Am glad someone said that, as it is the major issue with the mess we are in now. Which comes from the blocking of this path. On socialhub, the hard shift a year ago to focus on FEP process, enacted with prejudice. Can now be seen as the dangerous move it was.
A start to look at this - the right-wing metaphor on the #SWF thread, as there is a #geekproblem block on the left/progressive path currently:
Ps. I am not saying the fep process has no value, rather it’s opaque with little buy in from the wider community, which very much hampers the value it should have.
7) The gathering suffers from “the tyranny of structurelessness”, leading to a renewal of good will, but the consensus of the gathering exclude the “getting it done” and long term “bureaucrats” as they feel they cannot impose their view on the group. The consensus is created by the “life stylists” and “theorists” who have no or little experience of “getting things done”. Thus generally achieves little and refuse to even see the root causes of the project decay.
Q. can the libertarian “cats” herd themselves to keep this grassroots path relevant? Can we restart this path and try hard not to simply recreate this circling?
Spaces like this have value, they matter, and are built from people and communities. Yes, they host diversity, but this core needs to be sustained #4opens
Spaces like #SocialHub do matter. They try to embody the #4opens, but for that to be sustainable, there must be a focus on not letting the same patterns of decay and circular discussions take hold. This path needs trust and a shared vision, something that doesn’t come naturally to libertarian-minded cats but is essential for any lasting movement.
Balancing the creative, open elements with a structure that allows for meaningful action. It’s not about imposing top-down control, but about creating a space where both the dreamers and the doers can coexist and collaborate productively.
Can the libertarian “cats”—people driven by individualism, autonomy, and freedom—herd themselves to keep the grassroots path relevant. It’s a real challenge because while the diversity and lack of imposed structure are strengths, they are also key weaknesses if they prevent progress and sustainability.
To get past people being lost and thus pointless, It’s useful to frame left and right as driven by fundamental emotional motivators—fear for the right and trust for the left, a way to cut through the complexities of political debates. This lens highlights how cycles of fear perpetuate control-oriented agendas, while trust foster openness and collaboration. It’s a powerful way to step outside the immediate mess, recognizing the #KISS dynamics at play.
I guess what is going on is that people here are fed up with the lack of community support running things and take the SWF as very problematic, for its embedded Meta connection.
I agree that this forum was about ActivityPub Special Interest Group and should probably follow that line in the future. Problem is: the way things are moving are not aligned with anything we’ve been fighting for in the last couple of decades: offering a diverse place for people to communicate outside of corporate influence.
The current focus of OFFDEM is funding. So if there is interest, the Fediverse people should definitely propose a Fediverse track. We hesitated mentioning a Fediverse workgroup for the lack of follow up since last year, other than Fediverse people gathering at the OFFDEM venue to discuss their own, which is not really the point of OFFDEM. There, we want to organize and work together to tackle problems larger than each of us.
This forum started in 2019 on this subdomain and never existed before. Before, it was part of the SWICG mailing-list. The purpose of creating this forum was to unclutter the mailing-list with ActivtyPub-only matters. But as you can see, more people are interested in the larger Fediverse these days.
For me the problem is not what I want or what I support, but what the community wants and supports. Obviously, there is a chasm now and this forum needs to move hands.
Yes, in theory, but in fact it’s been under the exclusive control of @cwebber, who never delegated to the community. So be it. I had to configure email on another domain (activitypub.eu) to make things work, and it took forever for the mail to go through GMail. The current situation is that the SocialCG has been taken over by @eprodrom and the Social Web Foundation, with widely differing objectives than the SocialHub. Since the original intent is not supported anymore by other ActivityPub editors (@cwebber and @rhiaro moved on to others tasks), I can only suggest that if this community wants to go on, its members must find other people and resources to do so. I will communicate the collective stance of petites singularités, who has been operating this forum since the beginning, in the coming days or weeks.
@how hey, I know you’re upset and feeling strongly about recent increasing corporate interest. For what it’s worth, the Social CG continues to be deeply grateful to you for all your leadership over the years, and considerable work and resources put into running SocialHub. <3
Might that be exaggerating slightly, re "taken over’? Evan’s been volunteering considerable amounts of time each week for the last year+ helping the CG answer community questions, triage issues, etc. That’s hardly taking over, though. (Also the majority of the triaging has been with the help of other SWICG members.)
Other people have also been volunteering considerable chunks of time and work, no? (Who are completely unrelated to / never heard of, SWF.)
Fediverse has become big and today there are several groups with conflicting interests, not a single community. I doubt that people who work for corporations will come to this forum, and for the rest of us, it is still a valuable resource where we discuss FEPs and many other things. So I hope SocialHub will continue to exist in its current form. Thank you for running it!
…which you seem to be interpreting as something ominous. Why?
To me, “social web” encompasses any social networking apps or protocols built on top of the web. As opposed to, say, building social apps on top of email protocols (Delta.chat, Mr Privacy), or XMPP (Movim, Libervia), or blockchains. In that sense, the fediverse is a subset of the social web, which I agree mostly overlaps with the Activity-verse right now. But it didn’t in the past, when it was OStatus, then OStatus+AP+Diaspora+Zot. Similarly, it may not in the future (on that specific point I agree with @stevebate and others, while still disagreeing on the nature of the fediverse).
This forum has always been much broader than any one protocol, and given the name, I see no reason to be exclusive of discussions about social web protocols and projects that are currently outside the fediverse (as I define it anyway). One example of the benefits of a broader scope is the way that discussions here about Solid may have played a role in the genesis of projects like ActivityPods.org.
You seem to have interpreted my if/then statement as a comment on what you’re “supposed” to do, which is entirely your business. SWF appears to have a myopic focus on AP uber alles. So if you want a forum limited to AP implementation discussion only, then SWF seems like a logical host for it. But I don’t think that’s actually what you want. So the idea of embracing a “social web” mission for SocialHub isn’t the threat you seem to be interpreting it as.
Perhaps you perceive that I’ve somehow voted for the SWF to take over SocialHub. If so, I suggest you read my comments again. Because I’m not proposing that, and I would oppose it if anyone was (to be clear, I don’t think anyone is). Because I see all institutions in the fediverse governance layer as peers - just as servers in the fediverse are peers - and that includes SWF and SocialHub. I don’t think either needs to be in charge of the other.
That’s technically correct, but not socially correct. SocialHub began as a Discourse instance on its own domain (there’s threads here about its history). You set up this new Discourse instance as a continuation of the same community, when the person who set up that instance and controlled the old domain name went AWOL. Seems we are more or less back in the same situation with the domain name But fortunately we still have you here as an active and highly valued part of the community.
If we are concerned about socialhub vs socialcg leadership vs other entities in the space, then I encourage the current admins of socialhub to do the work to create an entity that exists for the purpose of maintaining this forum, e.g., a 501(c)6 or something similar, and then transferring all operations to go through that group with a formal process for participation.
In the meantime, to prevent any domain squatting, I’ve personally registered the socialhub.rocks domain, in case that’s wanted by such a group in the future. It was $5.98 for the first year and is normally $19.98 per year + ICANN fees.
I will happily transfer it to such a community group entity in the future when such exists, as to prevent any issues with a single owner who can walkout or co-opt things in the future, since issues had happened in the past from what I’ve read.
That would allow socialhub to continue to flourish outside of being exclusively associated with activitypub and potential corporate interests in the fediverse.
And it’d detangle the mess that started all these discussions on the forum after a decision that socialcg members should try to do something about the website at https://activitypub.rocks and the test.activitypub.rocks host, which is referenced in the current version of the ActivityPub spec.
It feels silly that we’ve been going on about this for what feels like weeks arguing and talking past each other rather than organising and doing things to make the change in the world that we want.
Edit: for those not aware, a 501(c)6 is a non-profit trade organisation. I can introduce you to the Nivenly team who have experience operating one (as Nivenly is one)
What would a bridge look like rather than ownership - what is the native “commons” path to mediate this, let’s try and think outside the #mainstreaming please. The sharing of the domain is already on this balance path, you have the more formal #NGO path with WC3 and the native grassroots path with socialhub. We just recognise the value we have in this sharing, rather than fighting over it #KISS
For several reasons. First, I want SocialHub to be a stable, functioning forum. I don’t see any good reason to disrupt this place with re-branding, and moving to another domain will obviously break a huge number of valuable links across the web, and will also break federation.
Second, this sudden push for “Social Web” is clearly linked to the launch of Social Web Foundation.
And finally, Social Web is very vague and therefore useless term. Facebook and Twitter are part of Social Web. Small blogs are part of Social Web. None of that has any relation to what we’ve been doing here.
On moving domains, we need not break the links, and I’m sure everyone would agree redirecting socialhub.activitypub.rocks to socialhub.rocks permanently would be fine (it’s a simple nginx rule)
We can preserve links and also give SocialHub a place to flourish outside of activitypub, in case we do want to involve other protocols (present or future).
Having a legal entity behind SocialHub with member representation and such (co-op style) would provide longevity that no one person can provide. We can also do optional membership fees (which give you nothing besides a warm fuzzy feeling) via say OpenCollective to keep operating snd moderating SocialHub sustainable
I understand your point, but since this community has been founded on clearing a path far away from Fakebooz et al., and the SWF is coming with this embedded link to Meta, the community course might well be over. I can foresee the opening of an official W3C group, where Meta will sit along with other such companies, and almost none of the people here will be able to balance such power, since “infinite credits” will come handy steering the processes, while the European Commission failed to understand the stakes and happily use Twatter while cutting funds for the Next Generation Internet programme. So it’s a conjunction of events that make the community demise inevitable.
It will only run if the people here can take it in their hands. @aschrijver has burned out several times and is willing to move on. I am as well.
Please prove your statements. As far as I know, I proposed to run a Discourse instance during the APConf, I have set it up myself, and I have been running it ever since. So I’m not sure where you took your information, since I don’t remember you being in Prague.
This has been proposed for a very long time, but maybe you did not see the relevant discussions that came and go, for lack of actual participation. You cannot make a collective structure without a collective.
Thank you for that. @dansup also has a reserve of such domains, and @aschrijver as well. It’s not the domain names we lack, but the people willing to spend time running this space.
Then let’s organise as a collective. I’m certain it’s possible if people organise and help fund it. But you’re in charge of SocialHub, you need to take the steps to make that possible, and ask for help if you need it.
I probably haven’t seen all the historical posts because I’m relatively new to SocialHub, and didn’t subscribe to everything up until a few weeks ago, I jumped in on conversations as and when needed up until that point.
Aw, mate, we can’t give up like that, just the moment Meta shows up.
And no, I’m not saying that you can’t leave even if you’re burnt out. Mental / emotional / etc health is super important, you do what you gotta. Just saying - we gotta put up a fight and do harm minimization.
i agree, although i think part of the reason there’s so much concern from grassroots perspective is that they see some of the loudest ActivityPub voices as either giving up or making common cause with and even embracing Meta. When Eugen calling it “a great victory for our cause” what highly-visible fedivese influencers pushed back? And that’s what other very happy and/or sycophantic perspectives have other fediverse influencers have expressed about Meta’s involvement?
This is part of the challenge of do-ocracy especially in a situation where there isn’t an easily-accessible body of knowledge.
This is another great example of the same dynamic – which is true across the fediverse as a whole, not just SocialHub. I’ve been involved here for a while but didn’t have this important background so my guess is most other people who weren’t there in Prague or around here in the early 2019-2020 days don’t know this.
To be frank, I am not sure any of us donating significant time to CG work items would consider the CG “taken over by” Evan or his org, even those of us often at loggerheads with Evan as a particularly active and influential participant there. Overdramatizing Evan’s power within the CG is an insult to the rest of the CG, its loyalties and values, and the hard-won do-ocratic rank of everyone there.
More importantly, I think the community keeps splintering and in-fighting over time, but we can’t pretend today’s fissures were predictable in 2019. Which exact “community” was Christine supposed to delegate DNS control to in 2019?
Non-commercial, welcoming community venues are incredibly valuable-- I run multiple of them! That’s literally been my dayjob for much of the last 5 years. I would very much hate to see this particular community venue turn into a Flying Dutchmen (a pretty common failure mode when no cash flow at all is established to triage volunteer burnout). I have to wonder, though, if we are “retconning” (retroactively projecting) a more emphatical and definitive anti-commercial or anti-patronage mandate onto that mission than would have been realistic even in 2019? I am painfully aware that for 4 years the mailinglist was turned off and all the original protocol designers were doing other things-- understandably there is a sense that this venue “was” the “entire” CG for that period, barring a few meetings, and it definitely was instrumental in growing and governing the fediverse to this day. Given my experience with community venues, I can deeply relate to the “swooping in” dynamic, where it feels like 4 years of thankless hard work is obliterated by the sudden appearance of soft-handed corporate crusaders stepping in and saying “we can take it from here”.
But the CG is a technical design group and a group within the W3C organization, and it has been reactivated over the last 18 months to serve this community and address a 4 year backlog of bugs and feature requests at the protocol and multi-implementation interop level. The grudge/split between the CG and SH makes no sense to me, and I have largely just ignored it until now, optimistically acting as though they were two sides of the same coin rather than two bickering twins fighting over whom Christine should have given the domain to.
The part I don’t understand is how (and more importantly, why) some folks on the SH side of things have been hoping the new CG will just… go away? And yet at the same time hoping to make drastic changes to the AP spec that would break half of today’s user space? There CANNOT be normative changes made to a W3C spec without corporate influence-- the W3C is essentially a trade association, which governs technological (and thus financial) futures and investments. It was a miracle the first AP even made it through W3C in the first place, almost entirely composed of volunteer hours and unpaid overtime.
So what next steps are people hoping for? In my personal opinion moving too quickly to APv2 (in W3C), or even chartering a too-widely-scoped “Maintenance WG” opens the door to a LOT of corporate capture hijinx. “Forking” the community and having multiple implementors go off into the woods (down a one-way road, in terms of IP safety…) to make some totally different, non-backwards-compatible APv2 successor is a very risky strategy, in my opinion, and one unlikely to succeed because then it abandons the center of the chessboard completely to corporate capture. In this near future, once some investment theses have been validated and derisked, corporate actors will have unlimited resources to crush a competing fork a few years down the road, and the window of opportunity closes forever to steer the social web away from its worst outcomes. I’ve been lobbying for speed proportional to breakage, speeding up (and keeping in the CG) anything additive and non-breaking, and slowing down opportunities for huge deep-pocketed players to break anything upstream of the community’s current userbase. People can disagree with that strategy but I’m not loving the ad hominems, and I agree with @hamish that it plays right into a rightwing metaphor which could cost us DEARLY to live up to.
I would appreciate it a lot if people with slightly different strategies for how to resist corporate capture could scale back the hyperbolizing and the “with us or against us” rhetoric, it melts community faster than petty grudges or the narcissism of small differences. Participating in W3C does not make some of us into mercenaries or spies, any more than it made Christine and Amy mercenaries or spies; on the contrary, some of us take very seriously our duty to represent that segment of the community that cannot or chooses not to engage with W3C. That’s why we read and contribute to threads like this, at great expense to our stomach lining.
Evan’s been volunteering considerable amounts of time each week for the last year+ helping the CG answer community questions, triage issues, etc. That’s hardly taking over, though. (Also the majority of the triaging has been with the help of other SWICG members.)
But fortunately we still have you here as an active and highly valued part of the community.