Re: Statement

So I do have a copy already on a different domain, I'm waiting for others to decide what is right for the document that currently exists.

If you _really_ want it taken down, despite the significant number of people involved in the SWICG and standards processes who have co-signed it, then here is a statement for that:

> A statement document was originally published here, however, we have since received an objections to its publication citing that proper processes were not followed, and therefore it has been taken down and republished on [Emelia's website] instead, whilst we seek community group consensus. When Emelia merged the pull request, she had been granted permission to do so by the co-chair of the Social Web CG, and given the number of signatories with various significant contributions to ActivityPub and ActivityStreams, Emelia believed that there was enough agreement to publish.

I will note that Dan Appelquist (Co-Chair of the W3C Advisory Board) also left a comment on the issue for additional signatures in support of the document. There is quite a lot of people who agree with the sentiment of this statement, and I wonder what is the benefit to either protocol to take it down, besides to fan flames of a protocol war that serves to benefit nobody. We are stronger together against walled gardens than what we are divided, and this current division does not benefit the people we aim to serve by building open social web protocols. We need to put people first, not protocols not platforms.

In writing the document, I tried my best to keep it focused on the similarities that we do have, and on the fact that all standards work involves multiple parties coming together to participate in a cordial manner. I'm not saying anyone has to like or adopt AT Protocol, and that we can be different to each other and that there is enough room in this world for both protocols to co-exist as they currently serve different needs for different people, and that it okay.

AT Protocol is clearly not going to disappear, nor is ActivityPub, and we have a lot more in common than our differences in current architecture. For instance, the learnings that AT Protocol have had with OAuth are quite likely the same learnings that we would have with an OAuth for ActivityPub API, and are similar to the learnings that Solid has had with OIDC/OAuth.

However, I would also be amiss to not note that the two core dissenting voices here are also the two people most documented to have been participating in protocol tribalism with warring, with both being fairly well documented at this point. That is why I will leave it up to the Social Web CG Chairs to decide what to do.

Yours,
Emelia Smith

> On 6 Sep 2025, at 20:31, Ryan Barrett <public@ryanb.org> wrote:
> 
> Agreed!
> 
> Personally, I like the statement. I agree with Eugen that online tribalism and flame wars are inevitable, and generally not meaningful problems that need to be addressed, but I'm still all for the letter's sentiment...
> 
> ...but when Emelia asked me to review it, I missed that it was on the SWICG GitHub specifically. Not the right process(es), and likely not the right place. Seems like the simplest fix right now would be to keep it intact and just move it somewhere else?
> 
> On Sat, Sep 6, 2025, 11:20 AM Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name <mailto:evan@prodromou.name>> wrote:
>> It's interesting to consider how and when the CG should publish non-consensus policy statements, open letters, or other documents. There are a lot of ways it could be done.
>> 
>> And, of course, it's a big Web (and a big social web), so there's other space for members or groups of members to have their say, outside the systems maintained by the CG. The Web is a permissionless publishing platform; that's one of the reasons it's so great.
>> 
>> If a document purports to be a position statement by the CG as a whole, though, I think it should go through our consensus processes.
>> 
>> That includes discussion in GitHub issues or on the mailing list or during a sync meeting. We also require sufficient time for CG members to review and participate in a call for consensus.
>> 
>> Evan
>> 
>> On Sep 6, 2025 13:53, Aurélien <opsocket@proton.me <mailto:opsocket@proton.me>> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>> 
>> I havn't been approached (ba dum tss!) and I mostly agree with Evan and Eugen on this one.
>> 
>> However, there is clearly a need for communication that may not be addressed by current procedures. I don't have in-depth knowledge of these yet, but enabling public communication with some kind of qualified majority could ease tensions (which is ironic, btw) in the future.
>> 
>> Aurélien
>> 
>> Le samedi 6 septembre 2025 à 12:58 PM, Eugen Rochko <eugen@zeonfederated.com <mailto:eugen@zeonfederated.com>> a écrit :
>> Hi Emelia, Evan,
>> 
>> I've been approached with a draft of this statement last night and asked for a signature and I've expressed quite the same opinion -- there isn't enough time to review this. It's the weekend, nobody is around. I'm also not sure why this statement from the Social CG is necessary. People argue about IRC vs XMPP, Vim vs Emacs, all the time.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> Eugen Rochko
>> 
>> On Sat, 6 Sep 2025, at 18:31, emelia wrote:
>> The statement is co-signed by the following people involved in the specification of ActivityPub and ActivityStreams:
>> 
>> Dmitri Zagidulin (Social CG co-chair) — @dmitri@social.coop <https://social.coop/@dmitri>
>> Tantek Çelik (Former Social Web Working Group co-chair) — @tantek.com <https://tantek.com/>
>> James (Former SocialCG co-chair) — jamesg.blog <https://jamesg.blog/> (@jamesg.blog@jamesg.blog <https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://jamesg.blog/>)
>> Chris Messina (Citizen Agency, creator of ActivityStreams) — @chrismessina.me <https://chrismessina.me/>
>> Christine Lemmer-Webber (Executive Director of Spritely, ActivityPub co-author/co-editor) — @cwebber <https://social.coop/@cwebber> / https://dustycloud..org <https://dustycloud.org/>
>> Darius Kazemi (Social Web CG member) — @darius@friend.camp <https://friend.camp/@darius>
>> 
>> (full list here: https://github.com/swicg/general/blob/master/statements/2025-09-05-activitypub-and-atproto-discourse.md#co-signed-by-the-following-community-members )
>> 
>> All the statement says is that we can be respectful towards one another, stop spreading misinformation about each 
>> other, and instead work together and learn from one another. That _is_ a good thing for the AcitvityPub and the 
>> entire open social web, in mine, and from what I can tell, their opinions.
>> 
>> You are free to dissent though. So far you're the only voice within the people who work on the specifications that I have heard dissenting, though.
>> 
>> Yours,
>> Emelia
>> 
>> On 6 Sep 2025, at 18:22, Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name <mailto:evan@prodromou.name>> wrote:
>> 
>> There's a statement published on the SWICG GitHub repo that had neither a proposal nor a CFC period.
>> 
>> I strongly disagree with it. Can we take it down until consensus is reached?
>> 
>> Evan
>> 
>> 
>>