What are the implications for #ActivityPub user interface design?
28
Replies
30
Boosts
… 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
@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.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
All any person has at ANY one time, the value they hold in their hands to invest in a solution, is always but these small 2 cents to contribute hopefully as wisely as they are able to..
Like the 🪙🪙 from me this morning in these 1,000 char toots. Depicting a Vision on unbounded scope, an emergent "Golden Dragon" that might lead us to a peopleverse.
The urgent platitude in my next article reads as follows:
> "Only when we dare to dream can we realize a vision"
And this relates directly - to dive down into more concrete matters now - to the Grassroots evolution blog, where it talks about the importance to have a "shared (technology) vision" for the fediverse and what constitutes The Future of Social Networking. And why we must Reimagine Social first.
https://coding.social/blog/grassroots-evolution/#peopleverse-
In a company a CEO can enforce a vision. Via centralized top-down investment with more than 2 cents. In grassroots commons this is impossible. You can't "herd cats".
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
I got reactions to my blog post along the lines of "vision won't work, how are you proposing we enforce this?" and followed by sentiments like "W3C if flawed, corporate and does not have authority to dictate the vision" assuming that I implied to leave vision in the hands of W3C to enforce it by protocol design.
No. The insight is that the vision is wholly emergent, from the collective personal dreams from all of the participants in the fediverse commons. And that its realization, materializing the dragon, can only be the aggregated 2 cents of value by each and every participant over time, and their interest, the synergies of our collaboration, coordination and cocreation.
It is possible to envision the future of social networking. Every person can do this for themself and tell about it to others. Share their dreams. And act accordingly in micro activities towards it. Only Process counts, however small.
Mindfulness core principle of SX.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
That's the pathway to solutions.
Dare to dream. Have personal dreams and know how they relate to others.
Dare to play. Actually do share dreams with others, and try to relate them. Cross-pollinate ideas to find actionable steps towards dream realization. Make things more than the sum of their parts, 2 + 2 = 5 cents.
https://coding.social/blog/shared-ownership/#how-do-we-ignite-the-commons
Rinse, repeat, scale, sustain. And emergent potential balloons exponentially. It is clear to see that a united commons will set the dragon roaring, revealing itself, breathing golden fire of progress.
Technology paternalism, I think, is more general phenomenon of the blinders we all wear in modern society. Dogma's and biases deeply engrained in ourself, part of everday life. It forces us all in like straitjacket roles, to be experts in narrow fields.
Best we can do, yet unnatural, artificial wrong breakdown, top-down again.
Holistic grassroots evolution and natural sustainable growth, is the path.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission
You see how much text I used to explain stuff in all toots above, right?
That's the main problem I face today. Where I myself bump against the Paradox of Emergence. Emergence is mysterious and magical, and only comes at scale. Requires massive prolonged proactive participation, where wicked problems are involved.
How to explain a golden dragon to others, that sits ready and waiting, but having only 2 cents at any time to convince others of its glorious value? Enough that they become invested to add their 🪙🪙 too. How to get more than 2 cts of time and attention that busy pragmatic people are willing to spend and deeply listen?
Explanation on unbounded scope is total failure mode of realizing grand visions.
I bumped into this when trying to explain to @nlnet the vision of just a single 'dragon scale', https://solidground.work, for NGI0 funding.
Beauty of SX is that it doesn't need to be learned or taught. SX only requires experiencing it.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
Experience means "doing", but doing smartly and strategically. Deliberately. Sustainably. Mindful. And with Playfulness at heart. Be open-minded, creative, allowing yourself think out of the box. Core principles of commons participation..
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#core-principles
Dare to dream, dare to play. FInd where you are intrinsically motivated to contribute, in alignment to your dreams, interests and passions.
Be relaxed and unforced, free in your approach on where to add these 2 cents, timeless knowing that 2 cents is all you have, but all the time, while spending them.
Dare to act.
The core principles and the further elaboration of them in SX elaboration, make SX an utter pragmatic solution development approach. Anchored in the here and now, and what anyone can do today. Just value progress, that's all. And follow your dreams.
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
This concludes my morning rant on ☕ getting cold.
Hope I didn't trigger the paradox by my walls of Dragon's tales or else 🐉 --> 💨 runs away.
I am but a simple dreamer, talking sci-fi worlds :)
https://discuss.coding.social/t/sci-fi-labs-federated-worldbuilding/95
@bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
One follow-up I must add, with an Urgent platitude attached.
The purpose of innercircles simple life philosophy is not just to imagine a post-hypercapitalist society, but actually transition towards it such that it becomes the prevailing system and without it getting corrupted along the way.
We have libraries full of books that dictate how we should do this, and we throw these at each other's head at any occasion to implicitly say "been there, done that, your idea is old". As argued its the practice and experience that counts. Social experience matters.
I took hypercapitalism, capitalism-run-amok, as root cause for most society-level wicked problems, like Climate change.
As root-cause analyses go, and emergent design evolves, today I use a deeper cause in my applied research: people listening to each other, or rather the inability thereof.
Though actually it is the same root cause, just one level lower on SX Pyramid of Perspective ...
@smallcircles @bengo @strypey @benpate @EUCommission @nlnet
So yes, the solutions to our wicked problems require coordinated action. It's a "coordination problem".
And it requires active listening.
How do we mobilise people at the same time in the same direction? So we overcome network effects.
Playfulness, a shared goal and vocabulary, a group of committed people / orgs, a commons sustainability model. And some initial funding and shared resources to get the ball rolling. Critical connections.
Can we get that off the ground together?
Arnold here, from my Pixelfed account for Humane Tech Community. While the https://humanetech.community is dormant for now, the intent is to revive community activity based on the insights that Social experience design provides, i.e. apply SX in the field, and build bridges between Social coding commons, Humane tech community (HTC) at https://community.humanetech.com and The Center for Humane Technology at https://humanetech.com
In 2018 I took control of the Center's forum as community facilitator and stimulator, because the founders Tristan Harris, Randy Fernando, and Aza Raskin went into a year-long strategic deliberation, talking with world leaders, and tech insiders, and being swamped by global press. When finally their strategic plans were clear, I had a session with them where they shared their outcomes and the real sense of urgency that had totally changed their initial plans to be more of a "Time well spent online" organization, which they had before as a movement.
Tristan later told me that "after over a full year of deep strategic thinking and networking we are most afraid of the total unraveling of the social fabric and society, and wars".
I may be prosy, and fluffy non-techy, at points. But the intrinsic motivation behind my work of the past 11 years, where I spent my savings to dedicate to a cause, has this same insight and urgency that drives me along and makes me stay. Despite the inherent unsustainability in this fedi & FOSS space I am convinced that here lies greatest opportunity to bring lasting positive societal change. Here, in calm networking environments. And offline in our towns, cities, rural areas, in our neighborhoods. Where all the real people are.
