a post with people who follow you |
| – D – | |
| Defederate | Prevent a user or an entire server from communicating with another server |
| – F – | |
| Fediverse | The collection of servers, all linked via the internet |
| – I – | |
| Instance | An alternative named for a Server – a physical device on the internet, running software for the Fediverse |
| – L – | |
| Like | Indicate to the author of the content that you appreciated it |
| – M – | |
| Moderation | The process of ensuring a user complies with the rules and guidelines of a server |
| – N – | |
| Notes | A post – usually consisting of text and images. The term Notes is originally from Misskey and is used by software derived from it, including Sharkey |
| – S – | |
| Share | Share the post with everyone who follows you |
| – T – | |
| Toot | A post – typically made up of text and images. The term Toot was coined by Mastodon, but has since been replaced with the generic Post term |