or maybe some other terminology would be better? lots of people get confused when you ask them to choose an instance, sometimes I think even the word "proxy", "host", or "hub" is simpler
the specific terms aren't my point, just a discussion to see if we can come up with a better name
I get what you mean but no one can check easily if two instances are on the same physical server. At least no one that requires a simplification in what we call instances. Unless I misunderstood what you meant.
My vote goes to server, though with a little explanation as to why everyone calls them instances.
Easier onboarding, but still nudging users to understand how it all works.
Does that make sense? I don't really know how to articulate the idea properly
"Instance" seems too jargon-y to me as well, and "proxy" is even worse. "Server" and "host" are probably a little more familiar, but are still technical language.
Confusion doesn't stem from individual words; people need explanations and examples, but, as an alternative to "instance", if you want to extend the "communities" metaphor, then "society" as a cluster of communities is a natural option, particularly since it relates to the widely understood concept of social media. Since most people using the Internet also know what a web "site" is, you could use the sibilant linguistic association to help cement the notion:—
Each society has its own web site, such as:
aussie.zone, where the communities relate to Australia;programming.dev, where the communities discuss software development;- and
lemmy.film, where the communites are about movies.
You can choose which society you want to join, although some will ask you to fill out an application. Most societies have connections to others, meaning that you can discuss things with people who are part of different societies. Often, you'll recognise them by their username saying that they're at (@) another site. Not all societies get along with one another, so which one you join will also affect who you can talk with.
Each society has its own rules it expects you to follow, whether you are a member of that society or just visiting.
This kind of language seems more intuitive to me anyway, although when I've tried describing instances and federation before now, I've likened instances to countries:—
You choose somewhere to live (and you can move later if you want). If there's a cross-border agreement, then you can send messages back and forth between people in each place.
but this has also meant stressing that your instance "country" doesn't have to match where you physically live, so a more general term probably would have been more useful.
Call servers "Lemmy Service Providers" and people might make the connection with what ISPs do.
High Availability stans are angry about your question.
Basically... both options are ambiguous. Would be best if they used a more unique name. Like a burrow (many lemmings build burrows).
I kinda don't hate the idea of coming up with our own unique name like Burrow, feels like something Apple would do lol. But then it wouldn't be a common term across the fediverse, and also I feel like it would require explanation and then you'd have to choose how to explain it anyways, and you'd still have to use a word like server, instance, portal, provider, etc.
Both sever and instance have multiple meanings when it comes to deploying Lemmy though.
An instance is running Lemmy publicly, but also just running the APU creates an instance of that API. To scale, you'd probably run multiple instances of the web API.
Same applies to server, but worse. You could also call the web API a web server. You could also call a VM a server. You could also call the physical machine a VM is on a server.
When it comes to naming stuff, it's best to find something unambiguous if it's a core defining thing you want to tell people about. Private corps do this to build a "brand", which is still a valuable thing for open projects so that they can gain adoption.
a server can have multiple instances.
