i have no idea why the the forge-fed effort has halted - i have been quite curious about it myself - there has been little activity in the peers group for about 6 months; but i do not know why - the future of any project can be dubious, if people do not communicate well
i watched the closing of the FENEAS forum, with no acknowledgement from fr33domlover; but i can not explain it - IIRC, fr33domlover setup the activity-pub forum; so it did not seem very urgent at the time - apparently, fr33domlover has found other interests and is no longer working on forge-fed - i learned this only today by digging around mastodon posts - that was from a post in Aug 2021; but i can not remember that intention being communicated to peers - until today, it has been a mystery
my mastodon post yesterday was only pointing out that the project already has a website, a domain name, and a git repo - i dont see any compelling reason to change or replace any of those - doing so is usually a compromise, as last resort when maintenance is otherwise impossible, with the heavy cost of broken links all over the web; but that is totally possible, of course, if necessary - all of those specific tools were chosen, only to satisfy the workflows of the people who were doing the work - if the people who are doing the work change, then the tools can also change
only the website domain is relatively important to keep stable - the specific tools, hosts, and maintainers are irrelevant and interchangeable - as far as i know the web hosting is a stable situation; but if the website must move to a new host, i would contact the person who registered the domain, to ask that it be pointed to the new host, and ideally to share the DNS credentials with a few other maintainers - only if that person does not respond, would i consider the situation dire enough to justify using another domain name; although keeping another ready is always wise, just in case - frankly, i admire the initiative here; but i think this effort could be revived less abruptly, with a bit of communication
it is unfortunate that the project is apparently in a state of disarray currently - but as far as i can tell, the only reason is a lack of communication - i have not seen a single word from fr33domlover or zplus since FENEAS’s shutdown announcement - there was already another backup forum setup on the activity-pub website; so i did not think much of it at the time - i assumed it was only a temporary lull in participation - if i had thought it would be long-lasting, i could have done something more to communicate the situation/transition better to the community at the time
the request yesterday to update the github notice made that clear - the web forum is given as the primary communication channel; but where is “the forge-fed forum” now? - the new activity-pub forum exists but has not been used; and i believe that fr33domlover is the only moderator - if fr33domlover is not watching the project anymore, then it would not be prudent to direct anyone to it - maybe this forum would be the best home for community interactions?
fr33domlover:
If there are any resources you wish to edit/maintain, such as website or forum, let me know. Or perhaps better, ask zPlus or bill-auger on the #peers channel on Libera Chat
dachary:
This an agreement for me to maintain forgefed
just to nit-pick, i would not characterize fr33domlover’s post from Apr 2022 as the “green light”, or an agreement, in exactly those terms as a “take-over” - it does not need to be so formal - forge-fed has always been a community effort, since years before it had a name - all the work is CC0-licensed; and absolutely everyone is invited to jump in and forward the progress, in any ways which are needed - a “take-over” would not need to be anything more significant than moderation privileges on the forum and push access to the repos, wherever those are hosted
it only needs to be agreed which tools and hosts will be the “official” ones, denoted on the website - clearly, at least one person should be watching/over-seeing the project - ideally several would - i did not realize that no one was - there are at least four people that i know of, with full access to the notabug repo - i could get updates to the website published, if need be - i think this is just a case of poor communication
the important bit of fr33domlover’s message, is the suggestion to contact peers on IRC - i am learning of this bottleneck only today; because no one did that - if no one sends me email or contacts me on IRC, i am only going to see activity on the notabug repo, the FENEAS forum (now defunct), or mastodon posts which ping me explicitly - only yesterday, i got a toot in my email asking about the github repo; so i dug around mastodon looking for information, and found this forum, it’s many discussions about forge-fed, and fr33domlover’s toot, effectively resigning from the project 9 months ago - if fr33domlover and zplus are no longer overseeing the effort, and you are willing to, then you should definitely do that - i would do it myself, if i knew that it was needed
i would characterize the forge-fed project much like the tenants of this website’s manifesto:
- There is no hierarchy
- There is no spokesperson
so … whatever needs to be done, just do it, please! - i will help in any way i can - IMHO, forge-fed could have (and should have) released a draft spec 3 years ago - it could be well into the adoption/implementation phase by now, if ambition people such as yourself had been on-boarded sooner - i can not believe that fr33domlover would reject the offer, while decidedly ignoring the project - that would be the classic BDFL problem; but forge-fed is not that sort of project - that is why the github repo is a permanent red herring now; because the people involved did not want a “leader” to be in control of the effort and infrastructure - by all means, lets get it moving again