Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:22:09 JST Erin 💽✨
   Between FediForum and now the Social Web Foundation I'm very tired of seeing these intensely corporate initiatives in this space where the majority of projects are entirely volunteer (or grant supported) efforts
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:30:12 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Renaud Chaput

     @renchap @erincandescent I'm glad Mastodon joined up as a launch partner and supporter of the Social Web Foundation; thank you. I agree that supporting Fediverse creators and developers is paramount.

   • Embed this notice
     Renaud Chaput (renchap@oisaur.com)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:30:14 JST Renaud Chaput

     in reply to

     @erincandescent if this brings money and financial stability to contributors and implementors then I am all for it. But so far I have not seen this happening. For example there are no companies working on Mastodon or sending significant resources towards it, except the Mastodon where we try to hire people full-time.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:31:17 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @erincandescent Thanks for the note.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:32:36 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Social Web Foundation

     @erincandescent We have an ActivityPub presence on wordpress.com; you can follow @swf. We also have a presence on other services, but that's our main one. I haven't set up a separate Mastodon server yet; I want to see if we can just use WordPress and if it will meet our needs.

   • Embed this notice
     Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:32:37 JST Erin 💽✨

     in reply to
     Also when you're the "Social Web Foundation", founded in 2024, why on earth did you create a Twitter account? Why is your presence not self hosted?
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:33:20 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @erincandescent Challenge accepted!

   • Embed this notice
     Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:33:23 JST Erin 💽✨

     in reply to
     Anyway if either of the orgs I singled out here disagree with me, here's your opportunity: prove me wrong. Demonstrate your commitment to the myriad of diverse projects in the space.
     
     Put your money where your mouth is.
   • Embed this notice
     Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:33:24 JST Erin 💽✨

     in reply to

     I think this is fundamentally it - I haven’t seen any of these things actually bring money or resources to any of the existing projects. Basically everything here exists due to a mixture of volunteers, donations, and grants from the NLNet Foundation (via the EU Next-Generation Internet funding schemes)

   • Embed this notice
     Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:33:25 JST Erin 💽✨

     in reply to
     It all has this deeply cynical "the big boys are here now, move over" feel to it.
   • Embed this notice
     Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 01:33:27 JST Erin 💽✨

     in reply to
     It's not that I think corporate involvement is necessarily bad but that these things are all designed in such a way that's just utterly repellent to most of the people who've been working in this space for a long time.
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 05:05:11 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @erincandescent question for you: if you had money to donate to, say, three fediverse-related projects, what would they be?

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 06:45:43 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @erincandescent thanks, that's really helpful.

     I agree, getting more funding for Mastodon is a top priority for the health of the Fediverse.

     In terms of other projects: we're mapping out our programs in the coming months. One thing we want to do when we decide to work on a project is fund and support existing projects in the space rather than build something anew.

   • Embed this notice
     Erin 💽✨ (erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Sep-2024 06:45:45 JST Erin 💽✨

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     @evan Mastodon is the obvious starting point. From a community perspective, better health and safety tools will help. From an ecosystem perspective, raising the baseline feature support will be very valuable. It is very obvious they're pulled in a multitude of directions and are having a hard time progressing them all.
     
     Beyond that, I think it's worth thinking about: which projects are bringing new things to the space? What can we do to support those? Maybe you work with a grant giving org like NLNet or maybe you look at their model.
     
     Finally, I would ask: how do you get more of the projects in existence involved? How do you get more of the *community* projects involved, because so far all the ones involved in the SWF are those with legal entities representing them except PixelFed (which is very much run like a project with a legal entity backing it would be)