Convener: Peter (zzepposs) & Victoria (@vishnee.todon.eu) from Fedivariety (@Fedivariety@mastodon.social)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• Ben Pate (@benpate@mastodon.social – just for a minute, though
• Scott Jenson (@scott@social.coop)
• Damny Laya (@Damny@mastodon.nudecri.unicamp.br), Nudecri/Unicamp - Brazil
• Tommi (@tommi@pan.rent) – only for a bit
• Hannah (@hpod16@eupolicy.social) – towards the end
• Michael (@michael@newsmast.social, @michael@newsmastfoundation.org)

Notes

Short intro to FediVariety, fedivariety.org

FediVariety is a European collective of digital activists and researchers dedicated to promoting Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for public administration, with an emphasis on the Fediverse.

Link to NOAW “Fediverse in/for public institutions” unconference and post un-conference report (currently under review): https://cryptpad.fedivariety.org/pad/#/2/pad/view/t22ulF3eJqTElgpfgoz+HrmE+XgaGul-z9MQwr9j29E/

Pathways to funding?

• EDIC Digital commons: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/edic

• Coorporation on the Horizon?

• Alliance, Consortium (for what exactly? Public institution stack?) with benefits for all, because open, sustainable funding and redistribution processes (technical dev, user research, design, community management, etc)?

How to coordinate?

• Suggestions? Matrix group / Mailing list? Fediverse alternative available? Groups?

What is our vision?

We can discuss openly or in break out groups and come together in the end.

Questions to ask:

• What topics are important to you?
• Where do you see this in 5-10 years?
• Speculative fiction? A manifesto? What if your wildest dreams would come true?

Mastodon 4.6 will allow for email only signups (this is meant for bigger institutions/governements to get people on board easily) https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap

Mastodon for institutions, open source to organise digital content, public institutions there are ways to spread information, knowledge beyond big tech, budget is public money, public spaces to obligated to open information sharing

Public institutions are not communitiies: revenue models for the fediverse? Beyond projects, but sustatinable funding, role of (non-) for profit companies/business.

Newsmast is working in Brasil - with iBram Museums. Some unconferences planned

Public policy promotes implementation of open source software, fediverse, alternative social networks adapt to the need of the public, and the institutions

Collaboration to build this not as a social movement, but as an infrastructure, but with budget

UX improvement (Mastodon), but needs discussion of culture and people leaving. wWat do we want Mastodon to be? Social media or social networking?

In 5 years? More people: more moderation needed.

What is the fediverse supposed to be? bigger not the most helpful adjective.

What do we want Mastodon to be?

Questions about the Culture (ppl leaving mastodon as well..)

How do we wanna see the fediverse in the future — check swot of noaw

Radical game changing

Get civil society using the fediverse as a default

Social networking rather than social media

Application is just top layer,

Lots of curation to make it easy

Social media as a communication mechanism

Civic society onboarding is low hanging fruit

Dream of all municipalities to be on the fediverse

Most important are smaller institutions

5y ago: cross posted from twitter

Sneak openness into intitutions

Crack things open, force openess into the system

Make them interoperable

Follow rss feed of small town in italy

Prevent: microsoftification, commodification

Gatekeeping

Including commerical companies? Better platforms, like Shopify

Part of the real economy

Talk about business are left alone to Amazon, etc

EU Commission buying services from Mastodon GmbH

Thought experiment: create an instance: can everyone register? Tax-payer funded

Community managing?

There is a different boundary in moderation of instances if done on the behalf or representing a public institution because you incur in censorship implications.

Do we want a big goverment organised instance?

Citizenship initative? Pilot programme or prepartory action?

Is it a good idea? don’t compete for users, compete for good experiences

Client-server vs server-server

Public institutions should provide public spaces, not govern-owned instances. It is not about signing up to somewhere, but rather about having a public environment where to share things as an open square.

ActivityPub decentralised lends communities but not suitable for government run institutions

Age old discussion: which instance to join? join an instance, but have multiple interests, and might shout down (ran by someone in their garage)

A few good, big moderated instances could build confidence

Trusted instances ?

Can of worms opened by diego1

Public square? Gov has to step in at certain moment.. rules regulations..

Solid protocol, not widely used. focus: me and my data

Vs me connecting with others by default

https://solidproject.org/ vs https://runyourown.social/

Principle: 1+ if institutions are posting on commerical social media

(Not publishing emails for mailing list here)