That way, we can use the fediverse to coordinate fediverse development, even more than we already do;

Against fragmentation: unifying dev discussions with forum federation

On a recent episode of the Dot Social podcast, John O’Nolan of Ghost said; “For the size of the group [working on federating long form articles], which as you say is not large, man, we are spread across Mastodon DMs som…

SocialHub (socialhub.activitypub.rocks)

But without as much risk of bombing newbies with posts that probably only interest the subset of people keen to discuss the nuts and bolts of fediverse development. Software devs, admins, mods, protocol geeks, reference guide maintainers, etc.

Also, we're less likely to get low effort or out of context noise injected into such discussions if they're opt-in.

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We could instead try to agree on a separate place for all discussions about fediverse coordination (would it rub anyone up the wrong way if I described this as fediverse governance?). But it does makes sense to discuss a federated network *in a federated network*, rather than a separate, centralised forum. Once it's possible to do so, why not use the one under discussion, rather than a different one?

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> @strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz said:
>
> We could instead try to agree on a separate place for all discussions about fediverse coordination (would it rub anyone up the wrong way if I described this as fediverse governance?). But it does makes sense to discuss a federated network in a federated network, rather than a separate, centralised forum.

I keep harping on this one point because it just makes so much sense that it'd be silly not to. The new blood (new software devs implementing AP) always appear on fedi, not some third-party site, first.

To your main point, fedi on Mastodon is all just everybody talking in the same room. Certainly that's why it seems like there's so much meta-discussion about AP.

This isn't the case on the threadiverse, where discussions are segregated/categorized by community.

@strypey discussions about development are often tagged with #fedidev

Right, which ActivityPub.Space follows and auto categorizes, which ends up as a way for microblog content to make its way into the threadiverse. @strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz

@silverpill@mitra.social sorry for interjecting

At the risk of splitting hairs ...

@julian
> Mastodon is all just everybody talking in the same room ... This isn't the case on the threadiverse, where discussions are segregated/categorized by community

Forum apps offer one set of tools for navigating to the conversations we want to take part in. Microposting apps offer a different set. But the underlying data layer reality is one big room. Whatever is posted in the threadiverse is also a drop in the microposting ocean.

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz is that true, though? Mastodon doesn't segregate topics by interest group or community because that's a UX decision by Mastodon. It's a wilful ignorance of explicit categorization by design.

Now, I want to be very explicit here that I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Mastodon doesn't have any major incentive to implement groups, much less implement them like the threadiverse does.

But it is by design that it's all lumped together into a singular feed.

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@julian
> ActivityPub.Space follows and auto categorizes [the #FediDevs tag]

Awesome, another potential benefit of standardised tag I didn't even think of. There may be more.

@silverpill

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Would it be inappropriate to draft an FEP for this? One that addresses;

* #FediDevs (or whatever) as the standard tag for fediverse dev meta

* Filtering out posts with the tag by default for new accounts, unless they opt-in to receiving them

* Auto-adding the tag to all posts output by developer forums like SocialHub and ActivityPub.Space

* Methods like the ones @julian describes above, for ingesting and making use of posts with the tag

* ?

#fediverse #ActivityPub #onboarding #FEP

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Me:
> the underlying data layer reality is one big room.

@julian
> is that true, though?

Yes. The threadiverse UX tools that ...

> segregate topics by interest group or community

... sit on top of an ocean of AP Activity droplets, which have none of this structure inherently.

This is a feature of the AP design, not a bug. It allows different apps to group and visualise Activities in different ways (micropost threads, blog+comments, threadiverse communities).

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz I disagree, I view the content not as a function of its lowest common denominator (the singular note adrift in a sea of other notes), but as a part of a larger entity, the thread, or a category/community.

That microblogs are incapable of realizing that is a design decision on their part

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz I don't think the functionality rises to the level of needing an FEP.

Hashtags are ephemeral and user generated by nature, and that flexibility is its greatest strength.

Attempting to reserve a hashtag is probably not going to go over well. Additionally, tying a hashtag to a community doesn't necessarily mean all use cases are valid. In forums topics get moved in and out of categories all the time.

@julian
> I view the content not as a .... singular note adrift in a sea of other notes ... but as a part of a larger entity, the thread, or a category/community

This imposes interface layer assumptions on the data layer. Your app visualises Activity data this way, sure. Microposting apps visualise it other ways (feeds, tags, Lists, etc). But the Activity data doesn't care. Interface-level assumptions do not travel with them across the wire.

Can we agree on that?

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@julian
> I don't think the functionality rises to the level of needing an FEP

It requires an action from all AP software to achieve its goals. Isn't this what FEPs are for?

> Hashtags are ephemeral and user generated

Sure. I'm not trying to standardise hastags, just use this particular one for a particular purpose.

> Attempting to reserve a hashtag is probably not going to go over well

Can you suggest another mechanism that could realise the same potential benefits?

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@julian
> tying a hashtag to a community doesn't necessarily mean all use cases are valid. In forums topics get moved in and out of categories all the time

Not sure what you're getting at there or how it relates to the proposal. Care to clarify?