In a few weeks @w3c social web community group meeting may receive a proposal to explore chartering new social web working group that would only be open to people who work at W3C member companies. (The CG is open to all). Today there was an in person discussion at TPAC, the yearly W3C-wide f2f. It was a day-of addition to the agenda. Now is a good time to join the CG, subscribe to mailing list, and start participating in the discussions. https://www.w3.org/community/SocialCG/ #vote #activitypub
@aral @w3c The CG is open to all of us and generally should seek consensus for all decisions. You can disagree on list and in the open meeting (as long as it’s a CG and not a WG).
This is one proposal by one person, not a @w3c action, and it will fail to reach consensus as long as at least one person expresses concern/objection, eg a concern that a WG could de facto capture the fediverse. Trust the process (or not!)
@aral @bengo so, I would like to make iterative changes to the ActivityPub and Activity Streams 2.0 documents that make them easier to read and use for software developers.
I wonder if there are some guardrails we could put on that process that would let us get those benefits to the fediverse without ruining it for everyone.
Here are some thoughts.
**Participation**. Ben mentioned this up front. We'd need to make sure that a wide array of people can participate in decision-making; not just representatives of W3C member organisations.
(I think it's noteworthy that W3C members are not all tech companies. Lots of libraries, universities, Open Source foundations, and similar participants. See https://www.w3.org/membership/list/ ).
Keeping most of the work in the CG, and just using WG for limited doc editing, is probably a good idea here.
@evan @bengo These all sound good, Evan. The only thing I’d add, which is unrealistic, is open acknowledgment that some of the W3C members are actually threats to the fediverse and should not be included in this. I’m thinking Google. I’m thinking Facebook. I’m thinking surveillance capitalists in general. And the reason it’s unrealistic is because the W3C is primarily the standards body of these surveillance capitalists. They’re the paid up members. This is a problem.
@bengo @aral @evan
means nothing.
not all 501c3's are the same.
The web is hostile towards peer to peer. Why?
Because of the way it is made and governed.
You need to find people who support a specific way of doing things. A shared purpose.
Corporations should not be part of that, especially not those big tech folks that brought the web to where it is today
@aral @evan @bengo
and lets not forget other members of the W3C, like....
w3c means e.g. adobe, airbnb, alibaba, amazon, apple, AT&T, Autodesk, Avast, Cisco, Cloudflare, Comcast, Google, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, LG, Mastercard, Meta, Mitsubishi, Netflix, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Samsung, SAP, Shopify, Siemens, Softbank, Sony, Tencent, Verisifn, Viacom, VISA, Volkawagen, Volvo, Disney, Yahoo, Zoom, ... next to others
@aral @evan @bengo this is also anecdotal on my end and i should join the social cg, but i climbed up to eventually work at a member company and looked forward to participating in w3c when i finally did, but when i got there— i didn’t like knowing what i went through to be able to walk through the door, so i never knocked.
so if i had to put to thought what i’m feeling— is w3c the right engine to be investing social energy, when my personal energy is frailer than corporate strategy?
@evan @aral @bengo very big— i’m active in dweb circles and the fediverse and i’m grateful for AP and the network we’re on thanks to w3c social wg. thank you!
i try and focus my energy on even footing, where the community group makes sense, but the wg for w3c members only doesn’t.
to me, it’s the difference between a peer to peer network and a client server relationship, only one of which i’m invested in, personally.
@aral@mastodon.ar.al @evan@cosocial.ca @bengo@mastodon.social i can't help but think about WHATWG as i read this.
as i see it, WHATWG was formed by the big players to sidestep W3C's process, and strongarm the W3C into adopting their standard, rather than focusing on fixing the standardization process and building something that would work for everyone. they have had de-facto control over HTML5 since, with W3C acting as little more than a rubber stamp (and deferring entirely to them from 2019 to date).
it is very hard to "trust the process" when it's been broken by power imbalances in the past
@evan @aral (just to connect the threads) I think Evan refers to my comment here https://mastodon.social/@bengo/111070356827784617
@bengo @w3c you say, "new social web working group that would only be open to people who work at W3C member companies."
That's not correct.
Anyone can participate in W3C working groups as an invited expert or "IE". I was an IE on the Social Web Working Group, as was @cwebber @tsyesika @erincandescent and many of the other contributors.
@bengo one cool thing about the W3C and other open standards bodies is that the discussions are logged and transparent. You can read the minutes of the relevant meeting here:
@evan I'm familiar with the w3c. I disagree that the discussions are always logged and transparent. i.e. we can maximize transparency and accurate logging by recording the meetings or having an automated or paid scribe (which is what public-ccg does), which has been happening in some SWICG meetings but not this one.
I agree that transparency is very important.
@bengo I think that's a pretty cool idea. I'd be happy to have those alongside the IRC chat log style.
@bengo Am I mistaken, or were you also an IE on the Social Web Working Group? Or did you participate as a member representative?
@evan the former. I wouldn't have been able to participate otherwise.
@evan @w3c @cwebber @tsyesika @erincandescent@queer.af I don't agree that it's correct that "Anyone can participate in W3C working groups as an invited expert"
Then I wouldn't be concerned. I think you're omitting the part where a Chair has to invite the IE. It would alleviate some of my concerns if any charter ensured that chairs MUST invite anyone who wants to to be an IE.
why would anyone give credits to the trash the w3c is?
so that later, thry can "bring all efforts" credible to the next level where it is again exclusive to members hired by the big tech capitalists who steered us into the mess we are in in the first place.
just like google captured XMPP back then and gmail captured email ...the same dorsey-musk will finish their move to make blsky/X/twitter/threads into the new web2 corporate overlord fediverse farce again.
@bengo hey hey, sry for me getting carried away with this.
I think i have a W3C trauma and after 20 years of experience i have zero hope anything regarding the W3C can ever be positive.
Nothing was meant personal in any way and I'm sorry for getting carried away.
I totally wish you success and the best with the effort you put forward and that it will improve things.
Hopefully we will innthe future also meet under different stara too.
Right now, the most popular Fediverse software is —
• #Mastodon
• #Misskey
• #Lemmy
• #PeerTube
• #Pixelfed
• #Pleroma
• #MicroDotBlog
• #WriteFreely
• #Kbin
With these up-and-coming:
• #Akkoma
• #Bookwyrm
• #Castopod
• #Firefish
• #Friendica
• #Hubzilla
• #Owncast
• #Takahe
• and others
Are the teams from all these Fediverse software involved with this new W3C social web community group?
@reiver @w3c @evan I recommend asking the projects.
But the CG is open to them and generally a new WG would be open to paying W3C members and whoever the (undefined) chairs decide to invite as IEs, team contact signs off on, perhaps some internal review, and this usually also involves requiring the IE to have funding for their participation.
https://www.w3.org/invited-experts/
All of those projects members can join CG today.
https://www.w3.org/community/socialcg/
Assuming I understand the purpose of the new wg & cg — and I might not —
That seems backwards to me.
How can the wg & cg create a good specification without having the teams from all those Fediverse software involved?
Highly relevant information is in their heads and in their experience.
Also — is it a given that the different Fediverse software teams will implement a new specification just because the W3C "blesses" it? I think it is conceivable some might ignore it.
@reiver @bengo @w3c what good questions!
If we made a document that had any required changes by existing projects, I'd say that's a failure.
Anything we do should be backwards compatible. The big goal is clarifying the language for future projects.
Also, not all developers like working on standards. It's a different skillset and not everyone wants to do it.
We would definitely want to test draft versions with all implementers first, though.
@reiver @bengo @w3c @evan How about @gotosocial here?
That should have been on the list, too.