What are the implications for #ActivityPub user interface design?
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@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
@benpate @smallcircles @strypey @EUCommission @nlnet
Here's another writeup that names a related phenomenon, "technology paternalism"
https://www.kosmaconnect.net/interactionblog/technologypaternalism
(1/?)
I don't disagree with anything you say here @bengo, but I do want to sound a note of caution.
I've been involved in co-design processes for building a new kind of app from scratch (eg Loomio), or (re)designing a website from first principles. I've learned the hard way that although the scaffolding provided by UX design can be "paternalism", a thoughtful design can make the difference between usable and unusable, for most people.
@strypey @benpate @smallcircles @EUCommission @nlnet
Absolutely. I didn't mean to imply co-design is overly paternalistic. I meant to imply professional philanthropy, standards work, open source, governance, and devtools/security software sales often is, for better or worse.
Paternalism in general isn't always a problem, but as with all things, there can be too much of it.
Things become overly paternalistic by unfairly exploiting structural privilege at the expense of everyone else.
@bengo
> Things become overly paternalistic by unfairly exploiting structural privilege at the expense of everyone else
Right. So we could name the problem more accurately as power inequality, or corporatism, or somesuch. I don't want to get too hung up on terminology, but I can't help thinking "paternalism" is an unhelpful word here. It reminds me of the attitudes of Command Line Warriors who think providing graphical interfaces is "paternalism".
@strypey @benpate @smallcircles @EUCommission @nlnet providing GUI is not paternalism but it can and has at times been done in a paternalistic way, at least according to some. It’s ok and normal folks don’t always agree where the line is.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
Thanks, Ben. Highly interesting article, that I should really bring to social coding note-taking forum as subject for closer study.
The article mentions "dark patterns" which years ago I suggested to IETF the more inclusive term "deception patterns" for. From there "deceptive design" became a known term. But deception implies intent. Though I don't know if I would adopt the word paternalism in SX methodology, even as anti-pattern name, it is related to a deep insight that drives SX applied research..
Namely the observation that we, humankind, *severely* underestimate what it means to be "social" online. Bit like: "After the telephone, with the internet we now have an extra line to connect remotely via text".
While what we're actually doing and with tech people firmly in the lead, is building completely societies, and with hardly ANY rules at that. It's the Wild West.
And furthermore that we're mostly fully myopic to how all this works.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
Online is an extension to our life offline, thus we're building OUR society as a Wild West now. And it shows.
SX adopts the concept of a peopleverse to imagine the seemless integration of online and offline worlds, on the basis of unobtrusive, humane and harmonious technology that serves people in their daily needs and day-to-day activities. It is merely a concept, to help direct thinking.
The intrinsic values of Humanity and Freedom are building blocks and toolkit of SX. And philosophical underpinning is required, to help offer people to make a mindset shift. SX, I sometimes say "adds the missing social layers to the techstack", but SX's call to "Reimagine social" is much more than that.
The way we build tech and 'dump' it in society is UTTERLY weird, and unresponsible. And all-pervasive. The norm.
Introducing the mindset shift, constitutes a wicked problem. One that SX focuses on solving, using itself as the approach. Self servicing.
RE: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116433817412456814
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
In the blog post I'm writing now the Paradox of Emergence is introduced. The huge problem in tackling wicked problems is to make clear the role of the individual in it, how they contribute in making it worse or better. And also makes it incredibly hard to motivate people to come along on the adventure quest towards the solution.
Because the holistic solution is the "Golden Dragon" that sits entirely in emergent space, as Potential only, until many people collectively give it wings, and it materializes.
How can you convince people to Invest in a magic dragon that doesn't exist yet? Take Climate Change. Wicked problem, yet the solution is simple, and starts like:
"If we all did our part, gave our 2 cent, then.."
The paradox is that you people don't see the value of their investment based on the promised vision of the outcome. While in hindsight, after the wicked problem was solved it is often painfully obvious, simple solution.
RE: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116433817412456814
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
I mention in my blog post "Grassroots fediverse evolution" the underpinning philosophy to SX is a simple life philosophy based on basic universal wisdoms and truths, called innercircles, that's on my Hobby track for 11 years now.
I recently dubbed them Urgent platitutes, and made it a SX concept. They are thought provokers. Wisdoms we all know, yet overlook and trample upon in our rushed daily life's rat race. Innercircles tagline is:
> "Simple solutions still exist"
Eternal teaser: https://innercircles.community
ANY wicked problem has a simple solution if you know the emergent forces that are at play. And any knowledge, wisdom, common sense, and life experience we need to do that already exists.
The ONLY thing remaining then, to solve the big problems of our time, is to get people to fall in line together to forge the path to the solution.
That of course is *extremely* hard, and where SX innercircles philosophy gets truly fascinating.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
Tangential.
As an aside to the discussion, I just found a weird quirk in mastodon or AP protocol (distinction unclear) that the toot above contains a quote post that isn't in the toot's text. It was at the start, when I pasted in the URL of the post to quote, but I deleted it again. However, the quote remained, and now it no longer removable when editing.
On with my musings. And bring subject matter back to paternalism in tech, I hope.. 😅
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
SX is emergent evolutionary design on the basis of often fully emergent forces, as building blocks for solutions that are cocreated for having positive societal impact, called the solution's imprint. The imprint is designed for. The impact is the Need.
Innercircles + SX follow a quite unorthodox approach in today's pragmatic matter-of-fact "Quick, show me the money and value" elevator-pitch world.
Those on the problem side, the bad actors ask that out of greed. But on solution side its because of the urgency to solve wicked problems. This haste, via the Paradox of Emergence, makes it LESS likely to make real Progress towards the true Solution.
The solution requires depicting a Vision to follow, where the path is unclear, scope and scale are vast, potentially even boundless.
Unbounded scope is the fundament of SX. Scope, direction, solution-orientation, all that happens all depends on proactive participants at any one time. In commons.
