For the last decade or so, I’ve been blessed to be part of an extremely loose cluster of people who care deeply about about the future of the fediverse. So passionately that we spend hours of (usually) volunteer time supporting its evolution.
Broadly speaking, our shared goal is to fact-check and propagate information about every aspects of the fediverse, and in the process, to map out the wicked problems that plague it. The ones that lurk in the cracks between projects, and need to be described and discussed in detail, by people representing the interests of a number of projects, before solutions start to emerge. We do this work because we see gaps that need filling, and because we want to facilitate the best possible outcomes for everyone involved in the fediverse;
- fediverse members (ie people with accounts on fediverse servers)
- server admins
- moderators
- developers of fediverse software
- developers of other Free Code software curious to implement AP
- developers of other protocols and tools that could interoperate or integrate with the fediverse in mutually useful ways
- each other as a decentralised, pluralistic fediverse support network
The Fediversity category here on SocialHub was created, in part, to create a watering hole for the people in this fediverse support network to gather around, to have some of these discussions. Projects that I think are worthy of an honourable mention, because they’ve been around a while, or they’re run by people who have been (in no particular order);
- WeDistribute, VidCommons (RIP), and various other projects initiated and overseen by @deadsuperhero since his time as Community Manager for Diaspora
- thefederation.info: the first fediverse mapping portal (?) created by @jaywink, also founder of SocialHome, and a key driver of the Federated Networks Association (RIP)
- fediverse.party: a newbies portal and software directory created by @lostinlight (@lightone@mastodon.xyz/), which I was recently handed admin responsibility for
- fediverse.info: a newbies portal created by @dansup of PixelFed, Sup messenger, loops.video and other projects
- delightful.coding.social (formerly delighful.club): a curated set of lists, similar to Awesome Lists, but based in values of software freedom, community control, etc. Created by @aschrijver , who also did a great job of curating the fediverse.party wiki during my absence from the late 2020-2022
- joinfediverse.wiki: a knowledge base created by PaulatothePeople (@JoinFediverseWiki)
I was wondering if we could use the Murmurations protocol to automate the process of updating a bunch of info across each of all of these. So each fediverse project could have a Murmurations file on their homepage or repo server, and all the fediverse guides listed above could aggregate data from those files. When the devs of a project update their Murmurations file - ideally an automated process when they make changes where they normally would - every guide updates without its maintainers needing to notice and research the change, and update manually.
Side note: this got me to wondering if we could use Murmurations to replace or update NodeInfo?!?