Gregory's Server@cwebber Because I find it both hyprocritical and dangerous for the corporate standards body of surveillance capitalism and the Big Web (the W3C) to be taking credit for and possibly dictating the narrative around the fediverse and other alternatives to what is essentially themselves. Because we should all be careful when those who benefit from the disease peddle the cure. If anything ActivityPub is an exception to the rule that I see as more the work of individuals like you than the W3C.
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5 comments
 @cwebber You have absolutely no reason to feel shitty about your work. Your work is invaluable and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if it wasn’t for it. I see the fediverse as an essential stopgap. If it didn’t exist, it would make it exponentially more difficult to have a bridge to where I want to go with our small web stuff. So both thank you for your work and sorry for making you feel bad. That was never my intention. @cwebber I do take umbrage to framing criticism of corporations (and corporate bodies like the W3C) as “self promotion.” I do not enjoy living in a world saturated with corporate messaging. If corporate bodies enter into this space and use it for public relations then I will challenge them here. That said, I hope you realise this isn’t about you or the other folks who made ActivityPub. It’s about the corporate entity that is the W3C. We have to be able to differentiate those two things.  @aral @cwebber The only controversial thing the W3C did afaik is EME, am I missing something else? While that was *very* bad I also remember how they helped keep the web interoperable, accessible and open in the early 0s, this while other big players like Microsoft tried to dominate the internet by pushing their own proprietary technologies...  @aral Please remember W3C is not some of our Members, but the sum of the work we're doing as a non-profit. We develop standards the web needs to flourish *for everyone*, since 1994. This is done by W3C Members, our small staff, the broad international community. Members large and small bring work to #w3c because our proven standards process promotes fairness, openness, royalty-free, and strong focus across all work on security, privacy, internationalization and web accessibility. |
@aral I think the W3C is more complex than that. I know many of the people within it.
But if you're concerned about that, also be concerned about the side effects. I've felt this way about some of the ways I've seen you jump in before and, well, I didn't say anything. Admittedly it took something affecting me personally to do so. That's not great.
I do this kind of thing too sometimes. I'm asking you to understand the effect it had on me, so you can be reflective.
It made me stressed and feel negative. If you think this is an exception that's fine, but nothing about the way you wrote that indicated that. Instead I just felt shitty about my work.
FWIW I think the W3C is a flawed institution with some extremely good, heartfelt people working for it. The truth of the matter is, funding anything in our current economic structure is a maddening, nigh-impossible thing, and the W3C chose some approaches and they have had serious consequences, which I agree.
Negativity is okay, it can be useful and powerful. But please also try to temper it with empathy. It's hard to do anything, to make any progress. Jumping into the few places where progress appears to be occuring and saying things like this... it just makes me want to do nothing.
@aral I think the W3C is more complex than that. I know many of the people within it.
But if you're concerned about that, also be concerned about the side effects. I've felt this way about some of the ways I've seen you jump in before and, well, I didn't say anything. Admittedly it took something affecting me personally to do so. That's not great.