Social Web Foundation:

The Social Web Foundation works to grow this new ecosystem in an open, healthy, and sustainable way—working with technologists and the public to build a new global town square that works for everyone.

This looks very interesting. I’m going to be honest, though, even though I know this is petty: I’m insulted that Micro.blog wasn’t given a heads-up about this before launch. We’ve only supported ActivityPub since 2018. 🤪

Nick

on top of that you’re the first person I ever heard use the very term Social Web lol

Pelle Wessman

@manton I’m a bit insulted that it seems to be exclusively ActivityPub tech, I like the Social WG that preceded it and which also standardized MicroPub, Webmention, WebSub

ActivityPub is important and interoperability is important – but this foundation seems to consider it as the one tech to rule all the social?

I’m not so keen on that

Manton Reece

@voxpelli I agree, a broader scope would be good, or maybe the “Fediverse Foundation” instead if it is more narrowly ActivityPub. But naming is hard.

Pelle Wessman

@manton Or “ActivityPub Foundation” if it’s a foundation to push ActivityPub based tech, as then anything IndieWeb, BlueSky or other tech is by definition excluded

Evan Prodromou

@voxpelli @manton There are plenty of other organizations working on other protocols. If you would like to support them, you should definitely go ahead. This one is the foundation to support the expansion and improvement of the Fediverse, built on ActivityPub.

Pelle Wessman

@evan @manton Why picking a name that indicates that it’s something more than that then?

And what went wrong with the plurality of tech in the Social WG? Maybe there’s an FAQ that puts this new foundation in its historical context and explains why it needed to be different?

Pelle Wessman

@evan @manton Also: Any non-companies involved or is this an organization to push commercial adoption or are also independent developers like @manton (and eg. me) relevant to it? I mostly see big company logos?

Matthias Pfefferle

@voxpelli @evan @manton

> The founders are supported by advisors from the social networking world including Chris Messina, Kaliya (Identity Woman) Young and Johannes Ernst, as well as companies and Open Source projects that have implemented ActivityPub...

Evan Prodromou

@voxpelli I'd definitely love to see @manton become a supporter. I'll reach out to him; thanks for the suggestion.

Evan Prodromou

@manton I'm sorry. This is on me. I've been reaching out to implementers directly and although I know about your work I didn't have you on our list. I'll reach out privately and we'll see what we can do to correct that.

Pelle Wessman

@pfefferle @evan @manton Not sure if those Open Source projects that are referred to are projects like Mastodon and WordPress or projects done by smaller independent developers that don’t have dedicated people working in standards groups etc

Manton Reece

@evan Thanks, no worries. I don’t usually feel entitled to be included anywhere, but that was just my honest initial reaction. Also added the 🤪 so hopefully people don’t take it too seriously. Best of luck.

Manton Reece

@voxpelli @evan It’s a really interesting conversation about how we define “social web”. I’m with the broader definition to include other protocols. That’s not this foundation’s goal, and that’s fine too, but there are side effects… I need to think more about this.

witchescauldron

@evan @manton

Would be good to get a link to the #openprocess involved in setting this up, like to have an idea how "native" these things are, we do need to mediate mess... not saying this #NGO aproch is not needed, just like to know the process that created it.

Evan Prodromou

@manton No, it's valid. Mea culpa.

Pelle Wessman

@rscottjones @manton @evanprodromou Yeah, yet in the announcement they define it as:

“The “social web”, also called the “Fediverse”, is a network of independent social platforms connected with the open standard protocol ActivityPub.”

socialwebfoundation.org/2024/0

That’s just inaccurate, the primary social web is still Facebook, Twitter, Reddit

Pedro Corá

I was puzzled when I saw the website and no mentions to Micro.blog or you.

Pelle Wessman

@evan @manton Has projects like @LemmyDev, @manyfold or such been approached?

Pelle Wessman

@manton @evan I do wonder though if some non-ActivityPub specs that are essential to Mastodon/Fediverse are still in scope for @socialwebfdn? Like eg. WebFinger?

Manton Reece @manton
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