hallenbeck
hallenbeck  ·  2 weeks ago
It is things like this that make the #Fediverse so excitingly fresh, fragrant, and full of energy, like that first warm day of spring. So many possibilities. So much potential for creation.

https://millsfield.sfomuseum.org/blog/2024/03/12/activitypub/

Decentralised social media (with emphasis placed alternately on those words), deserves so much more than attempting to be Just Another VC-backed Twitter Clone.

#Fediverse#ActivityPub#SocialMedia

1) Establish a social-media presence and platform that the Museum controls which can play nicely with larger commercial social media platforms but is independent of those same platforms. This is important because those platforms can (and often do) make decisions which adversely affect the Museum’s ability to reach its audiences and/or pursue policies that do not square with the goals and values of the airport or the City. 2) Provide a platform where the Museum can experiment with the ability to create targeted or subject-specific social media accounts for individual staff members, entire departments, artists or lenders whose work is on display or even inanimate objects like galleries or public art works, all under the “umbrella” of the Museum’s own Mastodon, or equivalent ActivityPub, instance. For example, people who travel in and out of T2 could subscribe to @boomerang-gallery@social.sfomuseum.org which, in turn, would broadcast an announcement when a new exhibition is installed. Note: The “@boomerang-gallery@social.sfomuseum.org” account does not exist…yet.
1) Establish a social-media presence and platform that the Museum controls which can play nicely with larger commercial social media platforms but is independent of those same platforms. This is important because those platforms can (and often do) make decisions which adversely affect the Museum’s ability to reach its audiences and/or pursue policies that do not square with the goals and values of the airport or the City. 2) Provide a platform where the Museum can experiment with the ability to create targeted or subject-specific social media accounts for individual staff members, entire departments, artists or lenders whose work is on display or even inanimate objects like galleries or public art works, all under the “umbrella” of the Museum’s own Mastodon, or equivalent ActivityPub, instance. For example, people who travel in and out of T2 could subscribe to @boomerang-gallery@social.sfomuseum.org which, in turn, would broadcast an announcement when a new exhibition is installed. Note: The “@boomerang-gallery@social.sfomuseum.org” account does not exist…yet.
1) Establish a social-media presence and platform that the Museum controls which can play nicely with larger commercial social media platforms but is independent of those same platforms. This is important because those platforms can (and often do) make decisions which adversely affect the Museum’s ability to reach its audiences and/or pursue policies that do not square with the goals and values of the airport or the City. 2) Provide a platform where the Museum can experiment with the ability to create targeted or subject-specific social media accounts for individual staff members, entire departments, artists or lenders whose work is on display or even inanimate objects like galleries or public art works, all under the “umbrella” of the Museum’s own Mastodon, or equivalent ActivityPub, instance. For example, people who travel in and out of T2 could subscribe to @boomerang-gallery@social.sfomuseum.org which, in turn, would broadcast an announcement when a new exhibition is installed. Note: The “@boomerang-gallery@social.sfomuseum.org” account does not exist…yet.
Hrefna (DHC)
Hrefna (DHC)  ·  2 weeks ago
Once again.

#ActivityPub does not do what people confidently like to assert that it does.

AP:

* Does not allow you to communicate with others using AP.
* Does not, even when fully implemented and correctly implemented (which it is not and I don't actually think is worthwhile given the amount of work involved), allow you to communicate with others using AP.
* Does not give you the ability to use the same _clients_.

I keep seeing these justifications again and again.
https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/113204451552765782

Hrefna (DHC)
Hrefna (DHC)  ·  2 weeks ago
As I have said before.

#ActivityPub _is not a protocol_ in its base form. It is a _family_ of protocols that are not mutually intelligible.

The reason it seems like it is mutually intelligible is because of a great deal of hard work from a lot of skilled volunteers dedicating their time to make things work together and to make it so that systems can talk to each other.

But that's not something you get out of the box.

Hrefna (DHC)
Hrefna (DHC)  ·  2 weeks ago
Once again.

#ActivityPub does not do what people confidently like to assert that it does.

AP:

* Does not allow you to communicate with others using AP.
* Does not, even when fully implemented and correctly implemented (which it is not and I don't actually think is worthwhile given the amount of work involved), allow you to communicate with others using AP.
* Does not give you the ability to use the same _clients_.

I keep seeing these justifications again and again.
https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/113204451552765782

Matthew G. 🏳️‍🌈 🏴‍☠️ ⛦ 🤘
Matthew G. 🏳️‍🌈 🏴‍☠️ ⛦ 🤘  ·  2 weeks ago
This is your occasional reminder that you can have a social web without #activitypub.

People were doing it on #Geocities in 1996, and they didn't have #Google or #RSS, either.

Hell, the social internet predates all this bullshit, too, as bix points out in this post.

https://bix.blog/posts/holy-hell-the-social-web-did-not-begin-in-2008

They have my condolences for having drawn the attention of #HackerNews and #Lemmy; they're very silly places, especially HN, which is basically College Republicans who majored in CS at Stanford.

Flipboard
Flipboard  ·  2 weeks ago
⭐️This Week's Featured Voices on Flipboard⭐️
You can now discover climate experts from Mastodon and Threads on Flipboard. These six influential voices are featured in our Community tab this week:

@kathhayhoe
@renewable_energy_club
@globalecoguy
@MichaelEMann
@britishantarcticsurvey
@stshank

Follow their accounts in the app to see their photography right alongside content from your favorite publishers. If you miss them in the tab, you can always search for their accounts on Flipboard.

Download the Flipboard app to check it out:

https://about.flipboard.com/download-flipboard/

#Flipboard#Federation#ActivityPub#ClimateChange#Science#Environment#Fediverse#MastodonMigration

A video of the Flipboard community tab. The words: Climate Experts from Threads and Mastodon to Follow are at the top, and the subhead is These experts in the most important issue of our time — the climate crisis — can now be follow directly from your Flipboard. Below is a headshot of Dr. Katharine Hayhoe with her name across it.
Steve Bate
Steve Bate  ·  2 weeks ago
The Foundation: "The Fediverse, also known as the social web, is a network of independent social platforms connected by the open standard protocol ActivityPub."

I strongly disagree that #ActivityPub, the Fediverse and the social web are synonymous. I think that's a divisive and inaccurate claim and I hope the Foundation will reconsider that position.

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
i think this disconnect between #ActivityPub and #fediverse honestly goes a lot deeper than people might realize. and that is because the problem AP tries to solve is actually completely different from what fedi is trying to do.

the concept of a nebulous but mostly singular "network" or "protocol" (made up of partially overlapping parts) is core to what i'll call "fedi mindset". the assumption is that you can join the fedi "network" by implementing the fedi "protocol". and that AP is this.

3/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
but this assumption starts to break down when you look a little closer.

first, consider #ActivityPub C2S. why is there close to zero usage of this in #fediverse software? simple: it doesn't solve any needs for building a "network" "protocol".

now consider S2S. why are there zero compliant impls in fedi? because AP as specified doesn't address the needs of fedi. what does fedi need? well, i find it telling that the "real" reason AP was adopted was... to implement followers-only posts.

4/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
but before you build a "protocol" for a "network", consider: what even is a "network", in this context? and, here's the hot take: do you even *want* that kind of "network"? do you want a separate reified #fediverse network?

because the answer that #ActivityPub gives is actually a different one. There is no "AP network", because AP as a protocol is not enough to build a concrete network. it is intended to provide, and exists in context of, the larger #Web.

8/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
this is the fundamental divide between #fediverse thinking and #Web thinking, where #ActivityPub straddles the line between both.

i've seen it said that the "open-world assumption" at the foundation of the Web is actually an undesirable thing for a "social networking protocol", and as a consequence, specs built on that open-world assumption are "completely unsuitable" for that "protocol".

but do we need a "social networking protocol"? do we even need "social networks" in the first place?

9/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
which is to say: the primary reason that #ActivityPub is used (to the extent you can say it is being used at all) in the #fediverse is mostly historical.

fedi grew out of a long line of open protocols, and before AP was adopted, it was at the point where people primarily used "activity streams" as their vocabulary and data model, stuffed into atom feeds. atom feeds don't do private posts unless you make an entirely new access-controlled feed, possibly with a token of some sort. hence, AS2.

5/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
but beyond that, what does #ActivityPub actually do for #fediverse as a "network" "protocol"? basically nothing. you have a basic mechanism for delivering activities directly to subscribers, but no specified shape or structure for that payload. and you still need a lot of other specs to end up with something that talks to the "network". even with AS2 vocab, you need more vocab extensions to express things you want to.

simply put, AP is not enough for a "protocol" to build a "network".

7/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
but before you build a "protocol" for a "network", consider: what even is a "network", in this context? and, here's the hot take: do you even *want* that kind of "network"? do you want a separate reified #fediverse network?

because the answer that #ActivityPub gives is actually a different one. There is no "AP network", because AP as a protocol is not enough to build a concrete network. it is intended to provide, and exists in context of, the larger #Web.

8/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
when #ActivityPub was being standardized alongside AS2 it basically had two compelling reasons for what would become the #fediverse to adopt it:

- it was built on AS2, which was an evolution of AS1, which was already being used. so it wasn't hard to make the jump.

- it made followers-only posts possible, because while atom feeds *could* do this, it was wildly inconvenient to actually do it that way. posting something private to an inbox is a lot simpler, no juggling access control tokens.

6/?

infinite love ⴳ
infinite love ⴳ  ·  2 weeks ago
but beyond that, what does #ActivityPub actually do for #fediverse as a "network" "protocol"? basically nothing. you have a basic mechanism for delivering activities directly to subscribers, but no specified shape or structure for that payload. and you still need a lot of other specs to end up with something that talks to the "network". even with AS2 vocab, you need more vocab extensions to express things you want to.

simply put, AP is not enough for a "protocol" to build a "network".

7/?

Erlend Sogge Heggen
Erlend Sogge Heggen  ·  2 weeks ago
“Some folks have gotten themselves together as something they’re calling the Social Web Foundation, and I’ll cut to the chase: this is an attempt by #ActivityPub partisans to rebrand the confusing “fediverse” terminology, and in the process, regardless of intent, shit on everything else that’s been the social web going back twenty-five years.”

https://bix.blog/posts/holy-hell-the-social-web-did-not-begin-in-2008

While they’re harsh words, I hope @swf will receive this earnest feedback with grace and reconsider its positioning accordingly.

Sean Tilley
Sean Tilley  ·  2 weeks ago
Look, I’m going to be completely honest. Some aspects of today’s events, and some elements leading up to it, have given me bad vibes. I’m not trying to assasinate Evan’s character or make him look like a bad person, but I want to characterize some of the dynamic problems I’m seeing from coopting “The Social Web” as a term, and equating it, #Fediverse, and #ActivityPub as all one-and-the-same.

I might get flamed for sharing this, but I have to be honest about what I really think, and why I have some problems stomaching how things are happening.

https://deadsuperhero.com/2024/09/swf-icky-feeling/

Marian Dörk
Marian Dörk  ·  2 weeks ago
the launch of the social web foundation @swf is an exciting step for developing the fediverse further – in a time when it seems to be stalling!

three things that are sending an off-beat kind of vibe:

1) their fedi handle seems broken in a regular browser (see image)
2) so far they just posted things on X and Threads
3) Meta is one of the founding partners

#SocialWebFoundation#Fediverse#ActivityPub

fediverse_user
fediverse_user  ·  2 weeks ago
The Social Web Foundation launched today. This non-profit is dedicated to making connections between social platforms with ActivityPub, and was co-founded by @evan @mallory and @tomcoates.

The foundation's focus is educating the public and policy makers about the social web, enhancing and extending the ActivityPub protocol, and building tools and plumbing to make the social web easier to use. “With this program, The Social Web Foundation can catalyze more growth on the Fediverse while improving user experience and safety,” says Prodromou. “Our goal is to unblock users, developers and communities so they can get the most out of their social web experience.”

We are proud to support the work of the foundation. Read more about the it here:

https://socialwebfoundation.org/

#ActivityPub#Federation#Fediverse#OpenSocialWeb#SocialWebFoundation#SpreadMastodon