Re: AS2/AP tasks for a chartered social web working group

That is a good question to ask, Johannes.

There are advantages to including all former Social WG specs in a new WG. The primary one is knowledge sharing. We are working on the same problems: decentralized social communication and standards to enable this. We all have a lot to learn from each other. For instance, the discussion about data portability earlier this week at TPAC was drawing on ideas from WordPress, the Blog Archive Format (pioneered by micro.blog), ActivityPub, microformats, and more. I see there being many areas where each other's knowledge is complimentary.

> Higher ability to attract contributors. If I’m interested in Stack X and not in Stack Y, I’m much more likely to spend an hour in a meeting that only talks about Stack X, than in one that spends half of its time on a Stack I’m not interested in.

WG members are not obligated to attend every meeting about every topic, just as CG members don't have to follow every topic on the mailing list and from meetings and participate. WG team meetings would inevitably involve discussing all topics, but therein lies collaboration: we can all share our ideas and feedback to help everyone do their best work.

Our goal is to build standards that enable a decentralized web. We shouldn't do that in vacuums or silos that are conditioned around using a particular technology. I also don't think there should or would be "tension" if all specifications were in one group. A Charter indicates that we have come together to solve a problem; members should keep an open mind and learn from, and with, each other.

James


------- Original Message -------
On Friday, September 15th, 2023 at 18:46, Johannes Ernst <johannes.ernst@gmail.com> wrote:


> This may be a heretical question, but here it comes:
> 

> 

> > On Sep 15, 2023, at 08:54, James <jamesg@jamesg.blog> wrote:
> > 

> > I am in full agreement with regard to maintaining existing specifications being a primary focus of the group. To be clear, this would be:
> > 

> > 

> > 1.  ActivityPub
> > 2.  ActivityStreams
> > 3.  Linked Data Notifications
> > 4.  Micropub
> > 5.  Webmention
> > 6.  WebSub
> 

> Historically, I can understand that all these specs ended up in the same WG — it didn’t know exactly what sausage it would make when it started, and only by starting down the road did it eventually find out.
> 

> However, today we know that the ActivityPub stack, and the IndieWeb/Webmention stack, by and large are entirely independent of each other. While there is some code that implements both (notably brid.gy), there are no actual cross-dependencies that I’m aware of. E.g., to my knowledge, nobody sends ActivityStreams over Webmention.
> 

> Would it make more sense to charter two separate groups? In my view, this would help in several ways:
> 

> * More focus and less distraction for each group
> * Higher ability to attract contributors. If I’m interested in Stack X and not in Stack Y, I’m much more likely to spend an hour in a meeting that only talks about Stack X, than in one that spends half of its time on a Stack I’m not interested in.
> * It would reduce potential tension in the group(s) that, based on my (not-first-hand by any stretch) understanding, were, shall we say, a limiting factor in the past in the social WG.
> 

> Cheers,
> 

> 

> 

> Johannes.
> 

> Johannes Ernst
> 

> Fediforum
> Dazzle
>