Also thanks again to @malteengeler for great comments and additions - for example, I had not even heard of the ActivityPub standardisation body on which Meta holds a seat while Mastodon doesn’t… (as almost always, once one starts digging, things turn out to be even worse than expected)
Can't wait for our book to be out and be able to share all that in extended form with our readers 🤝☺️
@alineblankertz @malteengeler The Mastodon makers were contacted frequently by the ActivityPub community but they did not show much interest in participating in the standardization process.
@chpietsch oh that’s interesting. Do you happen to know why? Is there anything public on this?
@malteengeler
Regarding the why: When coding Mastodon, Eugen used those parts of the #ActivityPub and #ActivityStreams standards he found useful. For functionality that was not (yet) covered by those standards, he came up with his own solutions and made them part of the Mastodon API which can be considered a quasi-standard now.
When Mastodon was a one person shop, this was a pragmatic way to make progress fast. Standardization bodies are famous for moving slowly, and maybe Eugen was also put off by some of the more eccentric personalities in the ActivityPub community. Now that Mastodon (the organisation) has grown, they should assume a more active role in standards bodies. Perhaps they have – I have not followed these processes closely in recent years.
At any rate, I think it is fair to say that the Mastodon makers and the Fediverse standards community have had a difficult relationship. This is my impression from visiting FediCamp and FediDay events (where Mastodon makers were absent), and some reading in the ActivityPub community forum, e.g.:
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/mastodon-monoculture-problem/3189/11
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/discussion-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/1967
@chpietsch @alineblankertz @malteengeler
Both of the links are quoting me from the time when I was still facilitator at SocialHub. I am now elaborating the new field of Social experience design or SX, which focuses on the intersection of FOSS, social networking, and the commons.
In a recent, though long, blog post on Grassroots fediverse evolution I outlined my current perspective on, what I call, fediverse-we-have and its continuing divergence from the power and promise held by the ActivityPub open standard..
https://coding.social/blog/grassroots-evolution/
The article introduces the concept of "Grassroots open standard" and related bottom-up standardization processes. These should enable any stakeholder in the ecosystem to participate, not just maintainers of FOSS platforms on the app-centric fediverse.
Mastodon cannot be blamed to put the interest of their own project first. And that is a key insight to commons organization: Everyone participates based on self-interested motives.
@smallcircles
Thanks a lot for adding another layer of detail, v helpful.
Having worked at a commons organisation and knowing various other orgs, I want to point out that your general assertion that contributions are made based on “self-interest” is not true. But Hayek would be very pleased to read it. @chpietsch @malteengeler
@alineblankertz @chpietsch @malteengeler
Well, a short toot does not do the concept justice :)
Self-interest in SX is very broad, based on the full breadth and width of the intrinsic values of Humanity and Freedom that SX is based on. Where receiving e.g. Thankfulness or Gratitude can be the self-interested reasons why you do something for someone else. Just to give an example, as there are a gazillion motives. Thing is: there's always a motive that relates to the self. There is a philosophical foundation to SX where if you lead a purposeful life, the purpose relates to the self-interest. And people can be more deliberate in discovering which purposes give their life most meaning.
@smallcircles
That’s a very neoliberal move to just explain all behaviour that self-interest does not explain by moving up one layer and framing it as self-interest to support others, uphold values etc.
That makes self-interest an empty concept without explanatory power and which cannot be refuted. I recommend reading David Graeber’s work (esp Debt) on how the distinction egoism / altruism is a fairly recent invention. @chpietsch @malteengeler
@alineblankertz @chpietsch @malteengeler
It is not intentional neoliberal, nor in any way meant to be. I am just a humble fellow thinking about these things and giving names to them without necessarily anchoring to formal academic research. I am a generalist and the first to admit that I'm no expert and do 'applied research' in hobby time. To me it is the underlying concepts that matter most, and based on observations put them into a model I can work with. SX as a field is open to anyone to bring refinement and different interpretations + approaches.
There's a slogan to the simple life philosophy that underlies SX which reads that "simple solutions still exist" relating to the assumption that all the knowledge, wisdom, common sense, and life experience we need to solve our wicked problems is already out there, whille we trample on it in our rushed day-to-day.
I'm familiar with Graeber. The tomes of wisdom are not enough though, it is about applying them: through (social) experience.
@chpietsch Thanks for the links.
@smallcircles I've spent the afternoon reading your post. I'm a total nobody but I gotta say that @alineblankertz interpretation of it is at least very uncharitable, if not insulting.
I think that it provides a better framework to address the wicked problems at hand.
And one could say that it's much deeper and genuine than a handful of strained metaphors advertising a book and speaking gigs, but that'd be uncharitable too, if not insulting.
Sorry, unfollowed.
Thank you @jandi for taking the time. The original announcement had a poll around reading:
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116379158584600016
When I mentioned I don't necessarily follow the accepted professional terminology, there was more philosophy to it. Society is an utterly complex emergent social construct, and us individuals try to make sense of it enough to move through our lives. Each person a unique individual.
SX at most personal level starts when one opens their eyes in the morning and signals from our sensory system are processed by our conscious mind. We make the abstractions of reality we need, to cope with what we do. It is necessarily imperfect.
How can we still all work together and solve e.g. climate change, each person with their own 2 cents? It can't be on the basis of the theory books, as that does not scale. It would require helluva good inspirational leaders to keep things together. But the books are imperfect, the leaders fallible like any human being.
@jandi @chpietsch @alineblankertz
The simple life philosophy that backs SX I call innercircles, and it revolves around allowing people to lead a more evolutionary lifestyle. One where humankind has a future. So the deeper objective is to not just design/describe a better alternative to hypercapitalism, but actually introduce it so it becomes the prevailing system, and without it being corrupted along the way.
There's a great vid by Steven Johnson on Where good ideas come from, introducing the "slow hunch". Good ideas require many people who shine their light on it from their perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU
I have innercircles on my background/hobby track for 11 years now, while I do pragmatic things in my work track that are in service to maturing these ideas.
Fascinating insight is that SX must be a solution development approach that needs not be learned, and innercircles philosophy a theory that needs not be taught. Both are total failure conditions to make the transition.
@jandi @chpietsch @alineblankertz
While you see me posting at length on all kinds of concepts around SX, I'm just telling, not selling. I don't intend to become the authority on SX, don't want to lead a movement. God forbid, don't want to see cult around the ideas. The book on innercircles life philosophy MUST not be written. Because it is personal, different to every person, and only they can discover what is important to them.
The social experience is what matters, learn by doing. See something in practice and internalize concepts in your own ways that fit your own life best. That should be how philosophy spreads. Without anyone being forced, coming along with full agency as per the intrinsic value of Freedom.
These are fascinating insights to me, so I can truly say that this is hobby to me, uplifting and where I want to spend time. Other than that I don't have any expectations. That is another important thing, when scope is unbounded. This is the Mindfulness core principle of SX.
@jandi @chpietsch @alineblankertz
Only progress counts, however small 😃
Hence there's no book on innercircles, just an 'eternal teaser' made long ago, before I deep-dove into FOSS and fedi cultures, and when I thought I was ready to unfold the idea as a non-profit startup at the local tech incubator (I passed first selection rounds, then stepped out of it, as the culture was wrong).
@jandi @chpietsch @alineblankertz
When it comes to progressive circles and how they may organize to become stronger, I think the biggest challenge is how not to "divide ourselves to be conquered" based on minute ideological differences, that make us splinter into different faction and not even bringing the fight to the enemy.
That is where SX focuses with Hedonic peer production, one of its applied research areas. If you imagine Harmonious society it necessarily sees many people living peaceful side by side while having significant differences of opinion on many things. It is not enough to form communities, in-groups, or even movements that require all noses to point in the same direction. This does not scale to become a better society than what hypercapitalism has to offer.
SX thus focuses on an overarching form of organization between people, adding something extra to what we already do in terms of organization structures. To form chaordic organization..
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#chaordic-organization
Jun 14, 2026, 10:32 AM@chpietsch @alineblankertz @malteengeler this. I find many of the discussions about “better governance” rather romanticized.
And even if standards are really “open”, that doesn't make them less risky for capture. See, e.g. https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
@stk That’s precisely the point of the blog article: the current mechanisms also within open source or commons are insufficient to create infrastructures built on different principles. Romanticising open source is not helpful.
But that it not to say that creating infrastructures on different principles is impossible. It is possible, but for that we need to move beyond the limitations of the current OSS and commons paradigms.
Jun 14, 2026, 12:00 PM@alineblankertz @chpietsch @malteengeler “Open Source” was meant as a tool for exploitation from the very beginning. It having been embraced by advocates for the Commons (because it appeared more palatable to capitalists than “Free Software”) might have been one of the biggest strategic mistakes ever. It is long on the way to becoming just yet another Magic Concept. Who even remembers the Open Source Wars.
@stk @alineblankertz @chpietsch @malteengeler
But didn't it start as communist conspiracy?
@chpietsch @alineblankertz @malteengeler Mastodon developers are actually quite active, they published a number a Fediverse Enhancement Proposals. The latest submission was just two days ago:
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/7aa9/fep-7aa9.md
@silverpill I'm glad that the situation has changed. Do you have any insights into Mastodon's membership in standards bodies mentioned by @alineblankertz @malteengeler?=
@chpietsch @alineblankertz @malteengeler Other than FEP process? I don't know
@chpietsch @silverpill @alineblankertz @malteengeler Mastodon joined the reconvened W3C working group back in March. This was the first meeting where they were present: https://github.com/w3c/socialwg/blob/main/meetings/2026/2026-03-06-WG-kickoff.md
@julian @silverpill @alineblankertz @malteengeler Finally!
Jun 14, 2026, 1:21 PM@chpietsch @alineblankertz @malteengeler It is interesting that AT protocol is not even a part of this conversation as its creators disregarded the entire basis of interoperability in the Fediverse altogether and now try to market Bluesky as part of the Fediverse and "open web" but I digress.
@resl @alineblankertz @malteengeler Yep. Bear in mind that Mastodon appeared in 2016, Twitter's AT protocol in 2022.
Jun 15, 2026, 9:56 AM@alineblankertz @malteengeler just FYI, Mastodon *are* W3C members and they *are* members of the Social Web Working Group. See https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/social/participants/
@torgo @alineblankertz They attended a meeting in march, yes. Thank you for pointing it out to us.
@malteengeler @torgo @alineblankertz Note that @Gargron was part of the Social Working Group that created the ActivityPub Specification. Without him, the Specification would have looked very differently. Just noting that this is not limited to ACTUAL membership.