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I took the following AI in the OC meeting: "start a thread or book a meeting to discuss next steps in the messaging space per-WG and cross-WG".

@edumerco @edsu @sam @Matt_Noyes I think you are interested in this topic :) would you like to start by discussing here? I can also start a time slot picking process to meet and discuss synchronously.

Also, anyone else that you think would be interested?

@flancian @edsu @sam @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism
On another different line of thought/software, I had really great experiences with Zulip (zulip.com/).

What makes it great from my POV is the serious thread model. It helps to know what is happening, keep context, focus on what matters for you (including notificacions), mark as done, etc.

It is not federated, but it is Free Software and we can self-host it.
Anyone else tried it? Do we want to make a test?

ZulipZulip — organized team chatZulip is an organized team chat app for distributed teams of all sizes.

@edumerco @flancian @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism I was thinking before that May First has chat and we have May First access but that it probably wouldn't be ideal for us because it is *just* an account and they don't provide a web client or anything (as far as I know?), but it occurred to me later that we could also just use the May First infrastructure and host our own web client (or just a page recommending actual apps for different operating systems).

@sam
@flancian @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism

There is (or was, at least) a simple but effective web client really, I've used it a long time ago.
I will search for it. :)

@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism thank you all for your interest and participation!

Ideally I think we could pursue the following using the fact that one of our VPSes is under-utilized currently:

- Install some or all of: a lightweight Matrix server (e.g. conduit), an XMPP server (something prosody adjacent?), a Zulip instance.
- Share test credentials with people in the working groups and gather feedback/see what catches on and productionize that?

@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism on the topic of what the goal would be, I think the ideal outcome is we offer an extra service to the community *with the initial warning that it might have a worse SLO than the mastodon instance*, meaning they shouldn't rely on it for anything critical yet. Then we see how expensive it is to run and we vote as a community on running it or not?

@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism of course it is the working groups that need this the most I believe, but I think if we run an instance at all we should try to make it useful to all the community, because why not? :)

@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism from all the options, I still believe Matrix is the most future looking and the platform where most of our members *already have accounts*; but I'm OK being swayed by data and other proposals, and don't get me wrong: I liked Zulip a lot when I used it, and I used to help run XMPP for Google and loved it back then.

@flancian @edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @dazinism I think it would be great to expand our offerings this way and would love to see us host a Matrix server, esp. since we use Matrix anyway, and to support an important project.

Cf:
loomio.com/d/5yW7iCsJ/new-soci
loomio.com/d/tOBDu5ap/
loomio.com/d/gP67te9Z/

LoomioNew social.coop services?Hey all, as it's come up several times before, and was again discussed in the last call, why not add services other than Mastodon on social.coop? <br><br>We could occasionally install an interesting FLOSS service, and all have the chance to try it out, to see how usable / user-friendly / useful it is. If the software is mature / useful enough for us, we can keep it running and try to provide the developers with contributions (code + financial), otherwise we can just give them some feedback, scrap it, and try another option. <br>Criteria for social.coop member services<br>IMO our criteria would be (in order of importance):<br><br><br>FLOSS<br>User friendly<br>Based on open standards / protocols<br>Federated / Decentralised<br>Social / Collaborative / Co-operative<br><br>Proposed next steps<br><br>Comment with your opinion on this whole initiative. If there doesn't appear to be consensus on moving forward with this, we can first discuss the premise further. <br>Comment with your thoughts / ideas about the criteria. Once there appears to be consensus, I can post a proposal to formalise this.<br>Discuss the financial aspects: <br><br><br> some more lightweight services could run on our existing infrastructure (esp. with the upcoming upgrade), but others would require more resources (notably storage costs would go up with things like file hosting). <br> how to compensate the members who would install and maintain the services, and contribute to developing the software<br><br>Comment with any services you need (or software that may be worth trying) and I'll update the list below. Once we have a semi-comprehensive list of options, we can discuss them more in depth, and then decide where to start!<br><br>Possible servicesIdentity and single sign-on options<br><br>Custom social.coop member database & web app, using OpenID/OAuth, and maybe integrate IndieAuth<br>Look into projects like Portier, Auth0, and OSIAM<br>Look into building on top of Hubzilla, which has a federated system featuring nomadic identity (a user can migrate from one instance to another, unlike with Mastodon). It also has social networking functionality that can federate with Mastodon (though doesn't seem to support ActivityPub). May be be a good option if we want all our services to be tightly integrated, with federation at their core, but would require more hacking on any software we want to add (which could arguably benefit the whole FLOSS community and push it from the current app/platform silos towards more federation & integration).<br><br>FLOSS, federated services<br><br>Matrix / Riot - federated communications platform, incl. group chat and end-to-end encryption, integrates with Jitsi for audio/video<br>Federated Wiki<br>Collaborative workspaces: Apache Wave, Kune <br>Socialhome (also federates with Mastodon)<br>Movim (XMPP based)<br>Blogging (Ghost / WordPress)<br>Cool things like Known, Quill & Bridgy<br>Email<br>Calendar<br><br>FLOSS, not-yet-federated services<br><br>Decision making with our own instance of Loomio and explore others like VoteIt, Orgbook, ukuvota, etc<br>GitLab to help developers avoid centralising everything on Github. Git is already distributed in nature, but certain functionality could still do with more federation (being discussed among GitLab devs).<br>Map creation (umap based on OpenStreetMap)<br>Collaborative document editing (Etherpad / ethercalc / Jetpad / HackMD / onlyoffice)<br>Reddit-like site for sharing & discussing links (Raddit for eg)<br>Bookmarks / links sharing (examples)<br>Feed reader (examples)<br>Scheduling (eg Rallly, others)<br>Video chat (eg Jitsi or Hublin)<br>Secure password & notes saving/sharing (eg turtl)<br>Kanban/Scrum project management (eg Taiga)<br>LaTeX document editing (eg ShareLaTeX)<br><br>Meta-platforms<br><br>Sandstorm (incl. some federation)<br>Nextcloud (incl. some federation)<br>Cloudron<br><br>FLOSS utilities<br>These would be handy for members to have on a platform we control, but don't necessarily meet the Federated / Decentralised nor the Social / Collaborative / Co-operative criteria.<br><br><br>URL shortener (examples)<br>Image hosting (eg mediagoblin or lutim)<br>Photo sharing (eg Lychee)<br>Audio/Podcast hosting (eg mediagoblin)<br>Video hosting (eg mediagoblin, plumi, mediadrop, or clipbucket, and restreamer for live broadcast)<br>Save stuff for later (eg wallabag, tiddlywiki, keeper or turtl)<br>Static website hosting (eg using jekyll, grav or hugo)<br>Pastebin (eg)<br><br>

@ntnsndr @flancian @edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @dazinism I would also be very excited about this and happy to help support the effort on whatever easy of helpful!

@mako @ntnsndr @edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @dazinism glad to read that Benjamin! This is still brewing but mostly unblocked now, next steps are making some time in the tech working group to deploy test instances of ideally several of the options (I'd personally start with a Matrix homeserver though).

If you're already on Matrix and Interested in discussing further feel free to join our room, it's documented in wiki.social.coop!

@edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @edumerco @Matt_Noyes @dazinism meaning no disrespect, but mind dropping me from this thread? As you all know I am strongly opposed to us running a Matrix homeserver, but we don't seem to be honestly considering other alternatives and I really just don't want to have to keep being sad every time this pops up in my timeline.

Dear @sam
I didn't knew about your distaste with Matrix and I'm very much with you, that's why proposed zulip (or XMPP). But of course, the last thing we want to do is to bother.

Do you want to be included when/where we discuss other possibilities?

Sorry for the sadness... (≧≦)

@edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism

@edumerco @edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism oh yah, that's fine, I just get sick of it always coming back to matrix; apparently it's being discussed *on* Matrix (where I can't see it) though, so my bad for suggesting that alternatives weren't being considered.

@sam
No harm done, I open a matrix client to speak with one person really and didn't saw there much conversation about it neither. :)

So, coming back to this talk, which criteria do we use to make a choice?
I'll start with a few to ignite the talk:
. Inclusivity and freedom (amount of possibilities about how to use/access the service)
. Standards (tested, advancements, documentation)
1/2
@edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism

2/2
. Thread management (what is being talked here now? What is already done and what is alive?
. Federation?
. Security (both data and metadata)
. Low on resources (both for installation and maintenance)
. Possibility to integrate with our -desired- SSO
. What others? :)

@edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism @sam

@edumerco @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism it seems like there is some subset of social.coop members who already use Matrix and would like a co-op supported server.

Hi @edsu
I get it, and it is true. And there is other subset that would prefer other solution/s.

Or we could support many services, but now we are limited on people with knowledge so that is for some future. :)

So, in orden not to fall on preferences, let's try to agree on criteria to make a selection for a specific use.

Today matrix is already used by some WGs. Do we want to provide a service to all the coop members or just some WGs?

@flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism

@Eduardo Mercovich (él) @In #Flancia we'll meet @Benjamin Mako Hill @Nathan Schneider @dazinism

The main reasons that I've been interested in social.coop hosting Matrix are 1) it irritates me that a platform is used for official social.coop communications for which we don't provide accounts to our members, and 2) I selfishly would like an account on a Matrix server run by an org I affiliate with.  

I don't specifically think it's a good tool for internal communications, and am pretty sure it's a bad tool for decisionmaking (tools with infinite scroll seem poorly suited for deliberation).
Eduardo Mercovich (él)

Hi @dynamic
I agreed with almost everything except the selfishly part, which made laugh a lot, so thank you very much... :DDD

Back on topic, I *specially* agree about the infinite scroll. It is positively difficult to talk and focus in such a varying context. That is why I proposed zulip, that manages those things in a spectacular way. :)

@flancian @dazinism @ntnsndr @mako

@dynamic @flancian @dazinism @ntnsndr @mako

Thanks for the enthusiasm... At least it deserves a try.

Actually, we could try the 3 based on the same set of use cases and compare them.