SocialHub Gazette #1

[gazette]

Welcome to SocialHub Gazette #1

Did you know the Internet is not only for cats?

The SocialHub Gazette (SHG) is an attempt to provide a newsletter for all people interested in ActivityPub. In the future it may become a way for Fediverse dwellers who are not active in the ActivityPub Special Interest Group to be able to keep up with the latest announcements and ways of the SocialHub.

This initial commit covers three main topics: community norms, software implementations and pending tasks. It also points to current discussion that may be of interest to the larger Fediverse.

The SHG#1 can be read at https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/socialhub-gazette-1/390.

^[1]

How Do We Talk to Each Other?

Sometimes words go beyond intent, or reflect unconscious behavioral patterns that end up hurting people. Although there’s a common understanding to assume goodwill of other participants, this mantra has limits that were already discussed over time on the Fediverse, notably that in harassment cases it benefits the attacker and makes things worse for the victim. Wikipedia has lots to read on the matter^[2] which demonstrates it’s not as simple as aligning 3 words together.

Community norms and well-being

The title of this section comes from Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms Community where such a topic allows the community to discuss its norms and keep them a conscious asset for all community members. Here we have a dedicated #community category to discuss our community norms, and also the #community:well-being category for members to address concerns collectively. As reminded in the https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/welcome-to-socialhub/7 post^[3]:

@system

If you encounter any problem on SocialHub, you may contact the hosts of the relevant category, the general contact team , or the well-being team . You may also post anonymously to the dedicated community well-being category.

Note that when you flag a post, the @moderators are contacted, who can then forward to the @well-being.team, since all members of the latter may not all be members of the former.

@how

Text is way too low bandwidth to convey benevolence at all times, so we need to take extra care not to be blunt – and I’ve erred a lot in that direction, sometimes I can use words like sharp razors in a horror movie. Also, it’s very easy to get distracted and show irritation in one’s post. BTDT.

Just keep thinking we’re all on the same team and there’s no power play: just differences of opinions, and the need to explore use-cases more carefully. This community has been plagued with dissension for a decade or more, until it finally came to something quite usable that is ActivityPub. I’m glad we’re here and we all know it’s not perfect, so it’s a great exercise to perfect ourselves while perfecting it.

Software Implementations

Over the last few months the #software category has been growing and now includes 24 ActivityPub implementations. Welcome to all implementors and thank you for bonding the community together.

Apply for a #software Category

@how

If you are a software developer and want to list your software in #software, reply to About the Software category with the few information needed (name, color, icon, etc., please refer to other categories in software – also think about whether you want everyone to post there, or want your team to retain full control).

Reach out to the Fediverse

Some implementations are still missing though and it would be nice if the community could reach out to those developers who are not there yet. You may invite people you know, or point them to some topics of interest for them.

The first two requests for such implementation categories were made by @Emphack for WordPress and MoodleNet, yet these categories do not exist yet because nobody from these projects seem to be present on our forum. The rationale was to have someone involved with the project to take care of the category, and use an opt-in system to encourage participation.

Having an exhaustive list of implementations represented as categories here facilitates discovery and strengthens the community and helps bring all ActivityPub implementors to the discussion table. Maybe we should consider making placeholder categories for known implementations instead so that they appear to the world and postpone participation? This would work like for the #software:funkwhale category where only the @funkwhale team can post since they already have their own community channels elsewhere and do not wish to have to split their support channels.

See also https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/creating-a-template-for-software-implementation-categories/39.

Current Discussion

• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/decentralised-hashtag-search-and-subscription-relay-implementation-progress-report/542
• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/draft-guide-for-new-activitypub-implementers/479
• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/which-links-between-activitypub-and-solid-project/529
• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/groups-implementation/591

Pending Tasks

Staff

• We still need more volunteers for the @well-being.team.
• We still need more volunteers to become @software.hosts and care for the #software category.

Topics

• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/about-the-activitypub-category/11 should include an explanation of the relationship between the ActivityPub Special Interest Group (which is us) and the Social Community Group at W3C (which goes beyond ActivityPub and includes the larger Web federation)
• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/about-the-socialcg-category/30 should be completed with the runbook and the Mumble address…
• https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/about-the-software-category/27 should be completed as well.

Community Meetings

We’ve been quite sloppy with the regularity of #meeting:socialcg regularity. https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/planning-the-next-socialcg-meeting-when/481 has seen some discussion on how to address that, but so far we did not come to an agreement. Let’s think about it and push it next Saturday!

^[4]

#StayAtHome #HackTogether

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2020-04-25-socialcg-meeting/625

Please visit the SocialCG topic and see what can be on our plate for next Saturday.

Saturday, April 25, 2020 4:00 PM → Saturday, April 25, 2020 5:00 PM

SHG#1 is over.^[5]

^[6]

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1. Photo by David Clode ↩︎

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_the_assumption_of_good_faith ↩︎

3. the #welcome tag indicates a number of helpful readings to understand our community norms. ↩︎

4. Photo by kazuend ↩︎

5. Photos are collected at https://unsplash.com/collections/9959674/socialhub-gazette for those who like larger formats. ↩︎

6. Photo by Masaaki Komori ↩︎

[aschrijver]

I like your idea of a Gazette. They might become published pages afterwards, maybe accessible from activitypub.rocks.

[how]

Oh, good point, you mean SocialHub Gazette #1 - SocialHub

Let’s make a shared draft for another one!