Do you like the Mastodon approach of consistent branding for different instances?

[3dmvr@lemm.ee]

It makes it easier to understand what this is and that they are interconnected, but I think I enjoy unique branding/themes more in practice now that I am actually using the fediverse.

[singletona@lemmy.world]

I do think there does need to be an amount of consistancy in branding so it's more apparent that these things can talk to eachother.

[koboldcoterie@pawb.social]

Something like many Reddit subs do with the snoo, where they took a common, recognizable icon and customized it for their instance would have worked well if there was a similar icon for instances to latch onto, but we're past that point now.

[cris_color@lemmy.world]

I mean there's the Lemmy mouse mascot guy, but yeah instances are already pretty established

[fizz@lemmy.nz]

I like the different instances having their own branding but i like the option to switch back to the normal theme. I also like when users put their own spin on the services logo instead of using something unrelated.

[3dmvr@lemm.ee]

Some sort of icon/logo representing the fediverse on every site could be useful, or maybe different symbols for microblogging, threadiverse, etc. and the site includes what it has at the top or bottom somewhere, prob too late for that

[scio@lemmy.world]

For a while I was seeing people use the asterism symbol (⁂) around my Mastodon feed. Wonder what happened to that movement.

[commander@lemmings.world]

Absolutely. I think there should be sane defaults, and whoever deviates from them should know why they're doing it.

[commander@lemmings.world]

Yes. Having the OPTION is great.

[noodlejetski@lemm.ee]

the "consistent branding" is only really there on major instances. you can use custom themes (like Tangerine) or front-ends (like Mangan) as the default experience on your instance

[tired_n_bored@lemmy.world]

I like consistent branding because non-technical people get confused when they have one billion different names for everything when you could just say "join a Mastodon instance"

[smeg@feddit.uk]

Is it not a lemming?

[cris_color@lemmy.world]

It is, and somehow that escaped me...

[cris_color@lemmy.world]

Oh neat, I'd never seen that before

[hendrik@palaver.p3x.de]

I think the sane approach is: the developers offer one good theme and branding that is the default setting and works well out of the box. And instance administrators can then either be lazy and leave that in place, or (better) go ahead and tweak their place to their liking. Decorate it, make it unique if they like. I think it shows how much effort someone put into something. But on the other hand, you often can't mess with 20 different free software projects and change the CSS code just for the sake of it. I think it's also fine to just leave some things on a good default setting.

[mat@zelk.space]

@tired_n_bored they don’t need to know it’s a mastodon instance tbh

[kichae@lemmy.ca]

No. I think it works to hide the distributed nature of the fediverse, and works to make things that are inherent to a distributed model seem uncanney and broken.

It also strips some value out of the 'local' experience, communicating that each Mastodon-based website is the same as any other, and presenting something that looks like a dumb terminal, rather than a stand-alone website.

Ultimately, I think it's bad for the fediverse.

[roguetrick@lemmy.world]

Actually one of the reasons I like misskey derivatives and their diversity.

[tired_n_bored@lemmy.world]

But people are used to one and only Twitter. If we create one billion different brands for the same Mastodon instances nobody is gonna hop on them cause they will understand even less than what they understand now about Mastodon and the fediverse

[mat@zelk.space]

@tired_n_bored I don’t rly know, we need people to learn how to use fediverse, not mastodon