@seachanger @jenniferplusplus @scott
Group work is one of the fundamental goals and design challenges of not just programming language but of the entire software development ecosystem. This basic fact is one of the best-kept secrets in software, to the point that a lot of developers don’t even realize it!
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Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:31 JST Paul Cantrell
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:32 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@jenniferplusplus @scott idk if computer languages can be specifically designed for group work but that would make it easier to keep the whole thing updated and moving forward idk (sorry I’m totally not a tech person)
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:33 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@jenniferplusplus @scott like as a non tech person I feel like I encounter a lot of siloed personal projects on here? maybe you succeed with one like the fire fish guy or whatever but then what happens when you flame out and leave everyone in the lurch? go fast alone or farther together right
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:34 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@jenniferplusplus @scott gotcha. As a non tech person, here’s what I’d look for in a masto-alt
1. easiest and most fun for volunteers to plug in to and help with, including young people
2. designed around safety and moderation
3. buildable in the near term
4. Hmm not sure yet
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Jenniferplusplus (jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:35 JST Jenniferplusplus
@seachanger @scott I more meant alternatives to mastodon, but I'm a little biased towards that path. I think there are technical limits to what can be done with forks, and I don't expect Eugen to respond to that. But I could be wrong
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:36 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@jenniferplusplus @scott that’s a good point! Ha ha - so when you say “supporting servers with features you want” do you mean tweaking mastodon servers? and maybe being the tail that wags the dog that way?
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Jenniferplusplus (jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:37 JST Jenniferplusplus
@seachanger @scott it seems like Eugen responds to competitive pressure. He's really focused on first party mobile apps right now. Supporting servers with features you want seems like the best way to shift his focus to that. And if it doesn't work, you still have more developed servers with features you want
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:38 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@jenniferplusplus @scott easy to shoot for the moon and either get nowhere or even drag the whole project backwards as you contribute yet another unfinished project or lofty kickstarter with no real plan etc
Actually seems like a solid first step would be to compile an overview of all the big failures and look kinda closely at those
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Jenniferplusplus (jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:39 JST Jenniferplusplus
@seachanger @scott so, this is a social problem, but it's rooted in the influence that Eugen has due to how widely deployed mastodon is. And that is addressable from a technical angle. I'm building alternative software, and there's a couple other serious projects also doing that. Contributing to one of those would help. Another option would be to build migration tooling to let existing servers go from mastodon to something else.
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:39 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@jenniferplusplus @scott seems like theres a question of scale and scope. are we looking to kind of improve a little bit in the near term? Or set up a way better system for the longer term?
Eugen is slow and annoying but he also seems to be kind of thorough and is actually still following through - that’s not nothing in this world
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scott f (scott@carfree.city)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:41 JST scott f
@seachanger probably. see you in august 2025 to have it again 👋
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:41 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott ha ha, well i do feel like i understand the terrain a lot better, which makes me slightly more willing to be an organizer in this space. also Erin and Darius's paper is out now, IFTAS has gained steam, and the need is still painfully there
i like your idea of starting with existing servers and perhaps outlining common needs/goals
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:42 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott scott this is a deja vu of a convo we had a year or two ago right
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:43 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott a Union of Concerned Servers, as it were
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scott f (scott@carfree.city)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:44 JST scott f
@seachanger i was envisioning a "small servers council" that like, meets on videoconferencing to discuss what we want to see, and how we might achieve it. maybe north america specific for time zone reasons
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:45 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott but if the goal was just:
develop some flagship servers that embody everything we want to see in mastodon, and then follow through with maintaining them and attempt to get some larger funding happening (and/or an easy user subscription fee or something idk)
i would be down to organize
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scott f (scott@carfree.city)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:46 JST scott f
@seachanger while you're absolutely right, i think within that there's a lot we can do. a lot of people might donate labor or contribute to crowdfunding campaigns with the right structure.
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:46 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott the process of coming up with that structure, following through with it over the long term, and managing different personalities within it is not for the faint of heart. i would help tho! lol wahhhhhhhhhh
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:47 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott
you know, all roads point to this tension in which the demands of a modern internet user are just very expensive.bluesky scooted around all these problems by getting a huge cash infusion from jack dorsey, and unclear what they're gonna do when the money runs out
without a similar huge infusion to our hypothetical project, its hard to compete right
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scott f (scott@carfree.city)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:48 JST scott f
@seachanger yeah that's mainly what i want it for
i was telling a friend recently that while part of me wants to use my tech skills to just jump in and start coding, i think it's a social problem first. extending ActivityPub to allow limiting replies is not technically difficult (a Mastodon dev outlined how it might work; GoToSocial is doing it and has documented how their extension works)
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scott f (scott@carfree.city)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:48 JST scott f
@seachanger social problems being:
1) how do we fund this work to improve anti-abuse/moderation?
2) how do we ensure that a critical mass of fedi users have access to software that supports the improvements (be that a Mastodon fork, or a different project like GTS, or just client apps that know what to do when they encounter a non-replyable post)?
3) more generally, bc Mastodon is open source, in theory we shouldn't be blocked by the Mastodon nonprofit's bad priorities; why are we in practice? -
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:49 JST wet forest moon folklorist
@scott just picking up on the multiple signs pointing to a need for a fun and user friendly outpost in the fediverse that is not controlled by eugen, is capable of responding to user requests relatively quickly, and takes moderation very seriously
tho tbh i'm disheartened by people telling me activity pub will not allow the turning off of replies, so is it worth it idk
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scott f (scott@carfree.city)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:50 JST scott f
@seachanger ok i have ideas about this but curious what you mean by flagship here? and what needs do you anticipate this filling?
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wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)'s status on Sunday, 01-Sep-2024 03:18:51 JST wet forest moon folklorist
i think we need our own consortium of flagship servers
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