For those who were not able to attend the technical alignment meeting of the informal "Threadiverse Working Group", I have taken minutes during the meeting and are sharing them here.
Thank you to all those who attended, we will meet again next month! Follow myself or the WG category to be notified about additional developments.
Attendees
Angus McLeod
Julian Lam
Evan Prodromou
Aaron Grey
Rimu Atkinson
Erlend Sogge Heggen
Laurens Hof
Other participants are not listed as they are not mentioned in notes below, but there were ~20 participants.
Notes
Participant introductions
“Forasphere”/”Foraverse” vs “Threadiverse”
Both have a topic-like structure and so much of the technical structure is the same
More helpful to focus on the differences from microblogging as the de facto implementation of ActivityPub
No matter what name, it is mostly UI distinctions with some different handling based on nomenclature
Rimu brings up discussion regarding nomenclature; related document
“We don’t call things the same words”
Aaron posits that “Circles” could be a useful common term
Julian posits that end of the day no implementor here will likely consider changing their already-established terminology
Aaron proposes a goal for the group: determine a common set of terms to use in discussions going forward; a lingua franca
Evan proposes a goal to produce documentation that other forum (or reddit-like alternatives) can use to become compatible
Additional goal (added later): reaching out to other forum devs (who aren’t already in this WG or looking into AP). Additional outreach/engagement from other forum softwares.
Julian suggests that perhaps the FEP process would be a possible path forward
Mastodon’s microblogging concept leads to other implementations following suit
Coordinated effort to increase compatibility between threadiverse-type applications is attractive
Erlend wants to see better interop between threadiverse apps. Discourse to NodeBB, etc.
Angus states that we’ve reached half-way point and summarizes (see above)
Meeting focus shifts to debate re: FEP process or Task force under SocialCG
Julian proposes on behalf of Johannes Ernst (in absentia) that the WG be organized under the FediDevs umbrella
Evan proposes that the WG be an official task force under the SocialCG
W3C/ActivityPub has many task forces already, one for data portability, one for webfinger, one for testing, etc.
Differences between task force report and FEP:
Both similar documents
FEP has a more asynchronous process for clearing out objections, less cohesion than SocialCG
Discussions take place on SocialHub
Most FEPs individually authored
SocialCG reports collaboratively edited and put forth to W3C
Some questions re: FEP process
Evan answers: Anyone can propose, comments collected. After 6 months author can determine it finalized, but implementation varies. Many draft FEPs are dropped due to lack of interest or are hypothetical in nature.
Penar asks whether FEP or W3C report process is faster
Both are roughly equivalent, SocialCG reports are “a few months” to draft, and “a few months” to be accepted/finalized.
Aaron posits that SWICG (or SocialCG) is a better group since it eventually goes into a published W3C article
Aim towards convergence, consistent UI. Safe and usable user experience where the end-user has choice.
Laurens remarks on the increased level of cooperation that has not been often found in the fediverse, sees this as an opportunity to forge a path toward what we want instead of being bound by an FEP.
Angus motions that we join the SWICG as a task force
Motion carries with 12 ayes out of 16 present
Next meeting of SWICG 5 Apr 1pm Eastern; Angus and Julian to attend
3pm Eastern; meeting scheduled end, Evan and Erlend (and some others) drop out
What do we call the group “foraverse” “forasphere” “threadiverse”
Benti posits that it is weird to call ourselves representatives of the threadiverse as that distinction is reserved for Lemmy and nutomic is not present
Julian suggests that the term is not exclusive to Lemmy/kbin and asks to simply expand the definition to include Piefed, Discourse, NodeBB, Flarum, et al.
Additional back and forth regarding how and where to carry on discussions outside of monthly calls
Shared Google Doc sufficient for now, can explore additional options later
Julian posits that a federated option is ideal, acknowledges bias when suggesting that NodeBB be used. However, as it would be federated, where the discussions take place is mostly incidental.
A federated solution would be easiest way to reach fediverse developers.
Angus motions that we call ourselves the Threadiverse Working Group (or Task Force)
Motion carries with 9 ayes out of 13 present
Action Items
Angus or Julian to set up shared Google Doc for meeting/agenda prep for next meeting
