I just provided a follow-up to the discussion with the advice to take current reality into account, and to start following a different approach to gauging the value of AP support.
Here’s the gist of my proposal:
TL;DR
In summary I am arguing that, given current stance on having ActivityPub support, it may be prudent to go from a short-term MVP-like focus, to a more broad evaluation of what ActivityPub interoperability could bring Discourse in terms of USP’s and positioning in the longer run. I.e. to elaborate the business case of ActivityPub adoption, starting with an ideation phase.
The conclusion of the Phase 1 RFC at Discourse is obviously that the proposed ‘FB-like aggregated timeline’ feature does not make enough business sense to be pursued. So then let’s step out of the narrow vision and investigate ALL of the many ways that ActivityPub adoption might lead to worthwhile and logical features to have in a forum software.
In addition I highlighted the imho too often made misconception by so many people that implementing ActivityPub is done primarily for the purpose to ‘become part of the Fediverse’. While this is a very good incentive, it is selling ActivityPub short! I think I will create a separate topic to bring this to attention.
As an incentive to Discourse to investigate AP more broadly I mentioned this opportunity:
Opportunity: Discourse is uniquely positioned to take the lead in setting interoperability standards for forum software, and shape the standard in such way that it aligns perfectly with current Discourse feature set.
And also I mentioned that the opportunity might turn into a threat, if competitors would take the lead here, or even the Big Tech platforms driven by EU Digital Services Act and creating overlap with forum federation in their standard.