Here we discuss content strategy, site structure, design and layout issues to create a splash.
Take note in discussions and:
Stay on-topic and try to formulate substantive contributions.
Posts that are off-topic will be forked to their own thread.
Discuss anything, but focus on actionable follow-up.
Use markdown formatting for clarity, like topic headers.
Above all âŠ
Do not forget to update the ActivityPub Rocks Portal Wiki where needed !
I really like the idea of an " 
ActivityPub Rocks Portal".
By a portal, I mean references to further content. A good starting point for content could be Guide for new ActivityPub implementers and the delightful Fediverse lists.
( I know this goes a bit ahead of the fanfare, with no content strategy etc. yet discussed. )
Some first musings on a landing page. A fairly traditional page structure:
Menuâs can be CSS dropdowns or plain links. Thereâs many ways to slice this, but imho the distinction between Standardization Process and Grassroots Fediverse should be clear. Some possibilities for this division:
Other candidate items: News, About, Calendar, Blog, AP feed (icon), RSS feed (icon)
The hero is the invitation to delve right in. Hereâs the starting point onboarding newcomers to the fedi dev community. The âGetting Startedâ journey MUST lead to a proper understanding of the Standards Process.
Instant clarity on the Standards Process that drives AS/AP-based Fediverse evolution. Plus drill-down into more explanatory page(s). Some creativity needed to convey the relationship:
Layout-wise it may be a horizontal section with 3 blocks for each part of this process.
Fediverse is, and will always be, a grassroots movement. Thereâs a ton of activity in independent projects, communities and other initiatives. The portal should provide an entry to all that excitement. However, there are too many initiatives to list them all on the landing page. Instead the most prominent and valuable ones can be highlighted. Followed by a link to a âDiscover moreâŠâ Directory page (that can have categories and filtering and such).
The Directory Highlights section may 4 blocks by 2 rows in a card layout, and where the highlighted initiatives can deliver the card image and text. Clicking a card may either directly lead to the initiative, or to a sub-page that presents the initiative with some additional useful metadata (contact persons, repoâs, etc.)
This may be a 2-column list of News, Announcements, Blog Posts, and Calendar Events.
A 4 column list of relevant/important links as you often encounter them, e.g. see codeberg.org
The âAbout Usâ page should once more clearly outline the structure of the Standards Movement and reference the Standards Process, with URLâs to the appropriate locations.
Notably this page SHOULD highlight a clear Mission and Vision for the Fediverse wrt AS/AP et al. Laying out a shared (technology) vision that is indicative of the full potential of the Fediverse to be unleashed is important to foster a creative mindset that helps drive Fediverse evolution. The Mission should serve to activate people towards that vision, and encourage collaboration in the appropriate places, with emphasis on emergence of an open and inclusive ecosystem.
A âHistory of ActivityPub Rocksâ section gives due credit to the contributors/maintainers of Haunt and @cwebberâs involvement.
The Fediverse emerged from a grassroots movement. It was created by everyone for everyone. The openness of the ecosystem that emerged is one of the greatest qualities of the Fediverse, and MUST be fostered and protected. All the various independent initiatives that exist are collectively driving evolution.
Fediverse technology is decentralized. But also the people evolving it work in decentralized groups.
This is great and helps make the Fediverse more diverse, and resilient. But all the various initiatives are also highly fragmented, often hard to find. Wheels are reinvented because of that, and collaboration opportunities are lost. An important objective of the portal MUST be to allow initiatives in the Grassroots Fediverse to find each other.
The Directory page facilitates that. Functionality TBD.
While I donât disagree with the ambition of the content listed, I would prefer a more evolutionary approach. The minimal set would be:
Points well taken, and should be part of the approach.
This is one is easy: Current page is up 
The idea is that the launch of this fresh, shiny portal involves a DNS switch. Christine still owns the domain (I will add that to the wiki). Portal draft should have @cwebberâs go-ahead, needing buy-in from @eprodrom wrt the representation and positioning of the W3C activities.
With that in mind my strong preference is that we first prove ourselves to be a collaborative group in this SocialHub do-ocracy. That means the ability to craft a draft site, have proper procedures in place for maintenance, coding and content management. Plus people that are willing to being involved with that, who volunteer to share the maintenance burden (they shouldnât be high, but that depends on ambition-level too).
In that light I feel that âKeep current siteâ shouldnât include transfer of current code to Codeberg repo and throwing it online. Btw, just mentioning this for the record, as too often those starting an initiative, hoping for collab, are the sole ones that keep holding the ball when push comes to shove.
Tracking some stuff that should be on a portal
(please add to this list)
We have a task to do in clearly naming the various aspects / concepts of this Fediverse of ours. A good glossary.
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/111130441143761388
Iâm not sure how much this aligns with my suggestion of avoiding technical things, but itâs a good idea.
Honestly I donât see IFTAS-RFCs on the homepage. IFTAS is doing their own thing on their own terms without taking care of the existing community, and theyâre coming from a US-corporate background. This does not seem like a good idea to give them visibility, they can do it themselves and theyâre not reciprocating AFAIK.
We will have to see how we organize the portal such that it can offer this âdrill-downâ into all thatâs happening across the Grassroots Fediverse by so many independent initiatives.
So, I imagine IFTAS to be an entry in the Directory page, and the metadata that is attached to that entry might make it easy to determine that IFTAS is a decentralized devhub and that specs can be found there. In this case in the domain of Moderation. Another entry, ForgeFed, is similar but for the domain of Code Forges.
Whether or not IFTAS is also listed as an excerpt from the Directory to be highlighted on the front page depends on the inclusion criteria we have for that.
One aspect I do find important, namely that:
The portal provides to reasonable extent an unopinionated entry point into the Fediverse.
What âreasonable extentâ means is TBD.
I guess âunopinionatedâ also needs to be defined. I donât think we want to have yet another GABGate.
@indieterminacy related to the topic of âwhich site generator?â references functionality of the old/current portal built by @cwebber in Haunt, that allows generation of Implementation Reports. So, important stuff.
However, I suggest that providing these, in combination with upcoming work on Test Suites, is more in scope of the work of the SocialCG and should be a deliverable provided under their care (cc @eprodrom, @codenamedmitri).
In other words, the portal doesnât need an implementation report generator. Instead, a separate initiative that generates Implementation Reports would be a prime candidate for a Directory entry that is prominently highlighted on the front page, and leads people to discover that work.
Yes, thatâs where with âreasonable extentâ I meant the same 
In the comment above @helge quotes from my toot about having a Glossary. We NEED a glossary.
But we need more than that. In FEP Process: Guaranteeing an open and decentralized ecosystem - #23 by aschrijver I describe how we may model our own domain using Domain Driven Design (DDD), and also that DDD is useful practice for creating AP extensions.
So, the portal may go a bit further than providing the Glossary, and offer a comprehensive explanation of our domain with diagrams etcetera.
The first priority (key objective 0) that triggered this initiative was that the current portal really needed to be up-to-date and relevant. That task is mostly content-related and can be done quickly. All kinds of dynamic functionality can be built later in separate RFCâs (if the DoOcracy sees people committed to do so).
A minimum portal has essential content, is easy to maintain and possible for a broad audience to extend.
Astro has a few themes that can be readily adapted for use on the Portal, without much work, e.g. âŠ
Has a widget that can be adapted to display the Grassroots Fedi Directory.
Page Hero is too large and should be replaced/removed.
Hi,
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but there is a bug in this example:
(POSTs apparently need a 'Digest:" header which is missing from the example.)
This is kind of big deal IMO as itâs the very first tutorial linked to from here:
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/pub/guide-for-new-activitypub-implementers
Is there a process for people to go through to get errors in the ActivityPub website fixed?
[edit]OK, what is a Wiki Post and how can I edit it?!?
Bye!
Mark
Maybe simply Software page?
Hi there @marksibly. Your link is to the published html page. The actual wiki post is pinned to the top of this forum at this link: Guide for new ActivityPub implementers
At the bottom of the top post in that thread is the âEditâ action for the wiki. Currently thereâs no process in place, and you can directly fix any typoâs you found and then save a new revision of the wiki that way.
Yes, but there are so many more different sites and initiatives out there in the Grassroots Fediverse than what is listed there. Projects that are on Software may get some distinguishing template and/or features, e.g. like Discourse ActivityPub integration on that category.