I am late to the party, but I just came across XMPP which seems to be a decentralized (like the fediverse) alternative to the likes of WhatsApp and Signal. A user can host their own server, as I do using Freedombox (a couple of mouse clicks and it was running!) or use one of the many federated servers that are available.
There are many apps that can be used. I am trying out Monocles on android and Dino on my debian laptop.
I wonder if hosting an XMPP server would be within the mandate of CoSocial?
Just like trying to get people to move from FB or X to the fediverse, network effect is a barrier to adoption. So far, I have a grand total of one contact. On XMPP I can be found as ken@lunar.ca
I note that Cloudron (which is where we’re running a bunch of our add-on services) doesn’t have a Jabber server in their list of supported apps, which would make it trivially easy for us to run.
One thing we’re cautious about with any communication tool is making sure that it has sufficient capabilities to ensure that it can’t be used for harassment and abuse. With a peer-to-peer messaging tool like Jabber, it’s not obvious how we would guard against that.
As with all things, first and foremost would be understanding whether or not there is enough interest among the membership to spin up a project to investigate feasibility.
At this time, TechOps can’t take this on.
Members have expressed interest in a variety of other services that we haven’t been able to move forward with due to insufficient capacity. Building additional capacity is part of our strategy for the coming year.
If there are enough people who want the thing and are willing to step up and run it, we’ll do our best to find a place for it to run.
However, if there are technically inclined people looking for something to do, there are more pressing matters to attend to at the moment, and we’d love your help.
Hey @kgw – aside from Mick’s response, Matrix is kind of like a modern version of XMPP.
XMPP hasn’t gone away completely, but it is very much an older tech.
And yeah, the thing to do is to find ideally 2 (technical) people to champion any new thing, join TechOps and support the backend, and also have 1-2 less technical people to champion the usage and adoption.
This is always the pattern we’re going to have to follow, and posting about it like this is the first step in seeing if anyone else is out there! So thanks for doing that!
hahaha… oh noes. When something like this comes up, this is like in Looney Tunes when someone unrolls a circle of some black material, drops it on the ground in front of another hapless character, who then falls in to a bottomless hole … it me.
The suggestion was interesting enough that I had to go search for some tech comparisons, because as someone who’s used both at SOME point (XMPP long ago …) I really couldn’t articulate tech differences - functionally for a user, they are similar. here’s a good primer: Understanding messaging protocols: XMPP and Matrix
I think, though, Mick is right, we have so many collective services in the idea heap waiting for time … our own messaging host would be neat but it’s not likely the best bang for co-op volunteerism buck just now. One of my reasons for thinking that, admittedly, is that 1:1 or small group peer messaging options seem to be the realm that is already established and subverting the worst technopoly-captured social. Signal’s actually quite my preference for 1:1 or small synchronous things, and as mentioned, there’s lots of capacity out there to jump on a Matrix server (and no small number of extant XMPP options though they’re harder to find and get comfortable with).
If we ever had enough sysadmin bandwidth to hold up the foundation, it would be something to revisit at least as far as offering interested members a corner in a sandbox.
yeah, Matrix is aiming to be a Discord, WhatsApp replacement, which is a clear space in the market. Signal does single channel group chats really well.
I run a Matrix server on other Cloudron boxes. It’s relatively low maintenance and as with MOST of the services we COULD offer…the big burden is user onboarding and support.
e.g. (yourhandle)@cosocial.ca could be a thing we could technically do, which is tied into the larger work of handing members account on the Cloudron server (with single sign on!).
This is significant work, but also a lot of value.
But also that’s mainly a concern on the open registration matrix servers or if you do a fully open room.
The main vector I’ve experienced is spam links getting posted.
I don’t think we have concerns about our members harassing others.
Think of it more like email - people would have a name @ CoSocial matrix address and could use that to join matrix groups everywhere. This is a clear strong benefit, knowing that you have an account that is appropriately hosted and trusted.
We could have some members only rooms and/or have people create rooms with a specific purpose.
And this is where the big question comes in: Matrix chat for what purpose? What do people want to use it for? This is what I mean by user onboarding and support: someone is going to need to have a vision here and champion it.
