Some folks have gotten themselves together as something they’re calling the Social Web Foundation, and I’ll cut to the chase: this is an attempt by ActivityPub partisans to rebrand the confusing “fediverse” terminology, and in the process, regardless of intent, shit on everything else that’s been the social web going back twenty-five years.
Oh no! Somebody organized to further the interests of the free and open internet, and they didn’t invite me even though I was active on some IRC channel in 1995!
Cry me a fucking river.
This Bix guy seems a bit butthurt.
Like, I am sure there are dozens of definitions for what “social web” is and when it began. And that sentence about Evan surely is sus, but is one sentence on one foundations website. I’m still thinking that this foundation will be pretty irrelevant.
By the same token Evan seems a bit self centred and egotistical about his projects. Of you look at his comments about BlueSky it seems he’s pretty bitter that someone dared to make an alternative protocol that so far has a decent amount of users, when a acceptance of multiple systems experimenting and borrowing from each other for the good of the open web is right there as a natural position.
(1/?)
@skullgiver
> However, the Fediverse was never just about ActivityPub
Correct. As those of us who used GNU social 10 years ago will never tire of telling you, it was coined to describe the OStatus network. Once all the software using OS adopted ActivityPub, it came to describe the AP network, and anything hanging directly off it (eg Diaspora).
> ATProto is part of the Fediverse too
No it isn’t, because…
> Fediverse software doesn’t speak it.
Same with XMPP, Matrix, etc
Technically the blog author is right. Sure, the social aspects of the web go back to the very first chat rooms, but okay. Let’s set a backstop at web 2.0’s blogs. So what is his point, let’s burn down this new foundation on a technicality before it gets off the ground?
Also technically, “social web” is super imprecise when clearly the organisation is supposed to promote and highlight federated platforms. Sounds like somebody did a super lazy brainstorm without looking up from their belly button to consider this exact fallout.
I have the feeling the same somebody will be on the market for a new domain name pretty soon.
There’s quite a few people who think the social web is a good term for what this is; websites talking to each other, allowing for two-way communication across platforms.
Not everybody loves the word “Fediverse”. And then for those who like it, the connotations might be somewhat different.
You can’t really do anything right in this field, as there are thousands of people ready to cry their hearts out at any given decision. But calling communication between web platforms the social web is not extremely controversial, and it’s a bit easier to sell to a wider audience (government agencies, media outlets, people who don’t know what HTML is) than going on an on about some obscure Fediverse. Different uses.
As I’ve only just recently written here, blog comments are not social media, and I think such things should remain separate.
So it’s definitely not social media but it is the social web? I don’t see any comments section at all over there. Some of these “indieweb” guys are pretty weird.
