FediCon/FOSSY 2026 Live Thread

[julian@activitypub.space]

This is the beginning of the live thread for FediCon/FOSSY 2026. Check back here for updates regarding the Fediverse track of FOSSY (Friday and Saturday).

[julian@activitypub.space]

Hello Vancouver!

[julian@activitypub.space]

Good Morning Vancouver! Bright and early morning due to jet lag. Tentative plan is a Lyft to Chinatown to get some HK Milk Tea. I haven't had this in years — nearest place at home that does it well is well over 45 mins away.

Despite what @atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org suggested, I don't think I will be going into Richmond today <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://activitypub.space/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f605.png?v=8161d5c9b56" title="" />

[baris@community.nodebb.org]

@julian@activitypub.space Air quality looks <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://community.nodebb.org/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f6ac.png?v=e9168f088bc" title="" /> any wildfires nearby?

[julian@activitypub.space]

As is tradition, you get (mildly) better service if you order in Cantonese <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://activitypub.space/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f60e.png?v=8161d5c9b56" title="" /> luckily my broken Cantonese was still viable enough to pass — phew!

My family would go out once a weekend to a 茶餐廳 (cha chaan teng, "tea restaurant"), and this really reminds me of my childhood.

Certainly these restaurants still exist in Ontario, but the Cantonese population there pales in comparison to the mainland Chinese population, and these restaurants, serving an odd cross section of Chinese and English influenced food, only exist in Cantonese communities.

[evan@activitypub.space]

Wow, this looks so great!

[julian@activitypub.space]

Got off to a slightly late start as the first few FOSSY presentations went late, but @evan@cosocial.ca and @reiver@mastodon.social were already on-scene and raring to go!

[julian@activitypub.space]

@evan@cosocial.ca's talk is entitled 10 Ways to Grow the Fediverse

> Everyone deserves choice in how they connect with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbours — Evan

• With 14M users on the fediverse (as measured by FediDB), it's growing steadily, but the base of active users sits stable at 1.2M — how do we get them to stay?

• Help people connect with others they care about (the social network part)

• Have conversations that matter. Ones they're interested in, ones they care about

What are those 10 ways?

1. Improve user search; it is not currently global
2. Find my friends; out of band search of friends, email, phone number, profile links, etc.
3. Invitations; "would you like to invite your friends?"
4. Easier following; current steps are high friction

to be continued...

[julian@activitypub.space]

How do we grow the fediverse? Says @evan@cosocial.ca...

5. E2EE messages; private messages are not encrypted widely on the fediverse; a bit of a shoutout to @benpate@mastodon.social's upcoming talk tomorrow <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://activitypub.space/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f609.png?v=8161d5c9b56" title="" />
6. Addressing; complicated and hard for people to understand; promote use of lists (like "Close Friends", "Family", etc.)
7. Hashtag feeds; they federate widely through the network, but saturation is not complete; "hashtags do not spread through the fediverse evenly"; a shoutout to his project tags.pub
8. Aggregation and remixing; combining search terms, people, and hashtags into a topical feed (sounds a lot like activitypub.space )

[julian@activitypub.space]

How do we grow the fediverse... cont'd

9. Content search; patchy across instances (see picture); seems only 10% of accounts provide a positive signal for indexability
10. Groups; facebook groups, reddit. We have this on the fediverse via FEP 1b12 (the threadiverse!) — "they work okay", says Evan
    • Groups TF focuses on private groups

[julian@activitypub.space]

A good question for @evan@cosocial.ca about Trust and Safety and moderation labour

Q: What role does moderation play in growing the fediverse (context: friends have left the fediverse because of harrassment) -- centralizing moderation labour? Undertraining of moderation among server admins. "Is AP good at this, what can we learn..."

A:

• Trust and Safety is an important part of growth
• Professional training -- even large networks (FB, etc.) struggle with this
• Having a moderation team aligned with your interests is key
• Admission that there are many servers run by hobbyist admins who are unaware of the moderation work involved
• More formal connection between users and their services (e.g. cosocial's membership relationship structure)

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@julian one thing I talked to Tau about after was how we need more infrastructure to scale moderation: shared blocklists, filtering, and labelling. It means letting go of some control in order to do less work.

[johannab@cosocial.ca]

@evan @julian

So wish I was there for this! Recently found our Oliphant founder added to one of my mod chats and have begun to explore Pelago. We need a Trust and Safety congress of sorts, as it is more of an interpersonal and social relations space, not just a “just one more tool” space. A systems map of values and standards and a framework that instances localize for themselves in order to communicate externally as to how things work.