This topic was moved to a new thread to avoid confusion. The issue is as follows:
Which is very weird, because it came out of the blue without any consultation. See this post.
Update: And this repo https://codeberg.org/fediverse/activitypub-rocks since SocialHub keeps everything at Codeberg.
I wasn’t involved aside from +1ing the resolution at the call, but what kind of consultation should have taken place, or should take place before any changes are made to the apex-domain website or links to SH? If I remember correctly Johannes is taking lead on this TF, might be worth just emailing him if there are any concerns.
There’s a liaison but the SocialHub isn’t the same as the SocialCG. The SH is literally running under the activitypub.rocks domain for years. Including planning to improve that portal. I think Johannes knows that very well, we have a banner about that portal here for a full year on every page. I guess he is not very inclined to collaborating here. Didn’t react to prior pings and reaching out for collab. He has consulted Christine, and I dunno what was discussed, but passing SocialHub by on this is very bad sign.
That is not the topic at hand. I DM’ed @bumblefudge to move OT posts to a new thread. What is at hand is the following:
I think you would at least say: “Weird that you didn’t consult with me”.
(The topics above were moved here. The first topic was edited with 3 lines of clarification.)
@aschrijver apologies, I did not realize Johannes didn’t consult the SocialHub team. I’ll reach out to him asap.
Actually, the SocialHub was created with people in presence at the first APConf held in Prague, as a way to keep track of discussion outside of the volatile Fediverse and without cluttering the SocialCG mailing-list with Activitypub-only contents. The fact it was outside the Fediverse was a conscious decision, and something many people not present at the discussion resented. But since, this forum also became a part of the Fediverse, which only makes it more legitimate, since other initiatives (who never consulted either) came and go. Here we took a slow path to be able to integrate and respect diversity: everything that was accomplished here was collective, and everything that stalled was because of a lack of collective (e.g., the DNS blockade or the lack of integration with Github issues).
I was on that call and was struck by the fact that nobody even mentioned the SocialHub team – or even talked about the forums. It was basically “Johannes talked with Christine who’s okay with it, sounds good to us.” Obviously I approve of talking with Christine but she’s not the only person whose perspectives matter!
I think she’s the owner of the domain and has been the main or only maintainer of the activitypub.rocks site.
Sure. The owner of a domain can do whatever they want with it. Still, for us the scenario is as sketched above, and it is not a good look.
I was in contact with Christine at the time, and first she felt comfortable to transfer the domain to me for use with SocialHub, after which I started a bunch of forum threads and set the “Fediverse Development Portal” header you still see at the top. Later Christine mentioned she preferred doing an update of DNS rather than ownership transfer.
The reason I do not @-mention Christine here, is because she isn’t following the AS/AP space anymore. She only wants the best for her domain. That may be a portal under SocialHub or SocialCG, given that the initiative here didn’t find uptake of volunteers.
But it does not change anything to the decision-making went, and no one thought of informing the folks here at SocialHub, that runs at a subdomain of that portal (!). And I find that very weird, to say the least.
When the resolution was proposed, it was done so within the context of the website at activitypub.rocks, not intending to affect SocialHub at all.
My impression was that all present at the SWICG meeting understood it to be limited to the website at exactly https://activitypub.rocks, based on both the mailing list discussion and discussion during the meeting.
As you noted, the SocialHub effort to revamp the website stalled, and I’m assuming Christine didn’t mention you attempting to overhaul it in conversation with @j12t, otherwise I’m sure he’d have mentioned it in the communications about this proposed taskforce.
Though it does raise an interesting question: should SocialHub be located at https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks or would it be better moved to something like https://socialhub.net or something? I’m not sure on the history of why socialhub doesn’t have it’s own domain?
I’d also encourage folks to watch the SWICG mailing list to be aware of proposals like this in the future — SocialHub isn’t the only place things are discussed. Maybe there’d be some sort of way to mirror the SWICG mailing list as a forum within SocialHub as well? I’m not sure.
The first – and as far as I’m concerned, currently only – objective is to update the content on the page at https://activitypub.rocks/ in the simplest possible way. (“Just don’t make it look so horribly out of date.”)
Oh, and make https://test.activitypub.rocks/ do something other than an HTTP error.
Once we have accomplished that – something that should be really trivial but years of not accomplishing it seems to say it isn’t – we can look again and see what else we might want to do if any. So far I have not heard anybody propose anything tangible, and for as long as that doesn’t change, I expect everything else to stay exactly as it has been. So nobody panic 
Of course the idea of assembling a task force is to make sure everybody’s voice can be heard. Dmitri and I will pick a time for a first meeting, perhaps next week, and post about it here as well.
Are there any people really wanting to participate that are in time zones outside of the range central-Europe to American west coast?
@aschrijver
Again, apologies for misunderstanding, the CG certainly doesn’t want to step on any toes or co-opt existing projects.
Look at it as - here’s some more volunteers to help out with this task.
Would you be able to join a website-specific taskforce call sometime next week, so we can coordinate initial steps?
(Totally ok if not, we’ll also be coordinating here on SH and on github).
Just for the record, I’m not ok with anything social web related being done on HitGub.
It’s always been a compromise to use a centralised platform depending on proprietary software. But since the BorgSoft acquisition, it’s become an increasingly hostile platform, requiring proprietary JS for more and more basic functions (especially on mobile), using compulsory 2FA to fish for personal data, and so on. I don’t use hostile platforms, and I’ve already signalled on the fediverse that I won’t be using my HitGub account beyond the end of the year.
There are plenty of community-hosted replacements (including CodeBerg and SourceHut), and it’s long past time that projects who don’t endorse corporate DataFarming vote with their feet and move to one. Far more projects have already done so than a lot of people seem to realise. The only thing missing now is working forge federation to make their combined network effects greater than what remains on HitGub.
I will conclude this for the part where it frustrated me personally. Initially I did not want to bring this up at all, but thought “Oh, this is how we do things now?”
There’s a proper sequence to things, and actions that look like a hostile fork ain’t that. I’ll assume there was a misunderstanding that led to the premature erection of the taskforce.
Other than that I want to thank @codenamedmitri! Your first urge was to apologize and then move forward to look for improvements. And then you doubled down on the apology seeing how things didn’t settle down. I gladly accept it, Dmitri 
and must add that I admire your humble and honest approach, witnessed in multiple places.
Such attitude is exactly what is needed to evolve open standards and keep the peace in such a turbulent environment full of passionate people. Hallmarks of good custodianship. Thank you, Dmitri. 
As for developer portals and follow-ups to the original initiative for activitypub.rocks…
It is great that there’s a taskforce with volunteers, where there weren’t volunteers before. I suggest the taskforces picks up the project that was started here, and uses this forum as their workspace to do so. Also I suggest that the portal code is hosted at codeberg where a repo was already created for it.
I second this.
@j12t has shown himself to be a capabable organiser, and it’s great he’s stepped up help with the activitypub.rocks renewal. The process he lays out looks sounds to me. From what little contact I’ve had here with @codenamedmitri so far, I have total confidence in him as a co-convenor of the effort.
Those who point out that the renewal effort here stalled, make a fair point. But I would point to the timing; a lot of volunteer-driven initiatives lost steam in 2020 and are only now recovering. Also I think it’s fair to say that once SocialHub were welcomed into the activitypub.rocks back yard (remember the forum didn’t start here), what happens at the primary domain reflects on us. So it’s only fair to expect people to talk to us about their landscaping plans for it, and to keep tools for the job in the toolshed we built for the purpose 
Finally, careful, transparent and respectful process is crucial when organising a diverse and unbounded network of people, especially online-only. But even more so when the purposes of said network run counter to the interests of powerful actors.
We’ve seen the DataFarmers’ gradually takeover of much Open Source infrastructure, like conferences, Foundations, HitGub, etc. We’ve seen the systematic smearing of people they can’t mislead, chase away, or buy off. They have the ethical standards of a school of pirhanas, and no qualms about using any means at their disposal to get their way.
In the absence of any agreed way of identifying the sociopaths working in their interests (often not directly in their employ), and ejecting them from our spaces, robust community process remains our only defence.
Disagree. One should not have to participate on this forum in order to be considered part of the in-group. I am posting here for two reasons:
Otherwise, I would just discuss from NodeBB directly.
Likewise, one should not have to participate or collaborate with the SWF to be part of the in-group.
Alas, that is not the reality.
There are many out in fedi who feel as though their voices are not heard because they don’t wish to or cannot participate on this forum, CG calls, task forces, etc. However they are collectively a group of amazingly smart people who also share the same end goal for ActivityPub: broader adoption and a tidy resolution to the vagueness and messiness of the protocol.
(Hi @bumblefudge @devnull I moved OT posts out of this thread, as they caused confusion.
Your posts contain a mix of on/off-topic texts. Could you please reformulate?)
Move done.
@devnull I requested an edit, but I moved your post now as people are giving likes based on reaction to quoted text by me that is entirely related to this topic.
100% agree. I am against the very idea of an in-group, which I think is really what you’re saying here. Is that right? I’m pretty sure @aschrijver agrees with us on that, so I think you’ve misunderstood what he meant there. Has the ongoing discussion since you made this comment clarified things for you?