With quote posts we are able to shape our own micro #wiki's within our timelines and those of others, buld social graphs (technosphere) and navigate social fabric (socioshere) ..
What might we be be able to weave if the #ActivityPub #LinkedData aspects were used to their full extent and benefit?
Social semantic fabrics.
The current fediverse is an evolutionary dead-end for 2 reasons:
1. It has painted itself in a small niche of decentralizing typical social media use cases, by means of post-facto interop and the introduction of protocol decay.
2. Lacking a proper grassroots standardization process, and with the primary mechanism for fediverse extension being only post-facto interoperability, there is no way out.
Congratulations to the early adopters, who managed to "cross the chasm" with their own app platforms. It took true grit to become deep #ActivityPub experts, and plug holes needed for your app, but you have made it. Post-facto interop works in your favor now. You are unrestrained to productively add more features in your app, and put them on the fedi wire for others to deal with.
To avoid fedi to become less and less attractive to newcomers, we must now consider:
“Why do we want to grow the open social web, and for whom?” -- @ben
Totally! Cities should have their own tools. I find the whole #SmartCity trend to be dystopic #SurveillanceCapitalism driven, from what I've seen of it. Large corporations in the driver seat, plenty #BigTech, and a general 'drive for control' by technical means, rather than creating and evolving vibrant and safe living spaces by social means and encouragement of close participation of local residents in sustaining that.
It is hard to find sustenance to focus on the important applied R&D in the more social areas, with most #funding and support reserved for the cold hard tech side. While tech can only ever be supportive of "true social". It must address people's needs.
I'm biased but think its urgent to #fund initiatives like Social coding commons and #SX for fedi to stave off existential challenges. I approached @nlnet among others. Current #EU mandate by @EUCommission for @ngi results in a tech-first "code it and they will come", not a peopleverse.
Oww, that is interesting. See here what brought me to the #ActivityPub fediverse ages ago on IT timescales..
Read the blog post, and these are astute observation and valuable way of thinking about the networking environment, both offline as well as online, and how they interact together, how they intertwine. #SX envisions a peopleverse (which is a concept, not a name), a hypothetical space where the interaction is seamless and technology unobtrusively serves our day to day needs.
#PersonalSocialNetworking is a powerful instrument to design better social experiences.
Often the talk of the town in the #ActivityPub dev circles is about some feature or other, an app functionality and the extent to which it can be made interoperable. Technical implementation details dominate the discussion. And drama ensues on the broader #fediverse if social impact and other externalities are overlooked in an app design.
When comparing #microblogging we have today, it really is like sticky notes on the fridge, which fall off or are removed by people. And we project all communication modes onto them.
@johannab No, not at all snarky. 💕
What is so interesting is to discern between the technical and social, and I think that most people have a very functional-technical perspective of what it means to communicate online, so to say. Consider it merely as extra channels to interact with others, more choice to connect.
But of course our online social network is much more than merely a channel, and we have to 'project our social' somehow over these thin copper and fiberglass wires, while we try to make sense and interpret the social signals that come from other remote places.
I think we underestimate the impact of communicating online, and the narrow 'social bandwidth' that our current networking tools support. Then we translate online situations to how we would behave offline and get wrong expectations, misconceptions, and subequenctly miscommunications.
We are still all youngers online, still all learning the ropes, while we do social networking offline for 1,000's of years already.
@johannab I for my part are very happy you find this interesting. Addressing the social side is not the most popular among developer-heavy crowds :)
Feel welcome to participate in our matrix channels or forum. The latter serves as a note-taking tool, or - under SX definition - as a commons based prosperity vault, aggregating value over time as people leave their 2 cents.
Note the SX Mindfulness principle of Social coding commons.. the movement moves, or it pauses awaiting value aggregation by the next participant. Timeless. Everything hinges on proactive participation (and on the basis of intrinsic motivation following Hedonic peer production principles).
I am mentioning, as at the moment the movement is slow-moving, since I am looking for income to sustain my work in the commons. In other words I must let the SX Sustainability principle prevail now :)
Here a link to the core principles of Social experience design:
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#core-principles
RE: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116154415408228188
I think we also have to be careful and gauge the extent to which we get informed on problems by the way we shaped our own bubble / echo chamber over time.
Today for instance I sent a poll and got astoundingly and delightful positive responses on how people experience #fediverse..
I intend to follow up with another poll. But the poll results already show a new paradigm of social networking that #fediverse which Social experience design calls #PersonalSocialNetworking. On the fedi you are in control over your own #SocialExperience by carefully curating your social graph.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking
Here's that poll btw, which will run for 6 more days. Curious about the final results.
With quote posts we are able to shape our own micro #wiki's within our timelines and those of others, buld social graphs (technosphere) and navigate social fabric (socioshere) ..
What might we be be able to weave if the #ActivityPub #LinkedData aspects were used to their full extent and benefit?
Social semantic fabrics.
@maikel that is a great list of points. I won't boost, or you get more of what you don't want, but you might consider filing a fediverse idea..
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediverse-ideas/issues
Some of these can be mitigated by nurturing cultural habits.
> 6. The worst one: people use other names instead to call them so filters don't work.
This one in particular. Besides references to toxic people you see it too with folks saying Gaggle, GMAFIA, Farcebook, etc.
Often these names are used in someone's "activism package", but using them is imho more performative to an existing in-group than that they constructively appeal to others and persuade them to join the good cause.
I posted something related to this today. See CALM culture in..
The acronym also litterally means that our social media culture becomes calmer, and there's better separation to where there's activism, and where the natural talk of the town.
@draNgNon thanks, some very good food for thought.
I think the crucial point is that we do not know and do not offer proper ways to deal with different modes of communication, esp. if the only medium channel constitutes a stream of sticky notes, such as we have here in this #microblogging space.
On the first point, when is something an #EchoChamber vs. a healthy interest area, I think depends how well one is able to cross the 'membranes' of all the various social contexts and information spaces one navigates online, as it were.
There should be a place for 'influencing' to an extent if only to reach your crowd and build community and such. But all in balance and proportion and clear social context preferably. Non-profits and #activist groups want to influence, we may want to be informed.
To the last point. There's urgency to address the dark world situation, and either organize or lose. #SX defines #CALMculture as a way to engage in constructive #activism..
Een sidestep.. Het valt me op dat bijna niemand op de fediverse meer boost. Een boost is een schaars goed, en op zich is dat een gunstige ontwikkeling die aansluit bi het Personal social networking paradigma van SX. Maar voor orgs en mensen die een goede boodschap willen overdragen naar een groter publiek, zoals ook CEDO, is het geen goede zaak. Er moet een goede balans zijn, waarbij ook non-profits en actie groepen het gevoel hebben nut te behalen dmv campagnes i.p.v. tijdrovende friend-of-a-friend netwerk opbouw.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking
Glimmers of hope in dark times, #fediverse!
Look at the #delightful responses to this #poll asking how people experience our emerging fedi..
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116154415408228188
A #SocialMedia landscape of small villages, scattered with occasional larger cities, is the general perception thus far and that is a wonderful difference when contrasting to corporate ad-driven influencer-dominated platforms we have today.
It would be nice if some of the people who voted Ghost Town gave their impression and needs they have wrt the fediverse.. cc @mikeymikey
Also ghost-towners, check out @FediThing reply to the poll's thread:
https://social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/116159075105561569
And @nicol reply at:
https://social.coop/@nicol/116159026520231736
If you didn't vote yet, do so now. And consider adding your boost. It is literally about uplifting our online social universe. 🌻
Een sidestep.. Het valt me op dat bijna niemand op de fediverse meer boost. Een boost is een schaars goed, en op zich is dat een gunstige ontwikkeling die aansluit bi het Personal social networking paradigma van SX. Maar voor orgs en mensen die een goede boodschap willen overdragen naar een groter publiek, zoals ook CEDO, is het geen goede zaak. Er moet een goede balans zijn, waarbij ook non-profits en actie groepen het gevoel hebben nut te behalen dmv campagnes i.p.v. tijdrovende friend-of-a-friend netwerk opbouw.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking
@unattributed exactly.
I practiced myself in avoidance of the term, and found that to be refreshing and lending a different perspective.
"Users" carries an aspect of depersonalization, but also implies an ownership relationship that creeps into the developers thinking, and even where the noble ones say "I serve MY users" it has consequences to the entire dynamics around software dynamics, and how the solution deliverable is able to serve the needs of different stakeholder groups.
Social experience design focusses on needs-based development and starts to consider problem statements first for all identified stakeholders in the solution delivery process.
For fediverse I use #fedizens on occasion, the residents of the fedi universe.
@unattributed exactly.
I practiced myself in avoidance of the term, and found that to be refreshing and lending a different perspective.
"Users" carries an aspect of depersonalization, but also implies an ownership relationship that creeps into the developers thinking, and even where the noble ones say "I serve MY users" it has consequences to the entire dynamics around software dynamics, and how the solution deliverable is able to serve the needs of different stakeholder groups.
Social experience design focusses on needs-based development and starts to consider problem statements first for all identified stakeholders in the solution delivery process.
For fediverse I use #fedizens on occasion, the residents of the fedi universe.
Even more than Gleam community the AS/AP based fediverse faces existential threats where it comes to the promise to lead us towards "the future of social networking", a peopleverse. And #AI poses high danger risks that must be known, so we can anticipate and mitigate them timely.
But above all we have to find ways to constructively collaborate with each in this chaotic grassroots environment we are part of.
#Collaboration and #cocreation at scale, organic growth and sustainable evolution are applied research areas of Social coding commons, where participants add value while working on their own solutions, following their self-interests in alignment with those of other people
To folks who are interested in the general subject matter I addressed above, I recommend watching the talk given by Michiel Leenaars of @nlnet at #FOSDEM last month:
"FOSS in times of war, scarcity and (adversarial) AI" by @michiel
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/FE7ULY-foss-in-times-of-war-scarcity-and-ai/
Whatever we think of #AI / #LLM mad hype cycle, we have to deal with its rushed and inhumane dumping of the technology into global human society.
#CALMculture is a strategic approach to that allows activist voices to have the most impact in dealing with the dangers of disruptive technology introductions, and focuses beyond berating people and demanding sacrifice ("don't use, or else.."), to creating a process that helps win people over and work together on best outcomes and in direction of solutions.
#CALM stands for Constructive activism-led movements, such as Social coding commons. Coding is social, and #SocialCoding the holistic approach to ensure that.
Social coding commons evolves Social experience design or #SX, solution development for grassroots movements, supported by the #SocialWeb.
In the thread below I copied a post to #Gleam's community with a suggestion to ponder about best outcomes from current and ongoing AI disruption, and deal with risks.
https://discuss.coding.social/t/calm-culture-to-ensure-best-outcomes-to-ai-disruption/831
The current fediverse is an evolutionary dead-end for 2 reasons:
1. It has painted itself in a small niche of decentralizing typical social media use cases, by means of post-facto interop and the introduction of protocol decay.
2. Lacking a proper grassroots standardization process, and with the primary mechanism for fediverse extension being only post-facto interoperability, there is no way out.
Congratulations to the early adopters, who managed to "cross the chasm" with their own app platforms. It took true grit to become deep #ActivityPub experts, and plug holes needed for your app, but you have made it. Post-facto interop works in your favor now. You are unrestrained to productively add more features in your app, and put them on the fedi wire for others to deal with.
To avoid fedi to become less and less attractive to newcomers, we must now consider:
“Why do we want to grow the open social web, and for whom?” -- @ben
Note btw, that for the most part algorithms are not causing the issue of bad integrations between apps. These are due to the pragmatic nature in which our current app-centric fediverse evolves, i.e. by means of post-facto interoperability. Here app developers focus on getting app features on the wire, and whomever first succeeds in making their new custom protocol extension to become popular, becomes the de-facto standard for that feature. And everyone else should "follow the leader" or push themselves out of mainstream fediverse adoption, into their own app niche.
This is not a sustainable path, and I am among years-long advocates that we should do better in how we collectively evolve the fedi, so that it can truly become the social networking of the future. See also my posts from last week, like:
RE: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116154415408228188
I think we also have to be careful and gauge the extent to which we get informed on problems by the way we shaped our own bubble / echo chamber over time.
Today for instance I sent a poll and got astoundingly and delightful positive responses on how people experience #fediverse..
I intend to follow up with another poll. But the poll results already show a new paradigm of social networking that #fediverse which Social experience design calls #PersonalSocialNetworking. On the fedi you are in control over your own #SocialExperience by carefully curating your social graph.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking
Here's that poll btw, which will run for 6 more days. Curious about the final results.
I used to say online vs real world in the past, but switched to deliberaty saying online / offline. Guess that people saying "real world" often hold it against the notion of "virtual world" for our internet cyberspace in their mind's eye, then just say "online".
There is an issue with online vs. offline though, I think. Many people view them just as 'channels'. We have this extra channel to communicate, so now we can be social there, in addiiton to offline. Case closed.
But this is overlooking and underestimating the impact of online communication vs. what we know and do in the "real world". Social norms, habits and culture we are very used to, isn't adopted 1-to-1 online. It isn't all-the-same-but-digital, in significant ways. A world of behavioral differences making online vs offline like different worlds almost, where the rules change.
In IM chat for instance it is relatively common to not answer when queried.
SX defines the concept of a Grassroots open standard, and a domain of Grassroots standardization.
These are direly needed to be able to healthily evolve #ActivityPub to where it can be the future of social networking, and support a peopleverse.
@fox @silverpill @raphael @julian @mariusor
Yes. I tooted about the need for Grassroots open standards and Grassroots standardization this morning..
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116147786851664068
In a decentralized grassroots movement, somewhere there needs to an aggregation of the solution artifact. In this case a robust, comprehensible #ActivityPub standard that can be readily implemented in libraries, frameworks and SDK's upon which then subsequently #SocialNetworking solution design can take place.
This is not centralization, this artifact can be federated. But there must be a place of convergence where consensus on protocol design comes together.
There might be a crowdsourced ActivityPub 2.0 specs + documentation site, plus a process around it to make it work.
Noting a small likely unintentional side effect of the ability to edit #Microblog posts on the fediverse..
It enables would-be influencers to use that as a growth-hacking tactic in their arsenal. Whereby editing a post some time after it was published, will serve to remind all people who interacted with it before (by receiving the 'edited' notification). And for those who only favorited another stimulus and opportunity to boost the post as well.
#SX #SocialCoding #ActivityPub #Microblogging #fediverse #SocialWeb
Noting a small likely unintentional side effect of the ability to edit #Microblog posts on the fediverse..
It enables would-be influencers to use that as a growth-hacking tactic in their arsenal. Whereby editing a post some time after it was published, will serve to remind all people who interacted with it before (by receiving the 'edited' notification). And for those who only favorited another stimulus and opportunity to boost the post as well.
#SX #SocialCoding #ActivityPub #Microblogging #fediverse #SocialWeb
