I chose in-between for the requirement to share my vision: Discourse allows to focus on some topics and ignore others, which enables people who want to focus on technical terms to do so, while allowing broader topics at the same time, and thus helping non-technicians to discuss topics relevant to ActivityPub and the Fediverse, without bothering those who wish to focus on the protocols. I think this compromise makes sense because some technicians will be able to talk to both crowds, and therefore close the gap between techies and the rest of us.
3 Likes
Guess how things are going right now, focus is mostly on the tech sides anyway, so, fine with me 
1 Like
itās an interesting dynamic on this forum over the last few months, lots of āmechanicalā tech subjects that have non ānativeā flows pushed, think most will fall on barrion ground, that is an advantage of grassroots working
But the is little tech focus on what I would consider ānativeā needs, leading to the problem of balance and focus. We all agree with the issues of #AP/ #openweb governance that we are in a mess with little movement or focus.
Yes, this might be better than going the full #dotcons pathā¦ but kinda only a holding action, what are we going to do
2 Likes
I agree with you that there is a need to define structures to address āgovernanceā such as moderation issues. For example, it would be useful to have a way to fight the idea that āblocking stuffā is a silver bullet.
However, I donāt think this can be the place. There are already more discussions happening here than I can process. Adding another complicated topic to the Discourse will make SocialHub less usable. I also think that the technical and social problems of the FediVerse currently donāt have a lot of overlap.
There is just too much ground work left, before one can start on the hard stuff.
2 Likes
The current lack of grounded thinking about BLOCKING and control is such an ant-social process, when we start to think about groups and trust this can take us back to the more ānativeā openweb path.
This is exactly the place we need to talk about wider issues, the fep process is a current example, people come in with #geekproblem issues and push these though very small #geekproblem process to arrive at #geekproblem outcomes this is fine if you think we donāt currently have a problem 
The fix for this is not obvuse, but narrowing this āgovernanceā place to ONLY the #geekproblem is clearly not going to work
So letās add some social thinking where itās needed and make some effect to explane complex tec issues in a way more normal people can have input into the outcome, itās all very basic simple stuff that we should be doing anyway.
I think quite the opposite. We have too many problems and need to be selective about which ones to address. I mean I could spend a few hours writing an explainer, what is all wrong with https://blog.cyborch.com/fixing-the-reply-count/. Iām just as confident that it would end up being a pretty pointless exercise.
So I focus on what I know I can solve. These are the geek on geek issues like what to name a term in a json object.
1 Like
@j12t brought the key questions in this topic for discussion on the SWICG mailing list:
I think a very accurate observation by Johannes is:
My suggestion would be that the primary problem is not so much focus, or lack thereof, but a lack of energy and probably time, on behalf of the people here and on Socialhub, to move things forward.
In particular I think thereās a general unwillingness to make effort beyond oneās own projects and passions, and esp. where time spent in improving the ecosystem is concerned with doing the necessary chores that that involves.
2 Likes
A lot of great talk here. But I think weāre going to always come back to the same result: thereās no set goal for this forum. And I honestly dont think there needs to be. Having SocialHub as a support forum and archive is great and it does that well.
As evidence shows in past threads about this topic, we canāt force anyone to drive this. If anyone wants to move AP or fediverse forward, thatās likely going to end up being done by the biggest fediverse players (e.g. Mastodon, Plemora, etc). But I do think they should work together and agree with improvements or additions to the AP protocol and perhaps make an open-process around it. Kind of like how browser vendors agree on browser standards.
Thatās the best bad outcome we can likely get out of the current mess
Bad is better than fail, letās keep trying to do bad better, thus the use of mess metaphor.
1 Like
We can only hope to better this forum by getting more people involved in its maintenance. I think weāre slowly getting there.
1 Like
I would personally claim, that the current problem of the FediVerse is good projects. I have a general feeling that we will only understand, how to evolve ActivityPub in new directions, once we see people using it.
Problems such as described with offerbot are mentioned on the FediVerse at least once a week (from my subscription to the #ActivtyPub hashtag), so there is interest. We just lack the project. So someone needs to build the āFediVerse Marketplaceā and we will see what happens. The needs of this project will be quite different from the microblogging (= Fediverse Town Square) world.
2 Likes
I agree and have come to same insight over time. Yet after new development is available, thereās that bit of extra effort that leads to the adoption of the innovative aspects of it. And here FOSS projects usually do not go further than their own projectās scope. It is not seen as worthwhile, win-win, or thereās a āsomeone else may do thatā attitude.
I think not much is needed to bring enough of a change that speeds up fedi evolution, and avoids deterioration into ad-hon ānon-interoperabilityā. Big coordinated communities certainly wonāt work (imho), and big formal steering bodies may work, but likely not in favor of The Grassroots Fediverse in the long run.