What are the implications for #ActivityPub user interface design?
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… that maybe showing “like” counts and other “engagement” stats isn’t a good thing.
It’s counterintuitive for software designers trained on surfacing as much data as possible, but it’s probably true.
Interesting paper, thanks. I just made an analogy to how road networks evolve over time, and what that means for the #social environment. This against the backdrop of my long blog article about #ActivityPub fediverse #evolution.
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116429792361242801
Social experience design examines the #SocioCultural ecosystem that emerges by the #technology landscape and is determined by the shape of our #tech that it must grown on. Think like organic moss, that is able to take a foothold in the nooks and crannies of slick aluminium roofs. #SocialWeb is a forest.
An observation is that we generally severely underestimate the impact of "adding an extra online channel, so now we can be social remotely". This way of perceiving social totally misses how everything is different online, and at the same time that many things should / can be very similar to how we do offline #SocialNetworking for ages. Increasing social bandwidth on the wire.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking
@strypey just mentions Conway's Law, and how it shapes and affects all that we do. The driving force is #Emergence, which over time also shaped modern global #society as it stands today.
Question for grassroots environments that are able to healthily evolve and naturally grow into long-term sustainable ecosystems - in case of the #fediverse able to support diverse and vibrant online culture, where people cocreate and participate in a value-based collaborative economy - is how #ActivityPub based enabling #technology can be designed to foster the right social dynamics that influence this emergence.
Or else we get US road network, emerged by the lobbying powers of Big Oil. Corporate capture in case of #fedi. Or traffic chaos and road jams, stifling #innovation.
My #SX blog addresses how @EUCommission #funding (via the great @nlnet ) encourages - in traffic terms - creation of infra building blocks. But not road vision, policies, enforcement. Lacks socio-cultural care.
@benpate @bengo @strypey @EUCommission @nlnet
When it comes to Conway's Law then, what do we have today in terms of alternative #SocialNetworking environment, here on #ActivityPub fediverse?
If I squint my eyes so the details become vague, I see more or less a copy/paste of existing #SocialMedia that we are all familiar with, and as #BigTech forces it through our throat. BUT! Decentralized.. a great achievement. We can now build our own roads, instead of being forced to take the highway.
The observation that we "copy/pasted" may or may not be an indicator of the risk that Conway's Law does its work. I leave that as part of my call-for-reflection. Same holds for the risk of corporate capture, who can quickly pave over with asphalt any 'desire path' that became popular, and perhaps make it a toll road.
More interesting it gets when it comes to #ethics: dealing with tech externalities. See: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116316524763055082
And #sustainability: Go from #FOSS to Sustainable open social systems.
@smallcircles @benpate @strypey @EUCommission @nlnet good reflection. If things here look copy pasted from the corporate captured web, it might be because the same people keep making the same limiting decisions with their cronies all the way since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial
Big believer in Conways Law and also moreso
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
“the future lies with the youth”
Good point Ben. And there’s a delicate balance of giving people something good and unique vs. something they’re familiar with and will use
Remember, nobody can force you to use the Fediverse, so our tools have to meet people where they are.
It’s like weaning an addict off of cigarettes, or sugar.
@benpate @smallcircles @strypey @EUCommission @nlnet I’ve been using this website for almost a decade and the way it does the fediverse protocols has changed a great amount over that time. There no informed consent when the “instance” invisibly changes how it does “fediverse”. These cloud oriented platforms on the fediverse effectively force people to use new “fediverse” all the time.
@benpate @smallcircles @strypey @EUCommission @nlnet People do need to take responsibility for which kind of fediverse they use by interacting with the fediverse not through a web page served by a platform, but through clients that aren’t served by web platforms. Choose the code you run. Beware networks that “give” you opaque behavior that changes without your informed consent because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard
Very true. That’s a great case for each person controlling their own identity/experiemce/etc.
I’m fascinated how different people can look at the same evidence and take away such different conclusions.
I usually see apps as a kind of lock in. Someone’s more likely to find you on the open web first, then MAYBE “convert” and upgrade to your app.
I totally see your point too (esp regarding security) but there are so many paths up the mountain.
Thx @bengo for Matthew and Planck principles, new for me as named social phenomena. Our social dynamics are truly fascinating, but almost totally unaddressed in how we end up 'landscaping' our collective gardens when all tech gets plugged together, beyond apps, and "wild emergence" kicks in.
> there’s a delicate balance of giving people something good and unique vs. something they’re familiar with and will use
@benpate totally. If you want to "rescue" people asap, the urge is to go for the familiar. But is that the best option, and sustainable long-term? This bears thinking on more, but as a collective, and how to achieve that, right? That's where #SX positions itself. Between hard tech and best societal outcome of its introduction.
Grassroots nature of #fedi is a strength, but does not necessarily yield best outcomes. Most likely we get visited by #Conway.
My next blog post (not yet published) ponders the #ParadoxOfEmergence
https://discuss.coding.social/t/sx-sustainable-ecosystem-evolution-see/836
@strypey @EUCommission @nlnet @bengo
> That’s a great case for each person controlling their own identity/experience/etc
> I usually see apps as a kind of lock in
@benpate this!
One's own experience is literally what "social experience" in SX stands for. And then projects upwards from Personal Needs, via motivated action based on them, to how they relate to other people, and ultimately at largest societal scale how they contribute to our hypercomplex 'construct of society'. See Pyramid of Perspective model at: https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#pyramid-of-perspective
Related notion in that article is Personal social networking. An approach that encourages making comparison and analogy with familiar social constructs offline, where we do social networking for ages.
And then tell me e.g. where your local Moderation force operates, ready to slap you on the wrist for saying something nasty. Or ostracizes / silences you, 3-strikes you're out (if you are lucky). Countless things we build online are ultra-weird offline.
