Flohmarkt - a Fediverse replacement for Facebook Marketplace
As this project appears to be fairly unknown in the fediverse still, I'd like to use this opportunity to advertise Flohmarkt. This Fediverse equivalent of Facebook Marketplace already has some instances up and running - see here: https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/wiki/flohmarkt-instances
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The name has already made this nonviable for the average person
We have to stop sending end users to software solutions for web admins. We don't send them yo "nginx" or "apache", after all.
Someone throw up a website using this software and give the site a sensible name, and then direct users to that website.
Flohcebook Marktplace
Fleabook
Flohcebook mohktplohce
Just call it Floh Market or just Floh. Flow Market or Just "Flow" would be good too.
Possibly even Floh Market or just Floh would also be good.
I like just "Floh", even if it does just mean "flea" in German.
Fleabuch Maktplatz
You wanna pay for that hosting? No? Okay then.
It's not that bad. It's just German for flea market. And English speakers shouldn't have an issue with at least "Markt". Not far from a cognate.
Definitely better names but I think the bigger hurdle is getting the critical mass to get something like marketplace to work in the fediverse even with the perfect name.
Yep. It’s kind of annoying when people see everything through an “english” lense and assume anything that isn’t made to work for english speakers won’t work…
Op has a point. Even English names that succeed internationally are somewhat bound by the ability of speakers of other languages to spell and pronounce the name. Y'all are here acting like what they're saying is hateful or something...
Its even more important to use various word from various language.
English as default also resulting American culture as the most prominent culture.
Newer generation are more acceptable to outside culture, so this will be work. Not to forget, the rest of non-English society already operate in multi language society and get exposed for various culture.
Years ago, people heavily localized Angliscize a lot of Asian media, but now, people are more accepting foreign naming convention. Just take a look at various FOSS porject in Japanese, Hindi, Persia, or Finnish.
No one is saying you cannot have a good German name. Uber is an American company. Shit company but great name. Comes from German and translates to other linguistic communities fairly well
Uber isn't a German word tho?
Etymology From German über (“above”, preposition), which is also used as a prefix (über-); cognate with over. Entered English through Nietzsche's use of the word Übermensch. Doublet of over, super and hyper.
'uber' is an English word with a German ethnology. 'über' is a German word. That's like saying iceberg is German. u and ü are different letters. They are pronounced differently and change the meaning of words (e.g. 'Schuppe' means scale, 'Schüppe' means shovel)
...I don't know what point you're making. The word came from german, and the changing of the letter only goes to my point. The word was easily simplified to be used outside of German.
Right, über is a word. "uber" is very much not. The points aren't decoration or a pronunciation guide, they signify a different letter.
It's like saying that Spanish people call their country Espana.
Are you really going to argue this? Those accent marks aren't in all languages, which is mainly why they removed them. If you want to claim this isn't from the German word then you need to explain where it came from.
Also, the founders are Canadian and American, not Germans
Something, something über alles...
über? which you'd spell ueber, if you can't type ü
But telling a friend about this starts with the name. Simple names are easier. And that would just start with making it short. Single syllable being best.
Like eBay, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon?
Isn’t this more like the software you’d use to build whatever local (but maybe federated) site? Like, you don’t ask your friend if they’ve been on Shopify or Squarespace lately.
Yeah, possibly. Depends -- if the data is federated between instances (which I assumed) you could have access to the whole world's market and it would still be useful if there was a feature that allowed you filter out locations you're not currently interested in.
Yeah, would also be nice to be able to combine multiple local markets.
german looks notoriously complicated for people who dont speak it
The sentence structure is kinda wonky coming from English, but the vocab isn't bad. There are tons of cognates.
what some people don't get is that "flea market" is also a bad name. floh just makes it look and sound worse and it's harder to parse let alone understand and therefore remember.
Does it? If you set up an instance for your local community/city/whatever, and name it something that makes sense for your intended userbase, I think it would be fine.
It goes from "I sold my couch on FlohMarkt" to "I sold my couch on Local Ottawa Marketplace" for the 'normies' out there. They're not going to care about the underlying software so long as their couch gets sold.
Do recommend a DIY local advertising strategy if trying to get something like this running, though - posters at IRL flea markets, adverts in small community papers for antiques and collectibles, crossposts/links to postings on stuff like MaxSold/Kijiji/Craigslist/GumTree/FB Marketplace/[insert online marketplace operating in your area] by first adopters, that kind of thing.
Focus on the current primary use case of centralized marketplace services (buying shit from your neighbours), then introduce the "Oh yeah, we've also set it up so you can see postings on Local Toronto Marketplace, Local Kingston Marketplace, Marché Local de Montréal" etc. from there.
I really, really think talking to people in terms of specific instances over the overarching platform/protocol is a way around 'normie' confusion about the Fediverse when first trying it, then getting exposure to how it works in practice will help them understand the nitty gritty stuff better. Is this problematic in some cases, like with Lemmy? A little bit, yeah. For something like FlohMarkt? I think less so.
('normie' in quotes 'cause I'm not the biggest fan of the term, but it's a useful shorthand)
This! It's just the name of the software, not sure why everyone's getting so worked up about it.
I think it's a brilliant use case for federation, hope this sees some adoption!
"Facebook" is an equally alienating name if you don't know English. But I agree, German is difficult!
SPEAK ENGLISH ÖR DIE
Germans speak or not as ör out. When you us imitate want, then make it pleasly right!
Sabbel ma nich so vonner seit döspaddel
I have myself apparently mistaken, I please about apology. In future will I try, no generalized sentence about Germans to do.
Germans don't have sentences, they have long words.
Oh look, the Queen of Naming has spoken! Everything should just be named "Facebook something" or "Twitter that".
iMarket is better? gStore? 銷 !
"gStore" sounds... suspicious. XD
wow what an interesting sarcastic remark about something the op never said.
Uber.
it's not that it's German (or whatever), it's that it looks and feels like it's gibberish. it's incredible how little this is understood.
Uber is an easily read, easily pronounced, widely understood, positive sounding trochee. it's a perfect brand name.
flohmarkt is 0 for 5.
Even Floh is a bit better 😕 .
I can't understand why every other fediverse name is so stupid as to be off putting to the average user.
Seems to me pretty much an even spread of how good the names are
For other Fediverse software:
Lemmy is a stupid god awful name.
The first result you get on google is a dead singer. Every other search you will have him on the front page instead of what you're trying to find. Contrast this to searching for something from reddit.
Case in point guitar reviews lemmy vs guitar reviews reddit
