http://u.qdnx.org/file/erkan-20150117T170112-tkcbf5m.html
I understand the description of "federation" (which I added in the wiki as basically): technically, "we use the !ostatus protocol to do this and that" (it's imported, mainly from @tobias ). #fediverse, as you say is not a protocol, it's a community. What others think of the term "federation" is probably something very similar like the !fediverse