@_jayrope

"simple" social problems do not exist - this problems are real ;-)

Demands, priorities and even understanding can be quid different as we know, but I did some research recently about the discussed goals of the so called "Federated Social Web". It is interesting and obvious that there are today - after 15 years of coding - just two project which come close to this goals. Both of this project do not use ActivityPub only... All Fedi Devs should just be honest and admit that... than we will see what can be done...

#FederatedSocialWeb

That was all they knew. And nobody told them otherwise because nobody else knew either.

(...)

So StatusNet wasn't really part of the #FederatedSocialWeb in practice.

According to my sources the story goes a bit different here - sorry for that @Jupiter Rowland

The "Federated Social Web" was an term founded and an initiative started by Evan Prodromou, the head and CEO behind #StatusNet #Ostaus and #IdentiCa. In July 2010 he tried to get together all active groups developing code specific to federation of the web. This happen to be just around the days as @Mike Macgirvin came around the corner with #DFRN. He got even invited to this "Federated Social Web" summit but i guess the way form Australia to Portland Oregon was a bit to long, for this short-term invitation.

There where some more "Federated Social Web" meetings and one result form Evans initiative was also the "W3C Federated Social Web Incubator Group" started on 15 December 2010 and transitioned on 12 January 2012 to the "W3C Federated Social Web Community Group". This group did all the basic work for the Activitypub definitions published 2018 https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

It appears that in all this meetings Mikes projects were never present. In all this "Federated Social Web" summits and follower up meeting all kinds of protocols, networks, platforms were discussed - but i read never about #Mistpark, #Friendica, #Hubzilla, #DFRN or #ZOT . But Evan and the others DEVs know about Mikes work for sure. For very sure - but they were following their own projects and ideas.

The OStatus support side was hard-coded for only this one instance because the devs believed that identi.ca was a monolithic walled garden just like Twitter.

Evan had always also some kind of businesses modes in mind and he got in August 2010 even $2.3 million. Dollars of Venture capital for the platform #status.net So the whole setting for this #FederatedSocialWeb initiative has to be seen also in this light.

And.... Guess who the chairman of the W3C Social Web Working Community Group was - Evan.

Now ... also the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was also just focused on OStatus and StatusNet. By 2009 a decision of the GNU social steering committee was made to built on top of the OStatus protocol and the StatusNet codebase a project called "GNU social". It's main goal was to deployable with a minimal hosting configuration. So GNU social got on the way and was finally around 2012/13 the successor of Laconica/StatusNet software.

Now we can understand a bit better that DFRN/ZOT/NOMAD projects were never considered later e.g. by the FSF. Today they use of coure Masto, the successor of GNU social.

Somehow the line of projects started with Mistpark got ignored by powerful institutions because advocates and proponent were missing here. In two weeks from today here in Cologne we will have a summit about the chances of free social networks, also organized by the Free Software Foundation Europe

https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230712-01.en.html

One of the speaks will be @Tobias. He has been a follower of Mikes projects since the very early days in 2011 and still is running a Friendica community hub and is working for the FSFE also as system administrator. He should know also a bit about #Hubzilla and #Streams and we can hope for sure that the word about Mike projects will be finally start to be spread :-)

I will report.

@Jupiter Rowland Ok there may be some fanboys who like to stick to what they just learned... but his does not explain the phenomenon for me why so many free Web/internet/IT activist stay on #Masto.

Well, there are few on #Friendica - but very very few on #Hubzilla or #streams.

Again.. not talking about the crowd here but about activist groups like #eff #fsfe #digitalcourage and individuals who fighting for freedom in the digital world. There must be an other reason. I assume they are all some how cough up in patterns which keeps same from moving... patterns you believe in can be quid strong... if you believe social media is by definition a public thing than you will like the app which gives you the most follower and spreads your word as fare as possible.

__

Thanks for your inside view on #StatusNet. I will do some more research. From that what i know so fare Evan Prodromou was very well involved in this #FederatedSocialWeb movement. According to this source #StatusNet and #Ostaus was subject for sure. Will try to dig deeper

@Jupiter Rowland

and what role did play Status.net in your #FederatedSocialWeb ?

@𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼
So you are saying all the talk and efforts about UX/UI brings us not closer to the essential points and is actually distracting us...
No, I'm saying that people come from #Mastodon straight to #Hubzilla in expectation of "Mastodon with #RichText and a 50,000-character limit". Just like they came from Twitter to Mastodon because they were promised "literally Twitter without Elon Musk".

Then they land flat on their faces. Hubzilla turns out to be nothing like Mastodon. It handles vastly differently. Nothing is where they'd expect it. No content warnings (because Hubzilla calls them summaries). No UI element for alt-text. It doesn't have an app. Mastodon apps don't work. And so forth. Hell, 95% of them even fail to connect to other Mastodon users because nobody tells them that they have to turn #Pubcrawl on first!

Verdict: Hubzilla sucks. And they're back to their cosy little Mastodon which was hard enough to get used to already. No ambitions to learn something wholly new yet again.

I still remember when #Friendica mimicked the UIs of Facebook and #Diaspora*. Maybe Hubzilla needs to adopt this again with UIs that mimic Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and the most popular Mastodon Web interfaces. Not only in looks, but even in handling as far as that's possible.

just did some studies about the term #FederatedSocialWeb and will post it in a new thread
The #FederatedSocialWeb was:

• Diaspora* for the clueless hipsters who had never heard of Friendica, and who were absolutely convinced that those four guys were the first to develop a decentralised social network
  
• Friendica for the geeks, the cool kids and alternative left-wing activists who had to use something obscure so that the authorities wouldn't discover their posts too easily
  
• the #RedMatrix for those few daredevils who a) knew about it, b) were willing to try it and c) actually had access to a Red Matrix instance

@Jupiter Rowland Thanks

So you are saying all the talk and efforts about UX/UI brings us not closer to the essential points and is actually distracting us...

UX/UI is a wrap up for raw functions - a surface - It can enable us to do things more easy - it can also nudge us to certain actions and also hide things way.

If UX/UI is keeping you from understanding and trying to do things by your self i would say there is something really wrong with the used UX/UI

I like Hubzilla so much because it actually enables us to do so many things...and we can also easy brake up the surface and tweak things... well not everybody can do this but the tools to try are implemented - and that is essential

Open Source project will never have the resources like the IT Industry has to invest in a really good UX/UI

In a world where iPhone are still an object of desire a project like streams can't be expected to find the crowd - but more free Web activists should us it instead of Masto.

just did some studies about the term #FederatedSocialWeb and will post it in a new thread

@𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼 Well, first they had a problem with #Mastodon not having the exact same UX as X. Then they had one with #Hubzilla not having the exact same UX as Mastodon.

Also, sure, today's #Fediverse is nothing like the old #FederatedSocialWeb.

10 years ago, the Federated Social Web was for geeks plus left-wing activists. #Friendica was the centre of the world. We didn't know whether we should pity or laugh at #Diaspora. And everyone was on desktop #Linux, and #Apple was evil incarnate.

Today, the Fediverse is for just about everyone. Mastodon is not only the centre of the world to the point that many spend up to half a year believing it is the Fediverse proper. People are pining for #Bluesky invites. And everyone's on an #iPhone and gushing over the #VisionPro.