SocialWebFoundation - what do people think?

[stevebate]

@strypey

You may well be right, but the point is that tries to claim that the internet isn’t the network of networks unified by IP networking, and nobody says “internets” (except you, today, but have you ever written that before?).

I thought I had seen you use it earlier in the thread, but I was probably mistaken. In any case, I don’t even use the term “internets” outside of this thread.

@strypey

@stevebate

I don’t know what “minimal AP connection” means

Exactly what it says on a the tin. Implementing enough of the core AP spec to have some level of interop with other software that does the same.

I don’t think it means anything, stated as vaguely as that. I took at stab at such a thing a while back (a concrete idea, with a reference implementation), but it was more of a thought experiment to stimulate discussion about a core protocol with domain-specific profiles added on top (close to what you describe as clusters of FEPs).

GitHub - steve-bate/activitypub-mincore: An exploration into an ActivityPub Minimal Core.

It satisfies the vague definition you provided but is probably not what you had in mind. If you have a reasonably well-defined alternative, I’d be interested in seeing it.

@strypey

@stevebate

They can be and typically are bridged to allow inter-protocol communication

I’ve talked to the developer of Prosody (also founder of ModernXMPP and Snikket) quite a bit about the pros and cons of bridging. He says it’s a brittle and resource intensive way of doing things, that’s only useful in adversarial interop (eg Mastodon<>Titter crossposters), or as a stopgap while trying to converge on a common protocol. This matches my observations over about 2 decades of using and researching decentralised network software.

That’s not true for bridging in general. It’s used extensively in network applications without the problems you describe or necessarily for the purposes you describe. Everyone with a typical wifi AP/switch/router is successfully operating a bridge between networking protocols (at some layer in the networking stack). I’m not saying it can’t be brittle, of course. However, AP-to-AP communication can be brittle, even without a bridge, and can be resource intensive too, so …

@strypey

Would you claim the opposite, that the IndieWeb is a secondary protocol that just bridges into it using bridgy? The IndieWeb and the fediverse are 2 separate federated social web networks, bridged together.

No, I would not claim that. I think I was clear about viewing them as peer-to-peer. Two federated clusters of servers (different protocols), federated together… a Fediverse.

@strypey

I’d ask you the same question as Jon. Why do you seem so determined to dilute the well-established meaning of the term “the fediverse”? I don’t remember seeing you in discussions about fediverse development before Eternal November either.

That’s true. I moved to the “fediverse” around that time. Several people I know did as well, but I was one of the few (maybe the only one?) that stayed. I liked it here partly because it felt like the “old internet” (pre and early web) where technical exploration and freedom to explore new possibilities was valued and encouraged. I have focused on ActivityPub, but I have friends who are active with Nostr and BlueSky development (and other lesser-known efforts). I think their contributions are interesting and valuable and some of these people have worked hard to interop between each other and ActivityPub. The ActivityPub First perspective is not something I support for these reasons.

I’d rather be in a meadow with a thousand wildflowers blooming than working on an industrial single product farm, even if the latter is considered by some to be bigger and better (especially better for big business, at least in the short term).

In any case, there have been perennial and intense discussions here about the meaning of the “fediverse” for the last several years since I joined (and related discussions on the AP Fediverse). I’ve just started seeing you actively participate in the threads here in the last month or so during that time, but I know you’ve been around somewhere for quite some time.

Based on those years of community discussion and debate, I don’t accept the premise of single “well-established meaning”.

[SorteKanin]

@trwnh

People can choose which protocols they want to use based on the people that are on those protocols, and what those protocols allow them to do.

That sounds quite fractured to me. Part of the promise of the Fediverse is low switching-cost. Facebook these days has a high switching-cost cause all your friends are on Facebook and if you switch, you lose all those connections. The idea on the fediverse is that you can switch to another platform or instance or app or client or whatever and still keep all your connections. But that won’t be true if switching means switching to another protocol that is incompatible with the ones your friends use. Then the high switching-cost comes back. How do we reconcile a multi-protocol landscape with low switching costs?

@trwnh

For “The Social Web”, then this implies it is part of “The Web”. Which to me means publishing Web resources. Not so much building a new messaging protocol over HTTP (which is perhaps not well-suited for this role).

Could you not have both? I mean I feel like you kind of need both at least in some sense, if for nothing else than to notify others about newly published web resources that they can fetch.

@trwnh

Not on escaping the platform model altogether.

What would this look like? Can I substitute “platform” with “instance” here? Would this be a kind of instance-less social web? I just currently can’t imagine how that would look or how it would even work, but maybe I am too close-minded. Would really appreciate a concrete/practical explanation.

[strypey]

Having had a shower and a feed, I just want to apologise to @jdp23 and @stevebate in case my question to you both came across a bit Spanish Inquisition (noooooobody excepts the Spanish Inquisition…). Yes, there is a shouty part of me that wants to say “hey that’s our ball, go get your own if you want to play a different game”. But please ignore that part, he’s a hothead, and he’s doing his best to reign it in

Instead, please interpret my question as a genuine inquiry. What do you think the practical benefits are of a more expansive definition of “the fediverse”? What do you think we stand to lose if we stick to the narrower definition that was widely accepted before Eternal November.

It would really help if you could acknowledge this preexisting consensus, and the history it emerged from, when you comment on the subject. Because I think it’s the way you both tend to write about “the fediverse” as if it was always an empty vessel, meaning whatever the person using it wants it to mean, that leaves me struggling to assume good faith.

I was tempted to post this in a new thread, but I think it is relevant to the discussion about the SWF. We’re all here arguing about it because we’re all passionate about re-decentralising the web, and we’re all concerned about the likes of Meta wanting to take over our playground. Because we all know that corporations like Meta have the ethical standards of a school of piranhas, and they’ll use any means at their disposal to achieve their goals. Including devious ones.

I recognise that this is making me jumpy, and disinclined to trust anyone I don’t recognise as an active fediverse dev or evangelist from before Eternal November. I suspect it’s making others just as jumpy, and disinclined to trust anyone who doesn’t support the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact, for example, or whatever network of federated social web champions they feel aligned with. I don’t recognise Jon from before Eternal November, and he knows from our debates in the verse that I don’t support the AMFP, which means at this point we’re both inclined to distrust each other’s motives.

But if we can’t all take a breath, pull together as a bottom-up movement, and work on building trust and consensus, Meta et al win by default. Because there won’t be a community-run fediverse - by any defintion - left for them to disrupt. We need to keep assuming good faith, even when we strongly disagree on important subjects (like how to respond to Meta’s presence in our playground). Reserving judgement on new initiatives like AFMP or FediDevs or SWF, and trying to work together in good faith towards common goals.

[stevebate]

@strypey

Having had a shower and a feed, I just want to apologise to @jon and @steve

No problem.

@strypey

Instead, please interpret my question as a genuine inquiry. What do you think the practical benefits are of a more expansive definition of “the fediverse”? What do you think we stand to lose if we stick to the narrower definition that was widely accepted before Eternal November.

I think I’ve answered this in previous messages (and this thread is far too long already).

@strypey

It would really help if you could acknowledge this preexisting consensus, and the history it emerged from, when you comment on the subject. Because I think it’s the way you both tend to write about “the fediverse” as if it was always an empty vessel, meaning whatever the person using it wants it to mean, that leaves me struggling to assume good faith.

“Always an empty vessel” is an exaggeration (I don’t think that at all), but I think the term is certainly ambiguous and imprecise. In the years of discussions I’ve participated in and/or have read here and the “fediverse?” on the topic, with a somewhat wide variety of folks (old timers and others, but not including you) the definition does not appear to have the precision or wide consensus you are claiming. Maybe it did, with a specific group of people, at some point in the past. If so, I’m sure that didn’t happen then without some debate. Will you provide some pre-2022 references/links to material that describes the discussion at that time (all sides!) and documents the consensus reached by [whichever group it was]?

I will say, and please don’t take this personally, I’m not just going to accept your definition because you claim it is the authoritative one. I’m going to need more evidence than that. It’s unfortunate if you decide that’s acting in bad faith, but it is what it is.

However, if the “Fediverse” is now just the “ActivityPub Network”, why not simply call it by the latter name? This is consistent with my suggestion that the SWF change its name to the ActivityPub Foundation and it’s also consistent with the Foundation’s goal to make the ActivityPub Network bigger, better and more business friendly. Also, if you have another good name for the existing network of networks of diverse federated social web protocols, I’ll consider using it.

[hamishcampbell]

Let’s try a right-wing metaphor:

Well, this playground is full of noise.

In this noise the is much sense, but no grown up action, in a children’s playground it is the adults that are in control, the binding, the ones who make the decisions.

The children play, yes with noise and creativity, true, which can be beautiful to see.

But this playground noise has little relevance to the world of adults who do the work of change and challenge, so the children can be free to play.

OK, that’s a right-wing view, how to bridge this to a left wing path, you can find grounded thinking, plans and native projects linked from http://hamishcampbell.com that balance this mess we make.

Back to the right-wing metaphor. The subject of this thread the #SWF are grown-ups, yes there are real questions, if we trust the path they are taking, but it’s the only grown up path, we are the children in the playground here.

END right wing metaphor.

Q. Do you guys prefer the cats metaphor or the child and playground metaphor, which one do you think could work its way around #geekproblem and hyper individualism (#stupidindividualism) #blocking of the change and challenge we URGENTLY need

[trwnh]

@strypey

the first 2 in your list are fully Free Code software that anyone can run […] a company that maintains a number of fully Free Code packages (including WP) that anyone can run […] Yes, all the entities behind all 3 run one or more flagship instances, but as I said, they’re also longtime supporters of the fediverse in good standing (1).

In neither of these cases do I see a “platform”, in the obviously negative sense of the word that you’re using (by analogy with what Meta do). Can you explain why you do, and more importantly, what you think it means to be …

Okay, so, while it is a generally good thing to be able to run the software for yourself, and for that software to be free software, I need to clarify, again, that this is not saying “they’re all like Meta”. What I am saying is that “they’re all trying to build platforms”.

By “platform”, I mean in the sense of “a place for exchanges of information to occur between producers and consumers”, or “a base from which a service is provided”, or in a larger sense, “the computing substrate that determines which software can be run”.

The prevailing worldview among the list of partners is that the fediverse itself is a “platform”. I am countering with the belief that the Web itself should be the “platform”. Which is to say: instead of “building for the fediverse”, we ought to be “building for the Web”. It’s a matter of targeting. Do you see the fediverse as a sort of digital service which people connect to in order to make and read posts on the fediverse? Or would you rather see people publishing and browsing resources on the Web?

@strypey

Implementing enough of the core AP spec to have some level of interop with other software that does the same. As I’ve said elsewhere, my ideal AP would be as minimal as possible, like IP and XMPP-core, with everything else standardised in FEPs. Including meta-FEPs defining AP+FEP bundles for use cases like the threadiverse, or video federation, or events federation (Mobilizon, Gancio etc)

@trwnh seems to think we should try to fold all of this into AP itself, and I have no idea why they think this is a good idea.

I don’t think that at all. What I have instead said several times now is that “implementing enough of the core AP spec to have some level of interop with other software that does the same” doesn’t describe the fediverse at all. You could implement the entirety of ActivityPub and not be able to talk to a single person. Yes, even after you take into account the WebFinger and HTTP Signatures reports. The problem with “the core AP spec” is that the “minimal as possible” base that it provides is not enough for meaningful interop. All you can do is Follow, Like, and Announce… and even those are assumptions rather than guarantees. (How many softwares check for the presence of a followers, likes, or shares collection before sending a Follow, Like, or Announce? How many softwares even provide the presence of those collections consistently?)

Taking the XMPP Core spec as a comparison point, as you did: RFC 6120 defines stanzas for “message”, “presence”, and “information query”, as well as errors. ActivityPub only defines limited side effects for certain types of activities, including Create, which has “surprisingly few side effects”. Now look at the fediverse. Can you seriously say that sending a Create activity to any of those softwares will have “few side effects”? I can think of a pretty big one – that the object of my Create will be converted into a “status”, persisted in their database, and cached forever unless I explicitly send a Delete.

I think that “minimal core + extension FEPs” is an okay model for things, but right now the core is too minimal (we have no specified way to let a follower know that they’ve been removed!) and the extensions haven’t been written (as FEPs or otherwise).

@bumblefudge

[Mastodon] made monolithic clientic-servers the “de facto standard”-- here is not the place to argue whether or not that’s optimal, but it has definitely happened already, and fuses these two layers into one “de facto platform”

It’s not only “not optimal”, but it is also actively harmful, and the Social Web Foundation seems to be taking the position that it is not harmful. Or at least, that’s what all their partners generally seem to think – that the “de facto platform” ought to be built upon and developed for, instead of the Web being the platform.

[hamishcampbell]

@trwnh

Which is to say: instead of “building for the fediverse”, we ought to be “building for the Web”. It’s a matter of targeting. Do you see the fediverse as a sort of digital service which people connect to in order to make and read posts on the fediverse? Or would you rather see people publishing and browsing resources on the Web?

This is a openweb path we do need to talk about, likely in another thread

And yes, this openweb native path is a very different from the #dotcons who are flooding in.

• There are some people who push that we can mediate this gap, natively or vie bridges.
• And there are some who think we can’t stop this takeover at all.
• Then they are people who think we need to bunker down on the native path and weather this storm.
• Then there are a surprising large number of people who need grants and statues to survive the pacuaruse lives they live. The problem becomes, the path is actual secondary, when they hide this, it is unhelpful.
• Then there is tech activism to change the path we are on, leveraging the native path for change and challenge to play a role in composting the current mess.
• and, please add…

The #SWF is the first, socialhub a mix of the rest.

Yes, it’s this messy, likely we can’t get a consensus on any of these paths, which is fine.

As people say diversity is good, but action is still needed, how can we build the consensus we need to take action on the #DIY path, if we don’t, it’s the #SWF and the #dotcons that walk the paths we build and talk about.

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-openweb-a-partnership-not-a-nasty-walk-over/

[bumblefudge]

@trwnh

Or at least, that’s what all their partners generally seem to think – that the “de facto platform” ought to be built upon and developed for, instead of the Web being the platform.

Here I’m not so sure! I wouldn’t take the presence of Threads, Automatic, and Mastodon gGmbH on the list of supporters as indicative of any simple path forward.

[Rampant speculation alert:] If anything, Automatic probably wants a better “translation mechanism” between the indieweb/macroblog space, the masto/microblog space, and the reddit-clone/forum space, which would probably lean towards a more nuanced form of C2S developing over time (not ASAP!). That’s the sense I get from the interviews and public writings I’ve seen from Automatic. What’s more, if I were a strategist high up in the Feta or Hooli pecking order, I would also be very supportive of that happening on, say, a 5-year time horizon to make sure an actual multi-stakeholder/multi-commercial social web emerged that Feta could not be accused of dominating, even if Threads’ short-term goals would be better served by pouring concrete around the Mastoverse. (In 2024, there is such a thing as too much growth, even for them!) Every conversation I’ve had with Evan and Mallory (I’ve never met Tom) leads me to think they’re balancing all this in a pretty four-dimensional way so I’m not sure what about the SWF announcement leads everyone to such dire predictions and accusations.

In any case, I don’t think we should jump to conclusions based on scant evidence or yell at Evan et al. just for creating a fairly conventional advocacy group promoting (and raising money for) open standards. I think their track records should probably earn them a tiny bit of good faith. In the best case, we’ll have pretty much status quo except that work relevant to the CG/WG efforts will be easier to secure grant-funding for. In the worst case, there will be a disconnect between W3C and commercial efforts on one side and community-governed, anti-commercials efforts on the other… but isn’t that just a return to the 2019-2023 period anyways? Even that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, nor could it be blamed significantly on any possible next moves available to SWF, IMHO… let’s just try to keep our heads about us.

[jdp23]

@strypey

The fediverse.party team talked this over recently, and agreed that we still don’t include bridged accounts in our definition of “the fediverse”.

That’s good to know, I added that to the discussion in Is Bluesky part of today’s Fediverse? – I also updated that article to clarify Evan and SWF’s perspective that Bluesky is a Fediverse instance, even with their AP-only definition of the Fediverse.

But other people don’t see it that way. Seven Thesesfrom 2020 describes ActivityPub as “one of the most popular and most discussed protocols of the Fediverse.” Wikipedia’s Fediverse page lists multiple protocols, and includes Imke Senst and Mike Kuketz’s diagram A view of the Fediverse (2023) which lists DFRN, Zot, and Diaspora along with ActivityPub. DDFON’s Federated SNS (Fediverse) Historial Timeline also lists multiple protocols. Marco Rogers argues that AT should be considered a fediverse protocol. @mattl says “For me the Fediverse has to include all social media apps and protocols.”

@strypey

It would really help if you could acknowledge this preexisting consensus, and the history it emerged from, when you comment on the subject.

There isn’t an existing consensus. You and fediverse.party can pick whatever definition of"the Fediverse" you want, but no matter how loud you shout, different people will pick different definitions, and (at least in my opinion) theirs are more aligned with fediverse history than yours.

@strypey

This comments also explains that the goal of fediverse developers for over a decade has been to converge on a single, unifying standard

That’s not how I see it. I’d say there are “protocol supremacists” who believe in the One True Protocol, and there are others who think in terms of multiple protocols. I do agree that “protocol supremacists” have been been the loudest and most visible over the last 7 years or so, and that helps to explain why there’s been so little progress on the issues holding back broader Fediverse adoption … for example:

@strypey

It’s worth noting that this is not the first time Evan has been involved in a movement-building project. See the mention here of the 2010 the Federated Social Web Summit, organised by StatusNet. The results of that are, in many ways, why the verse was (mostly) able to converge on a single protocol, and why we’re all here.

The 2010 summit didn’t lead to convergence on a single protocol. Diaspora continued to exist, and @macgirvin’s protocols continued to exist and innovate. And all of those protocols and the platforms built on them had areas where they were signifciant improvements on what came later. Zot and Nomad have have had nomadic identity for over a decade, and almost everybody I talk. Everybody agrees that the Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams) family offers much better tools for people to protect themselves. But the protocol supremacists ignore these other protocols and the platforms built on them. ActivityPub and Mastodon don’t have any of these things, and their absence leads to major barriers to broader adoption of the Fediverse.

@trwnh

People can choose which protocols they want to use based on the people that are on those protocols, and what those protocols allow them to do

That’s my view as well. Of course, not everybody sees it that way.

As I say in the article, when people choose a definition of Fediverse where history stopped with Mastodon’s 2017 adoption of ActivityPub and ties the Fediverse’s success to a protocol that has major issues, it’s still worth asking why they choose that definition.

[trwnh]

@bumblefudge

I’m not sure what about the SWF announcement leads everyone to such dire predictions

I feel like this thread is full of people expressing concerns, although it certainly contains a lot of other things. It mostly comes down to tying “Social Web”, “fediverse”, and “ActivityPub” together in a way is somehow not representative of any of those three things. Whatever you call the organization, it’s the messaging around it that is giving concerns:

• “Social Web” is more than the fediverse, and it’s more than ActivityPub
• “fediverse” is not sufficiently described by “Social Web” or by “ActivityPub”
• “ActivityPub” is capable of more than what it’s being used for in the “fediverse”

The language around these things (“also called”) and also its general focus and branding around “social networks” and “new global town square” are also concerning. Looking at their mission page:

• Growth, or “we’re committed to growing the number of people using the Fediverse”, is a concern because trying to grow numbers only is a bad strategy. The problem with the fediverse is not that it needs more people on it. The problem with the fediverse is that it’s woefully underspecified and architecturally unsound in its current form. For an organization that “believe[s] that increased use of the Fediverse has the potential to make all of our online social experiences better”, there seems to not be any recognition of the many people who have joined the fediverse, only to have a bad time. Maybe it has “potential”, but that potential is not being fulfilled right now.
• Health as a good is something that needs to be defined. If the idea of a “healthy fediverse” is “inbuilt fact-checks” or “recommend[ing] content that corresponds with your faith or personal interests”, then this is badly overlooking the real “health issues” with the current fediverse.
• Being financially viable is something that could be good or bad depending on whom you want to be financially viable. Given that the text states that they “are working to find ways that companies can do well in the Fediverse”, I’d say that the concern here is that non-companies are being overlooked and sidelined.
• Finally, for the multi-polar bit: they “think a productive, creative and healthy Fediverse needs multiple providers, none of whom dominate the space.” Certainly a multipolar fediverse is better than a unipolar fediverse, but even better would be to reduce the reliance on a “provider”, to think of it less as a “service” and to think of it more as part of the Web.

I could go on to talk about the specific projects they list and how they don’t seem to be meaningfully addressing the stated goals (except for the “starter page” being aligned with “growth”), but I’m sure they will come up with other things in the future, so giving undue critical attention to the current projects is premature.

@bumblefudge

I don’t think we should jump to conclusions based on scant evidence or yell at Evan et al. just for creating a fairly conventional advocacy group

I say all the above with the framing that it is not personally directed towards Evan, nor is it yelling at Evan, but it is simply stating that there are concerns. It being a “fairly conventional advocacy group” is also cause for concern given what is “fairly conventional” for advocacy groups in general. But:

@bumblefudge

In the worst case, there will be a disconnect between W3C and commercial efforts on one side and community-governed, anti-commercials efforts on the other… but isn’t that just a return to the 2019-2023 period anyways?

This is already currently the case, and likely what is driving the response. I won’t link to all of the various takes people have had, because there are too many of them, but I hope that it is a fair summary to say that some people are at the very least apprehensive and uncomfortable with what they’ve seen in public statements and based on their interpretations of history and historical precedent.

The thing that I want to leave on, though, is this:

@hamishcampbell

This is a openweb path we do need to talk about, likely in another thread

And yes, this openweb native path is a very different from the #dotcons who are flooding in.

@hamishcampbell

action is still needed, how can we build the consensus we need to take action on the #DIY path

The ultimate takeaway of this entire thread should not be to spend our time endlessly putting the SWF under the microscope, or to stop at simply expressing these concerns. The ultimate takeaway is: what are you going to do about it?

[jdp23]

@strypey

As you well know, because I’ve explained this to you on the fediverse, and here, multiple times. So I’m curious to know why you are so determined to dilute the meaning of the term, considering that I’ve only noticed you in discussions about fediverse development since Eternal November, and some of us have been working on this for more than a decade (and pioneers like Evan much longer).

Yes, you’ve explained your view to me many times. And I’ve repeatedly explained to you that others see it differently.

And indeed, some of us have been involved in the Fediverse for more than a decade. Here’s my 2011 article A crucial time for Diaspora* and my 2017 Lessons (so far) from Mastodon for independent social networks.

But unlike you I’m not as disparaging of the perspectives of newcomers. In fact I think we desprately need new perspectives here. The Fediverse has made remarkably little progress over the last decade. – the potential described in EFF’s An Introduction to the Federated Social Network (2011) and Klint Finley’s The Federated Web Should Be Easier Than It Sounds (2012) is still there, and so are the challenges. There’s no evidence that the Lessons (so far) from Mastodon for independent social networks have been learned.

As to why I focus on the definition so much, two reasons. One is that I don’t think “the Fediverse” should tie itself to badly flawed ActivityPub protocol, which hasn’t improved significantly over the last six years, and is a prime target for an embrace-and-extend strategy from Meta. Sure, the protocol might improve, and Meta might decide it’s not worth exlpoiting the Fediverse … but it would be a mistake to rely on it.

The other is because I think the the dominance of the white, techo-libertarian guys is a big part of what’s holding the Fediverse back, many of them are protocol supremacists, and they’ve used the ActivityPub protocol and networks of power around it it to reinforce their dominance. So it’s useful to challenge that while highlighting the racism (etc) of their position.

Speaking of which, as Ernie Smith has pointed out “Eternal September was a form of gatekeeping” and so is “Eternal November”. And dismissing the opinions of Black people who checked out the Fediverse in November 2022 and either left because of its racism – or stayed despite the racism and are working to improve it – is not only gatekeeping but racist. So please don’t do that.

[hamishcampbell]

I checked out your website so will try to engage with this, though likely this should happen on another thread, feel free to move this.

@jdp23

As to why I focus on the definition so much, two reasons. One is that I don’t think “the Fediverse” should tie itself to badly flawed ActivityPub protocol

This is messy:

The “Fediverse” as has been built has been completely focused on AP since it rebooted (and it needed this reboot) with Mastodon moving to AP - this is no current “Fediverse” without this.

On fighting over definitions - this is kinda pointless, and mostly reactionary, the path we have been on is a “disorganisation” with mythos and traditions, the one solid thing is badly implemented AP the rest is a loose native openweb path you can’t define this neatly.

Yes, this is changing over the last year, and it’s important to engage with this change.

@jdp23

The other is because I think the the dominance of the white, techo-libertarian guys

This is an issue, but it’s not central as the projects are #4opens #DIY so if you can hold your noise on the “techo-libertarian guys” the only block is basic technical skills and community building, thus this is a perfect tool for the #fluffy side of a #BPP reboot which does need to happen.

@jdp23

protocol supremacists, and they’ve used the ActivityPub protocol and networks of power around it to reinforce their dominance.

This is a smell of this, but it’s few people and mostly new #NGO types, remember this thing has been built with almost no money or power so nothing for f***ts to use to hold onto “power”. But yes there are a few, but the same, they are actually not too bad on balance, though as you say is likely to change.

@jdp23

Speaking of which, as Ernie Smith has pointed out “Eternal September was a form of gatekeeping” and so is “Eternal November”.

This is insider language, so no idea what it means

@jdp23

left because of its racism – or stayed despite the racism

This is a #4opens native openweb project if you look you will find the worst people, the secret is not to look, then block freely if they find you. The community side is #DIY so works if you get a supporting network, a chicken-and-egg social problem.

If you are interested in activism then build a community BEFORE looking for the nasty people, block hard till you have a community in place. There are no digital drugs, you find on the #dotcons, that most people are addicted to, so getting people to stay, when it turns messy is harder than people expect.

https://hamishcampbell.com/fediverse-definitions-and-building-activist-communities/

[strypey]

@strypey

What do you think the practical benefits are of a more expansive definition of “the fediverse”? What do you think we stand to lose if we stick to the narrower definition that was widely accepted before Eternal November.

@stevebate

I think I’ve answered this in previous messages

Can you point me to specific comments? Because if you did, I didn’t see it. Honestly, I really do want to understand what exactly the argument is for a looser definition (I originally wrote “watered down”, which reflects my honest opinion as it stands, but I made an effort to pick a more neutral term).

@stevebate

I’m not just going to accept your definition because you claim it is the authoritative one. I’m going to need more evidence than that.

Fair enough. I’m not asking you to accept my personal definition as the canonical one. I’m asking that you acknowledge that the word has a history, of being coined for the OStatus network, and expanded to the AP network, as the legacy apps began to implement it (starting with Mastodon, originally OStatus).

Before Eternal November, I don’t remember anyone arguing about this. It was just our history. So being asked for evidence that this is the standard usage of “the fediverse” seems as odd to me as being asked for evidence that “Strypey” is my name, and not a generic name for any pedantic digital rights activist who writes walls of text online

But OK, here’s a few historical texts not written by me.

2017: A quick guide to The Free Network by Seal Tilley

2017: What is GNU social and is Mastodon Social a “Twitter Clone”? By Robek World

2017: Here’s John Henry’s blog piece, which sets out to declare Mastodon DOA (a take that has not aged well), but acknowledges that;

“… Mastodon’s success piggybacks off of the existing “fediverse” network.”

2018: Christine Lemmer-Webber on the AP standardisation process; this one doesn’t specifically mention “the fediverse” but as established in the last couple of links, the fediverse was coined for the cluster of projects using OStatus, bootstrapped off GNU social. Christine’s piece is an insider’s view of how devs from those projects came together with devs from other networks, under the umbrella of a W3C standards process, leading to AP.

2018: Gargron on the Mastodon blog;

“fediverse, noun: The decentralized social network formed by Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey and others using the ActivityPub standard.”

2018: NextCloud blog announces their AP client, allowing people using NC to “join the fediverse”

2019: Welcome to the Fediverse by Paul Brown gives the lineage as; early Diaspora* and Identi.ca > pump.io > W3C publishing AP > “modern fediverse”

2019: How the biggest decentralized social network is dealing with its Nazi problem by Adi Robertson explores the drama around CessPit (I refuse to feed the trolls by naming their site) setting up a Mastodon instance. Fediverse discussed as the network federating over AP.

2019: Even the canonical piece Diaspora dev Dennis Schubert excoriating AP, and explaining why he wouldn’t touch it wearing a biohazard suit, is very clear that AP is now the common protocol of the fediverse.

2020: Cade Diehm writing for New Design Congress describes;

The Fediverse – a network comprised of Mastodon, Pleroma and other adjacent projects

2020: From an opinion piece on Al Jazeera by Michael Kwet;

“The foundation for a commons-based social media system was laid in the establishment of the Fediverse – a set of interoperable social networks based on free and open-source software. Fediverse platforms include Mastodon (akin to Twitter), PeerTube (akin to YouTube), and PixelFed (akin to Instagram).”

2021: Simon Safar’s blog piece about the fediverse, also talks about various software that were all by this point federating over AP.

I know you said pre-2022, but this 2022 interview with Evan P on TheNewStack is also worth looking at for historical reference.

This Brittanica article on the fediverse is full of vague waffle and factual errors (despite the claim of having been fact-checked, it reads like something written by a Trained MOLE), but it still gets the basic fediverse history right; Open Microblogging / identi.ca > OStatus > AP.

Do you need more? I’m sure I can find more if I keep digging into my archives.

Having supplied these, I’d be interested in some links backing up your claim about significant dissent over the definition before Eternal November. I mean sure, there were a few overenthusiastic fanboys of XMPP and Matrix trying to shoehorn their pet protocol into the definition, but not AFAIK anyone involved in developing or hosting software for those networks. I wouldn’t call that significant.

@stevebate

However, if the “Fediverse” is now just the “ActivityPub Network”, why not simply call it by the latter name?

Because it’s not. It’s the network that used to use OStatus but is currently using ActivityPub. But that’s an unwieldly name, so our brand managers at Network That Used to use OStatus but is Currently Using ActivityPub Inc. insist that we stick with “the fediverse”

Again, I could reverse the question. If you want a generic name for all federated social protocols, why use a name that’s already in use for a more specific purpose? Why not call it something generic like the “federated social web” or “web federation”, or somesuch?

I suspect the answer is something like; ‘because the term fediverse is so hot right now’. Uh-huh. You know why? Because of all the devs and evangelists who have been here for more than a decade, making it a thing. So there was something to become hot when Melon Husk happened to Titter.

You may be shocked and alarmed by this. But having done all that work under the name “the fediverse” - much of it unpaid - we don’t take kindly to people just repurposing that name for whatever they want to promote. That’s certainly how I’m feeling and I know I’m not alone.

But really, my question is, why is it meaningful to have a name for all these disparate things at all? Unless the goal is to unify them, which I think is why Evan and co chose “Social Web Foundation” instead of "ActivityPub “Foundation” or “Fediverse Foundation”.

@jdp23

There isn’t an existing consensus.

I’m not saying it was a universal consensus, but it was a widely accepted consensus. See links above. If acknowledging a “consensus” sticks in your craw, you could at least acknowledge that the term has a history.

But thanks for the mentions that give you the impression of a plurality of definitions of “the fediverse” prior to Eternal November. The Seven Theses quote could be interpreted as historical, reflecting the the fact that before all the legacy fediverse software converged on AP (except Diaspora), OStatus, Diaspora protocol, and Zot were all common protocols. Same with the diagram you mention (DFRN was Friendica’s original protocol and was never used for interop with anything else).

@jdp23

Wikipedia’s Fediverse page lists multiple protocols

Not at present. FWIW I started this article and I continue to contribute to it from time to time.

@jdp23

. DDFON’s Federated SNS (Fediverse) Historial Timeline also lists multiple protocols.

That’s not just a fediverse timeline. As it says in the title of the current version it’s; The DDFON, Open Social Web, Fediverse, Mycelial Web SNS Historical Timeline. It has a much broader remit, and seems to use a bunch of bespoke terms I’ve never seen elsewhere (“mycelial web”?).

@jdp23

Marco Rogers argues that AT should be considered a fediverse protocol

Why? Link please? Did he say that before Eternal November?

@jdp23

. @mattl says “For me the Fediverse has to include all social media apps and protocols

Again, link please, and did he say that before Eternal November? I agree with the first part (“include all social media apps”) as an aspiration, but AFAICT it’s logically incompatible with the second part (including all protocols), for reason I explain below.

@jdp23

theirs are more aligned with fediverse history than yours.

Intriguing. Can you explain how?

@jdp23

I’d say there are “protocol supremacists” who believe in the One True Protocol, and there are others who think in terms of multiple protocols

Again, can you explain how that fits the history? Where we started out with fragmented networks using incompatible protocols, and converged on the 2022 situation where the vast majority of servers and users were federating over one?

The few that didn’t, Diaspora, Libertree, etc, are little used and seldom discussed (more’s the pity). You’re pretty much arguing Dennis from Diaspora’s case, but if he was right, why didn’t a plethora of projects create their own bespoke protocols in opposition to AP? Why didn’t people move to Diaspora and to those new networks, those instead of to AP apps? If fragmented boutique social spaces are what people want, why didn’t CoHost survive?

The reason for this IMHO is pretty obvious; network effects. People want to join a social network where there are lots of people to talk to. Which is why the DataFarms were and are so sticky. So I’m struggling to understand why you think fragmentation of the decentralised social network across many protocols is a good thing.

I can’t figure out how to ask this without it seeming like a rude question, but … do you understand that (bridges aside) people on networks using different protocols can’t, by definition, talk to each other? Because if what you’re thinking of is different protocols sitting on top of a shared identity layer, then we’re speaking at cross-purposes. Because that’s essentially what I’m arguing for with the meta-FEPs.

But that shared identity layer would still need a common protocol to define interoperation within it, used by every server participating in the network. Which is what I think AP needs to be (or be replaced by).

@jdp23

The 2010 summit didn’t lead to convergence on a single protocol. Diaspora continued to exist, and @macgirvin’s protocols continued to exist and innovate.

@macgirvin had one protocol that I know of, Zot, which AFAIK hasn’t been in active development since he abandoned Zap for the-unnamed-project-known-as-streams. Instead, Mike has folded the Zot functionality that AP lacked into a set of FEPs and created a new project (Forte) which is described on the project page as;

“An open source ActivityPub/fediverse server.”

So not a great example of your point. Diaspora is a holdout yes, but it’s also federated with a lot of software that does support AP (including Friendica, Hubzilla, and SocialHome), and potentially benefits from the indirect network effects of that. So I’m not sure their rejection of AP supports your argument or mine.

@jdp23

Everybody agrees that the Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams) family offers much better tools for people to protect themselves.

All of these projects support AP. But they’ve been considered part of the fediverse since they implemented support for OStatus (see Sean’s article in my link wall above). If and when they add support for Mike’s FEPs, they can add NomadicIdentity and the other Zot special sauce to their AP implementations.

@jdp23

But the protocol supremacists ignore these other protocols and the platforms built on them.

Mastodon supremacists ignore them. The rest of us have gone to a lot of effort to popularise the term fediverse among people convinced of a mythical “Mastodon network”, specifically in order to bring attention to this wider family of apps people can use, including to talk to their friends on Mastodon.

@jdp23

ActivityPub and Mastodon don’t have any of these things, and their absence leads to major barriers to broader adoption of the Fediverse.

I note that you seem to be implicitly accepting the standard definition of the fediverse here. Because there’s no way the lack of this or that in ActivityPub could be a barrier to broader adoption of the fediverse, by the looser definition you’re pushing.

But actually I think we are rattling our sabres towards some kind of consensus here. Because I agree that the lack of features people want in Mastodon, and the perception that Mastodon = AP/ fediverse, has been a huge barrier to adoption. Also that vanilla AP lacks features people want and can reasonably expect from a full-featured social network (E2EE for private messages, account portability, etc), but again, that’s what FEPs are for.

@jdp23

when people choose a definition of Fediverse where history stopped with Mastodon’s 2017 adoption of ActivityPub

Who is saying the history stopped? As I’ve said, over and over, and as the links above attest, it continued with all the other legacy fediverse projects adopting AP one by one (except for Diaspora, granted), and with many new projects implementing AP, and with the FEP process, and the Fediverse Ideas repo, and so on. Hopefully it will continue with a new standard - whether an updated AP or something else - unifying more of the existing decentralised networks (including BlueSky, Nostr, and other non-fediverse networks).

@jdp23

when people… tie the Fediverse’s success to a protocol that has major issues, it’s still worth asking why they choose that definition.

Because a) we want to remain a unified network where everyone can talk to their friends on other servers, and b) there isn’t a consensus on a better protocol for all the projects to use instead. Can you suggest one?

[strypey]

@trwnh

The Social Web Foundation seems to be taking the position that it is not harmful. Or at least, that’s what all their partners generally seem to think – that the “de facto platform” ought to be built upon and developed for, instead of the Web being the platform.

You seem to be endowing the SWF, as an organisation with a range of supporting members, with qualities you see as common to those members. With respect, I think this is unfair on both counts. We can agree to disagree about whether the “platform” qualities you perceive as being common to all SWF members are substantial or not (I remain unsure of what you’re even arguing).

But here’s the current list of W3C members. It contains a rogues gallery of nasties, many of whom own the very things we exist to replace. If the qualities of the W3C were the lowest common denominator of that membership, ActivityPub would have had no chance of becoming a W3C standard.

So I don’t think it’s fair or useful to judge the SWF by our opinions of its members, any more than it would be to judge the W3C by theirs. Criticise specific actions or policies by all means, as Christine criticised the EME DRM in the AP announcement on the FSF website. But the core team of the SWF are our people, and if they are to hold their own against any attempt by their members to push their own agendas through the org, they will need our support.

[jdp23]

Like I said

You and fediverse.party can pick whatever definition of"the Fediverse" you want, but no matter how loud you shout, different people will pick different definitions, and (at least in my opinion) theirs are more aligned with fediverse history than yours.

You see things differently. I get it. We’re not going to convince each other, and everybody reading this has made up their minds one way or another by now.

@strypey

Because a) we want to remain a unified network where everyone can talk to their friends on other servers, and b) there isn’t a consensus on a better protocol for all the projects to use instead. Can you suggest one?

By contrast, most of my friends aren’t on ActivityPub based servers because of the racism, sexism, and usability problems they encounter there,. Unless that changes, the only way I can talk to my friends is a multi-protocol world.

I’m not recommending a single replacement protocol. Different protocols are better at different things. Right now:

• AT’s better for creating large, flat, all-public networks – that’s one of the reasons that Bluesky’s so much better as a Twitter alternative than anything ActivityPub-based – and makes it easier to start up a new app (as long as you’re okay using Bluesky’s Relays initially)
• ActivityPub’s got scoped visibility so is much better at the networked-communities approach than AT, and has more independent implementations

Any and all of that can and probably will change over time. And then there are next-generation protocols like Veilid and Spritely Goblins are based on different underpinnings, how long till they’re at the point where they’re better for some use cases than any existing protocols?

Who knows. So (at least to me) I think a multi-protocol approach makes sense. Again though, different people come to different conclusions.

[strypey]

OK, I’ve said more than enough on this thread - some of it wildly OT - so I’m switching to read only. I just want to thank everyone for their contributions - even those I disagree with - and apologise to everyone for the walls of text, the tangents, and any hot under the collar comments that bothered anyone.

Have a great day!

[eprodrom]

I’m just going to say that this thread has gotten really long. I have scanned as best I can for questions about the SWF, but if you’d like to get a direct answer please @ me here.

[jdp23]

Yeah, this has indeed been a long thread. I agree very much with this point (and the rest of the post, but especially this as the key takeaway).

@trwnh

The ultimate takeaway of this entire thread should not be to spend our time endlessly putting the SWF under the microscope, or to stop at simply expressing these concerns. The ultimate takeaway is: what are you going to do about it?

From a process perspective, one thing to do would be to follow up on this with threads – here and/or on the fediverse, where they’re likely to get broader and more diverse participation – focusing on different aspects of what to do. A few top-of-the-head thoughts, not yet fully sorted out?

• For people who think SWF is (mostly) a good thing, how to help, and how to influence the things that need to change?
• For people who are concerned about SWF as aligning with Meta’s interests, and/or corporate interests more generally, as part of an embrace-and-extend maneuver, what changes could SWF make that could address those concerns, what kind of feedback needs to be given and what kinds of pressure needs to be put on who to make that happen – and how to counter the embrace-and-extend, whether or not SWF’s a part of it?
• For people concerned about SWF’s attempted hijacking of the term “social web”, how to put out a counter narrative that gets traction on the Fediverse and in the tech press?
• For developers thinking of different protocols and/or multiple-protocol solutions (whether it’s because you’re concerned about threats to ActivityPub or just see it as time to explore something new), how to work together to make progress and build momentum?
• For people who see SWF in its current form reinforcing existing problematic power dynamics in the ActivityPub Fediverse, how to encourage SWF to evolve in a way that also evolves the broader ecosystem, and what to do if SWF doesn’t evolve?

[aschrijver]

@trwnh

what are you going to do about it?

For that, from the perspective of SocialHub and the commons I created 2 separate topics:

• Social Web: Our Way Or The Highway?
• Poll: Should SocialHub be scoped to AS/AP or Social Web?

[stevebate]

@strypey

Before Eternal November, I don’t remember anyone arguing about this. It was just our history.

Thanks for the links. I’m reading through them. They are very interesting and I’ll be adding them to my bookmark collection for future reference. I do see that some of them define the Fediverse in terms of software implementations (different sets of implementations in different articles) and some define it terms of protocols, but the set of protocols isn’t always the same. The pump.io protocol is in some and not others, for example, and Zot is included in the Wikipedia article you referenced earlier. I do see that OStatus and later ActivityPub were “core” protocols for the historical Fediverse described in several of the articles. I don’t see anything that describes a consensus to freeze the set of Fediverse implementations and protocols as of 2018.

Here’s where I think we may agree? The Fediverse:

• Is multiprotocol (historically, StatusNet/OStatus, pump.io, zot, ActivityPub, …)
• The set of those protocols changed over time (pump.io and ActivityPub were added later, for example)

We may or may not agree on:

• The Fediverse term has always been somewhat vague and used in somewhat varying ways.

It seems like our disagreement is whether the term Fediverse (or fediverse), which historically described federated social network/web protocols and implementations, should have a definition that’s frozen in history or if it should be allowed to reflect current reality. It’s a classic conservative versus progressive conflict that we probably won’t resolve here. In any case, I do understand that you want the definition to be a static one based on the somewhat vague historical usage. I hope you understand I think it’s more useful to let the definition evolve with the times.

@strypey

@stevebate

However, if the “Fediverse” is now just the “ActivityPub Network”, why not simply call it by the latter name?

Because it’s not. It’s the network that used to use OStatus but is currently using ActivityPub. But that’s an unwieldly name, so our brand managers at Network That Used to use OStatus but is Currently Using ActivityPub Inc. insist that we stick with “the fediverse”

Sorry, but I think this is a silly and self-serving definition. I prefer a modern definition that captures the essence of federated social networks, inclusive (tech) diversity, and celebration of continuing innovation and collaboration that helps people connect and communicate effectively. To some extent, this is a self-serving definition too, since the modern definition represents my values (in a way that I believe is compatible with the historical use of the term).

I see that in the past you’ve used the term “activityverse” rather than “fediverse” to describe the ActivityPub network. I like that better. One option is you (and the Foundation) could use “activityverse” for the ActivityPub-specific network and others can use “fediverse” to refer to the current day network of networks of federated social networking software (including the “activityverse” and others).

Discussion: Solid vs. ActivityPub

@strypey

But really, my question is, why is it meaningful to have a name for all these disparate things at all? Unless the goal is to unify them, which I think is why Evan and co chose “Social Web Foundation” instead of "ActivityPub “Foundation” or “Fediverse Foundation”.

Have you read Foundation web site or the launch announcement (linked earlier)? Evan and the Foundation are not trying to unify anything other than implementations based (however loosely) on ActivityPub. I believe the name should reflect that goal (seems obvious) and I feel the approach is divisive, not unifying. It’s about marketing and creating a “bigger and better” ActivityPub network and appealing to big business. Some people will just see the misleading name and think the Foundation is unifying and inclusive and won’t bother to read the fine print. In the same way you won’t write “GitHub” in the correct way, I intend to not use “Social Web” when I refer to the Foundation. I don’t want to promote the misinformation since the Social Web is not synonymous with ActivityPub. If the Foundation had been named accurately and was transparent about its objectives, I’d fully support it. But the current misleading marketing strategy, which appears now to be quite intentional rather than poor phrasing, is not something I will support.

Again, thanks for the historical links.