While the push for a decentralized social web has grown significantly, the space often relies on overloaded terminology and lacks a formalized framework to evaluate how centralized a network actually is. As a researcher in Network Science, I want to bridge this gap by introducing the community to the intuitive analytical tools of my field, focusing on communication networks. Most builders naturally focus on the technical ability for one person to communicate with another, but we must equally address the sociotechnical dynamics of discovery, information passing, and cohesive social circles. Through focusing on decentralization as an active process, we will visually map out how practical mechanisms like bridging, interoperability, standardized protocols, and the freedom to choose middlemen impact the overarching network structure. We will ground these mechanisms in intuitive network and complexity science concepts, exploring network connectivity, fragmentation, redundancy, and isolated components to better understand how to sustain these networks while navigating the inherent challenges of findability, performance, and moderation across platforms.

After drawing out the foundational frameworks on the board, I will open the floor for a guided discussion. I will ask people to map or draw the protocols/platforms they're familiar with to the different network structures we discuss. Zero math or prior scientific background is required. The goal is to give protocol engineers, community managers, and digital activists a shared, accessible language to discuss the network structure of the open social web.