Weeknotes no.12 – fedidays in berlin
hello from berlin after this year’s #fediday.
two and a half days of talks and sessions around federated social networking.
with tools like mastodon and other activity pub services at the center, which some at the conference have nicely described as a “neighborhood”. that cosy digital place where you virtually run into the people you know and trust. compared to the algorithmic chaos of big tech, where hate and clickbait are the predominant factors.
safe space vs. growth
“should mastodon continue to be this fairly small (safe) space of communities, or aim to be a big platform? – yes!”
as there are so many communities across lots of federated servers, there are equally many opinions about its future. some like the current setup and their small circle; others are discussing how we could grow, so that everyone has an account.
while the latter would be the best thing in terms of digital resiliency against big tech and censorship, i don’t see it happening with the current user experience for new users tbh.
public money. public code.
following the idea that organizations and institutions working with public money should also contribute to public code, this should also apply to social media, some say. if for some reason you are still primarily posting on closed networks, you should at least post the same content on a public/ accessible platform like mastodon (now called the +1 principle).
self-fulfilling cycle of under-investment
one of my favorite references was this self-fulfilling cycle of not caring about the network, therefore not posting interesting content and then wondering about pushback from the community and low interaction.
this specifically applies to companies and public organizations, who have to manage presences on many platforms. to be “successful”, you need to be part of the community and not a bot posting links, corporate slang, and press releases.
the atmosphere
while this conference was mostly about the fediverse (however you want to define it), the atmosphere, at proto, and bluesky came up more often.
even though the commonly declared enemy is big tech, the collaboration across those platforms felt minimal. there are fewer points to critique about at proto than before (plc directory is now a swiss foundation, etc) and there is an arguably better technical architecture with their personal data servers (in my opinion). despite that it seems more like a fundamental ideological preference.
bluesky and at proto have a nicer setup, but worse trust by the community. mastodon and activity pub have a more federated approach, but worse user experience for everyday users. the question is, what will be solved first?