6 Jan
2026
6 Jan
'26
3:22 p.m.
Hi,
I saw a talk by Sophia Longwe, who I believe works at Wikimedia
Germany, at 39C3 (Chaos Communication Congress). I saw the talk in
person, but there is a recording of it here:
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-who-runs-the-www-wsis20-and-the-future-of-inter…
The talk is a rudimentary overview of how the different bodies that
"steer" the internet work t ranging from UN committees and ICANN down
to mere mortals such as us. The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) was
not called out specifically, but our colleagues at the IETF and W3C
were mentioned.
In her talk, she criticized the lack of participation from "civil
society" in standardization work. She attributed this partially to
high barriers to entry at IETF events (high costs, fancy hotels) and
said (I’m paraphrasing) that it’s basically just rich FAANG employees.
Some of that doesn’t exactly match my own experience at the IETF, but
I don’t think any of what she said was in bad faith. I hope to meet
her in Vienna (IETF126) to discuss some of these things in person. And
who knows, maybe she is right.
Anyway, long story short, this got me thinking about our processes
here at the XSF (which, again, she didn’t mention at all):
I think the XMPP Standards Foundation is in a unique position where
many of our members can be described as "civil society" - people who
might describe themselves as activists or promoters of XMPP rather
than developers. (And/or people who do software development for a
living, but whose jobs are unrelated to XMPP and who joined the XSF
more in the capacity of a user.)
At the same time, I’m observing that a lot of our Last Calls (and
standards work in general) have few participants, at least relative to
our overall membership numbers. Furthermore, I've heard criticism that
the XSF doesn’t take the concerns of some minority groups seriously
enough. (Which may or may not be true; I don’t want to take sides on
that at this point.)
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?
Cheers,
Daniel
6 Jan
6 Jan
5:01 p.m.
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 at 15:23, Daniel Gultsch <daniel(a)gultsch.de> wrote:
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three
birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?
I agree this is desirable, and these questions make a good starting point.
My only concern is that if we asked such questions about, say, XEP-0509, I
couldn't even begin to answer these for any hypothetical communities I'm
in, so these may lend themselves better to more user-visible features.
It would, though, be interesting to see what the answers would be for
XEP-0500 - that would be a fascinating exercise - so I'd be similarly wary
of limiting this to client features.
Would it also be helpful to have a survey to find out why people don't
engage in Last Calls, why they wouldn't stand for Council, and why they
join (or don't join) the XSF?
Dave.
8 Jan
8 Jan
6:40 p.m.
Good evening.
I would want to increase the extent of this concern, and focus more on
people and less on developers and other "technical" people.
I am more inclined to advocate for more accessibility and freedom.
Bad influence
-------------
I am against condescending terms such as "civil society"; as such terms
are designed to influlence people to silently legitimize concerns that
otherwise would not be legitimized by them.
One is said to be of a group of "civil society", and that term
influences him to have some effortless pride, by supposedly being of
"civil society".
If someone from Afghanistan or Antartica, or China has a good idea,
then I would listen to him; and I care not whether he is red, white,
black, yellow, blond, or redhead.
I, for instance, am a jew of an "enlightened" (whatever that should
mean) and "democratic" society in the middle east; even though the
population registry has over a million of non-existing people (for
election purposes); even though it has no constitution and individual
rights have no protection; even though it denies damages by presenting
itself as a victim and thereby stifles any discussion; even though it
commits a well documented genocide of half a century against the
Palestinian people.
The society of which I am a part of, for over twenty years, is anything
but that which it describes itself, and many of my friends think so too.
Hence, I sense, that unnecessary regulations would only harm and
confuse us.
Stating that the damage be *significant* be an understatement, and the
damages would certainly be immense and difficult to measure.
Regulation
----------
Regulation is something good, only when it is necessary; and, is
almost always bad when it is unnecessary.
Censorship
----------
Useless regulations are often made to have concealed censorship
mechanisms that are masqueraded as helpful procedures.
During the last year of 2025, that organization which you mentioned
(starting with "W") and organization which is related to it, have
censored, in the name of their "benevolent" (useless) regulations, many
comments and criticism against the removal of XSLT.
That regulation was abused to censor; or, I should state, that they
were used as they were meant to be used, to censor.
Censorship masqueraded by friendliness.
Access
------
I recall, over a decade ago, a friend who was a participant of a
group chat called "yaypew", who discussed several times about
a"lobby"
group chat which is forked into several group chats; and interestingly
XEP-0503 is reminiscing his description. XMPP could have been there
before everyone else, if the access was easier, to more kinds of people.
The problem, and trouble, of the XMPP people is the lack of access of
more kinds of people, who may be even literature teachers, lawyers,
gardeners, farmers, and even bureaucrats.
Increasing of accessibility would consequently increase the
participation and helpful ideas.
However, all mailing-lists were closed, and now there is only a
mailing-list of "standards" which does not even fit to me, an XMPP
software developer.
Interestingly, the mailing-list of "jdev" was closed for inactivity,
even though the activity increased, and, ironically, the recent
discussions were about increasing accessibility.
Conclusion
----------
I advise to refrain from regulations, and contrived terms; and to
increase access to the public.
Otherwise, XMPP would be left behind, instead of leading the internet
as I deem that it should.
Once we allow to the public to guide us, the better we would serve the
pubblic and XMPP.
I am a lawyer; yet, today, I develop XMPP software full-time, and that
is because I allowed to my clients, especialy my first ones, to guide
my efforts, instead of myself being authoritative against them.
Post script
-----------
The recent fake event, which was amazing to tell, about sabotaging a
whites-only internet site, which I deem to be a fake event, was
probably a campaign to incite hatred intsead of discussion and
dialogue, and also to legitimize criminal and offensive behaviour
against white.
I deem that even as a fake event, because I, as a lawyer of over a
decade, am well aware that one would be subjected to severe lawsuits
for committing such offences.
So, other than this event being fake, it has another consequence to
encourage hatred, and therefore I deem that mentioned organization
(starting with "C") as untrustworthy.
Of note
-------
I repeat, the things that we need are accessible and open dialogues and
discussions, and to extend them to more people, beyond you and me.
I write this message out of respect and care; and if someone is
inconvenient about anuy of my statements, that are mostly about my own
life and society, I request to refer to me in a polite manner;
otherwise, I will ignore your comments.
Thank you,
Schimon
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 16:22:31 +0100
Daniel Gultsch <daniel(a)gultsch.de> wrote:
Hi,
I saw a talk by Sophia Longwe, who I believe works at Wikimedia
Germany, at 39C3 (Chaos Communication Congress). I saw the talk in
person, but there is a recording of it here:
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-who-runs-the-www-wsis20-and-the-future-of-inter…
The talk is a rudimentary overview of how the different bodies that
"steer" the internet work t ranging from UN committees and ICANN down
to mere mortals such as us. The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) was
not called out specifically, but our colleagues at the IETF and W3C
were mentioned.
In her talk, she criticized the lack of participation from "civil
society" in standardization work. She attributed this partially to
high barriers to entry at IETF events (high costs, fancy hotels) and
said (I’m paraphrasing) that it’s basically just rich FAANG employees.
Some of that doesn’t exactly match my own experience at the IETF, but
I don’t think any of what she said was in bad faith. I hope to meet
her in Vienna (IETF126) to discuss some of these things in person. And
who knows, maybe she is right.
Anyway, long story short, this got me thinking about our processes
here at the XSF (which, again, she didn’t mention at all):
I think the XMPP Standards Foundation is in a unique position where
many of our members can be described as "civil society" - people who
might describe themselves as activists or promoters of XMPP rather
than developers. (And/or people who do software development for a
living, but whose jobs are unrelated to XMPP and who joined the XSF
more in the capacity of a user.)
At the same time, I’m observing that a lot of our Last Calls (and
standards work in general) have few participants, at least relative to
our overall membership numbers. Furthermore, I've heard criticism that
the XSF doesn’t take the concerns of some minority groups seriously
enough. (Which may or may not be true; I don’t want to take sides on
that at this point.)
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?
Cheers,
Daniel
_______________________________________________
Standards mailing list -- standards(a)xmpp.org
To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave(a)xmpp.org
8:16 p.m.
Hi all,
I find these topics difficult to discuss or act on, because through my lack
of experience, well-intended remarks often turn out to be naïve or even
upsetting. Still, I think this is an important discussion to have, so here
goes.
It is quite clear to me that Schimon strongly objects to the term "civil
society", although I am not entirely sure whether this is mainly about the
term itself or about differing interpretations of what it implies. That
said, I do think there is a broad consensus between Daniel, Dave and
Schimon on the core message: making XSF standards more inclusive and more
user-focused.
I would certainly support revisiting the questions we ask during Last
Calls. If we can improve those questions in a way that leads to better
engagement, and ultimately to standards that serve the needs of more
people, that would be a very good outcome. As such, this feels like a
pragmatic and low-risk first step.
At the same time, if our goal is greater inclusivity and user focus,
concentrating solely on Last Call questions does feel a bit narrowly
scoped. I do appreciate the pragmatism here - and by all means, I'm not
suggesting we *don't* do this - but I wonder whether, in parallel, we could
also look for other improvements in our processes, organisation, or
outreach efforts that might address the same goals more broadly.
Thanks for starting this discussion; I'm glad we're having it.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 7:40 PM Schimon Jehudah <sch(a)fedora.email> wrote:
Good evening.
I would want to increase the extent of this concern, and focus more on
people and less on developers and other "technical" people.
I am more inclined to advocate for more accessibility and freedom.
Bad influence
-------------
I am against condescending terms such as "civil society"; as such terms
are designed to influlence people to silently legitimize concerns that
otherwise would not be legitimized by them.
One is said to be of a group of "civil society", and that term
influences him to have some effortless pride, by supposedly being of
"civil society".
If someone from Afghanistan or Antartica, or China has a good idea,
then I would listen to him; and I care not whether he is red, white,
black, yellow, blond, or redhead.
I, for instance, am a jew of an "enlightened" (whatever that should
mean) and "democratic" society in the middle east; even though the
population registry has over a million of non-existing people (for
election purposes); even though it has no constitution and individual
rights have no protection; even though it denies damages by presenting
itself as a victim and thereby stifles any discussion; even though it
commits a well documented genocide of half a century against the
Palestinian people.
The society of which I am a part of, for over twenty years, is anything
but that which it describes itself, and many of my friends think so too.
Hence, I sense, that unnecessary regulations would only harm and
confuse us.
Stating that the damage be *significant* be an understatement, and the
damages would certainly be immense and difficult to measure.
Regulation
----------
Regulation is something good, only when it is necessary; and, is
almost always bad when it is unnecessary.
Censorship
----------
Useless regulations are often made to have concealed censorship
mechanisms that are masqueraded as helpful procedures.
During the last year of 2025, that organization which you mentioned
(starting with "W") and organization which is related to it, have
censored, in the name of their "benevolent" (useless) regulations, many
comments and criticism against the removal of XSLT.
That regulation was abused to censor; or, I should state, that they
were used as they were meant to be used, to censor.
Censorship masqueraded by friendliness.
Access
------
I recall, over a decade ago, a friend who was a participant of a
group chat called "yaypew", who discussed several times about
a"lobby"
group chat which is forked into several group chats; and interestingly
XEP-0503 is reminiscing his description. XMPP could have been there
before everyone else, if the access was easier, to more kinds of people.
The problem, and trouble, of the XMPP people is the lack of access of
more kinds of people, who may be even literature teachers, lawyers,
gardeners, farmers, and even bureaucrats.
Increasing of accessibility would consequently increase the
participation and helpful ideas.
However, all mailing-lists were closed, and now there is only a
mailing-list of "standards" which does not even fit to me, an XMPP
software developer.
Interestingly, the mailing-list of "jdev" was closed for inactivity,
even though the activity increased, and, ironically, the recent
discussions were about increasing accessibility.
Conclusion
----------
I advise to refrain from regulations, and contrived terms; and to
increase access to the public.
Otherwise, XMPP would be left behind, instead of leading the internet
as I deem that it should.
Once we allow to the public to guide us, the better we would serve the
pubblic and XMPP.
I am a lawyer; yet, today, I develop XMPP software full-time, and that
is because I allowed to my clients, especialy my first ones, to guide
my efforts, instead of myself being authoritative against them.
Post script
-----------
The recent fake event, which was amazing to tell, about sabotaging a
whites-only internet site, which I deem to be a fake event, was
probably a campaign to incite hatred intsead of discussion and
dialogue, and also to legitimize criminal and offensive behaviour
against white.
I deem that even as a fake event, because I, as a lawyer of over a
decade, am well aware that one would be subjected to severe lawsuits
for committing such offences.
So, other than this event being fake, it has another consequence to
encourage hatred, and therefore I deem that mentioned organization
(starting with "C") as untrustworthy.
Of note
-------
I repeat, the things that we need are accessible and open dialogues and
discussions, and to extend them to more people, beyond you and me.
I write this message out of respect and care; and if someone is
inconvenient about anuy of my statements, that are mostly about my own
life and society, I request to refer to me in a polite manner;
otherwise, I will ignore your comments.
Thank you,
Schimon
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 16:22:31 +0100
Daniel Gultsch <daniel(a)gultsch.de> wrote:
Hi,
I saw a talk by Sophia Longwe, who I believe works at Wikimedia
Germany, at 39C3 (Chaos Communication Congress). I saw the talk in
person, but there is a recording of it here:
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-who-runs-the-www-wsis20-and-the-future-of-inter…
The talk is a rudimentary overview of how the different bodies that
"steer" the internet work t ranging from UN committees and ICANN down
to mere mortals such as us. The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) was
not called out specifically, but our colleagues at the IETF and W3C
were mentioned.
In her talk, she criticized the lack of participation from "civil
society" in standardization work. She attributed this partially to
high barriers to entry at IETF events (high costs, fancy hotels) and
said (I’m paraphrasing) that it’s basically just rich FAANG employees.
Some of that doesn’t exactly match my own experience at the IETF, but
I don’t think any of what she said was in bad faith. I hope to meet
her in Vienna (IETF126) to discuss some of these things in person. And
who knows, maybe she is right.
Anyway, long story short, this got me thinking about our processes
here at the XSF (which, again, she didn’t mention at all):
I think the XMPP Standards Foundation is in a unique position where
many of our members can be described as "civil society" - people who
might describe themselves as activists or promoters of XMPP rather
than developers. (And/or people who do software development for a
living, but whose jobs are unrelated to XMPP and who joined the XSF
more in the capacity of a user.)
At the same time, I’m observing that a lot of our Last Calls (and
standards work in general) have few participants, at least relative to
our overall membership numbers. Furthermore, I've heard criticism that
the XSF doesn’t take the concerns of some minority groups seriously
enough. (Which may or may not be true; I don’t want to take sides on
that at this point.)
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?
Cheers,
Daniel
_______________________________________________
Standards mailing list -- standards(a)xmpp.org
To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave(a)xmpp.org
_______________________________________________
Standards mailing list -- standards(a)xmpp.org
To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave(a)xmpp.org
8:36 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 9:17 PM Guus der Kinderen
<guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I would certainly support revisiting the questions we
ask during Last Calls. If we can improve those questions in a way that leads to better
engagement, and ultimately to standards that serve the needs of more people, that would be
a very good outcome. As such, this feels like a pragmatic and low-risk first step.
At the same time, if our goal is greater inclusivity and user focus, concentrating solely
on Last Call questions does feel a bit narrowly scoped. I do appreciate the pragmatism
here - and by all means, I'm not suggesting we don't do this - but I wonder
whether, in parallel, we could also look for other improvements in our processes,
organisation, or outreach efforts that might address the same goals more broadly.
The ideal outcome of starting with the Last Call questions is that it
is infectious. If "we" spec authors, developers, "technical people",
what ever you want to call us, know we will have to answer to "civil
society" and know that certain questions will be asked before the XEP
becomes stable we might consider them from the start and/or consult
with people outside our usual circles.
But yes, people with the ability to answer - or phrase for that matter
- those questions won’t appear out of thin air and will need to be
out-reached to. In fact I was going to send this thread to people and
ask them to help us phrase those questions.
cheers
Daniel
8:51 p.m.
Guus. Good evening.
I do oppose to special terms, as they are eventually being abused, or
designed to fail.
I would want to state, that it would be useful to have a shared
communication venue under xmpp.org, or someplace else, which people of
IgniteRealtime, Tigase, ProcessOne et cetera can discuss about shared
concerns.
One of the reasons to have such venue, is that not everyone would be
interested to navigate over several forum publishing platforms to post
and participate at the same discussion multiple times.
Regards,
Schimon
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 21:16:42 +0100
Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I find these topics difficult to discuss or act on, because through
my lack of experience, well-intended remarks often turn out to be
naïve or even upsetting. Still, I think this is an important
discussion to have, so here goes.
It is quite clear to me that Schimon strongly objects to the term
"civil society", although I am not entirely sure whether this is
mainly about the term itself or about differing interpretations of
what it implies. That said, I do think there is a broad consensus
between Daniel, Dave and Schimon on the core message: making XSF
standards more inclusive and more user-focused.
I would certainly support revisiting the questions we ask during Last
Calls. If we can improve those questions in a way that leads to better
engagement, and ultimately to standards that serve the needs of more
people, that would be a very good outcome. As such, this feels like a
pragmatic and low-risk first step.
At the same time, if our goal is greater inclusivity and user focus,
concentrating solely on Last Call questions does feel a bit narrowly
scoped. I do appreciate the pragmatism here - and by all means, I'm
not suggesting we *don't* do this - but I wonder whether, in
parallel, we could also look for other improvements in our processes,
organisation, or outreach efforts that might address the same goals
more broadly.
Thanks for starting this discussion; I'm glad we're having it.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 7:40 PM Schimon Jehudah <sch(a)fedora.email>
wrote:
> Good evening.
>
> I would want to increase the extent of this concern, and focus more
> on people and less on developers and other "technical" people.
>
> I am more inclined to advocate for more accessibility and freedom.
>
>
> Bad influence
> -------------
>
> I am against condescending terms such as "civil society"; as such
> terms are designed to influlence people to silently legitimize
> concerns that otherwise would not be legitimized by them.
>
> One is said to be of a group of "civil society", and that term
> influences him to have some effortless pride, by supposedly being of
> "civil society".
>
> If someone from Afghanistan or Antartica, or China has a good idea,
> then I would listen to him; and I care not whether he is red, white,
> black, yellow, blond, or redhead.
>
> I, for instance, am a jew of an "enlightened" (whatever that should
> mean) and "democratic" society in the middle east; even though the
> population registry has over a million of non-existing people (for
> election purposes); even though it has no constitution and
> individual rights have no protection; even though it denies damages
> by presenting itself as a victim and thereby stifles any
> discussion; even though it commits a well documented genocide of
> half a century against the Palestinian people.
>
> The society of which I am a part of, for over twenty years, is
> anything but that which it describes itself, and many of my friends
> think so too.
>
> Hence, I sense, that unnecessary regulations would only harm and
> confuse us.
>
> Stating that the damage be *significant* be an understatement, and
> the damages would certainly be immense and difficult to measure.
>
>
> Regulation
> ----------
>
> Regulation is something good, only when it is necessary; and, is
> almost always bad when it is unnecessary.
>
>
> Censorship
> ----------
>
> Useless regulations are often made to have concealed censorship
> mechanisms that are masqueraded as helpful procedures.
>
> During the last year of 2025, that organization which you mentioned
> (starting with "W") and organization which is related to it, have
> censored, in the name of their "benevolent" (useless) regulations,
> many comments and criticism against the removal of XSLT.
>
> That regulation was abused to censor; or, I should state, that they
> were used as they were meant to be used, to censor.
>
> Censorship masqueraded by friendliness.
>
>
> Access
> ------
>
> I recall, over a decade ago, a friend who was a participant of a
> group chat called "yaypew", who discussed several times about
> a"lobby" group chat which is forked into several group chats; and
> interestingly XEP-0503 is reminiscing his description. XMPP could
> have been there before everyone else, if the access was easier, to
> more kinds of people.
>
> The problem, and trouble, of the XMPP people is the lack of access
> of more kinds of people, who may be even literature teachers,
> lawyers, gardeners, farmers, and even bureaucrats.
>
> Increasing of accessibility would consequently increase the
> participation and helpful ideas.
>
> However, all mailing-lists were closed, and now there is only a
> mailing-list of "standards" which does not even fit to me, an XMPP
> software developer.
>
> Interestingly, the mailing-list of "jdev" was closed for inactivity,
> even though the activity increased, and, ironically, the recent
> discussions were about increasing accessibility.
>
>
> Conclusion
> ----------
>
> I advise to refrain from regulations, and contrived terms; and to
> increase access to the public.
>
> Otherwise, XMPP would be left behind, instead of leading the
> internet as I deem that it should.
>
> Once we allow to the public to guide us, the better we would serve
> the pubblic and XMPP.
>
> I am a lawyer; yet, today, I develop XMPP software full-time, and
> that is because I allowed to my clients, especialy my first ones,
> to guide my efforts, instead of myself being authoritative against
> them.
>
>
> Post script
> -----------
>
> The recent fake event, which was amazing to tell, about sabotaging a
> whites-only internet site, which I deem to be a fake event, was
> probably a campaign to incite hatred intsead of discussion and
> dialogue, and also to legitimize criminal and offensive behaviour
> against white.
>
> I deem that even as a fake event, because I, as a lawyer of over a
> decade, am well aware that one would be subjected to severe lawsuits
> for committing such offences.
>
> So, other than this event being fake, it has another consequence to
> encourage hatred, and therefore I deem that mentioned organization
> (starting with "C") as untrustworthy.
>
>
> Of note
> -------
>
> I repeat, the things that we need are accessible and open dialogues
> and discussions, and to extend them to more people, beyond you and
> me.
>
> I write this message out of respect and care; and if someone is
> inconvenient about anuy of my statements, that are mostly about my
> own life and society, I request to refer to me in a polite manner;
> otherwise, I will ignore your comments.
>
>
> Thank you,
> Schimon
>
>
> On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 16:22:31 +0100
> Daniel Gultsch <daniel(a)gultsch.de> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I saw a talk by Sophia Longwe, who I believe works at Wikimedia
> > Germany, at 39C3 (Chaos Communication Congress). I saw the talk in
> > person, but there is a recording of it here:
> >
> https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-who-runs-the-www-wsis20-and-the-future-of-inter…
>
> >
> > The talk is a rudimentary overview of how the different bodies
> > that "steer" the internet work t ranging from UN committees and
> > ICANN down to mere mortals such as us. The XMPP Standards
> > Foundation (XSF) was not called out specifically, but our
> > colleagues at the IETF and W3C were mentioned.
> >
> > In her talk, she criticized the lack of participation from "civil
> > society" in standardization work. She attributed this partially to
> > high barriers to entry at IETF events (high costs, fancy hotels)
> > and said (I’m paraphrasing) that it’s basically just rich FAANG
> > employees. Some of that doesn’t exactly match my own experience
> > at the IETF, but I don’t think any of what she said was in bad
> > faith. I hope to meet her in Vienna (IETF126) to discuss some of
> > these things in person. And who knows, maybe she is right.
> >
> > Anyway, long story short, this got me thinking about our processes
> > here at the XSF (which, again, she didn’t mention at all):
> >
> > I think the XMPP Standards Foundation is in a unique position
> > where many of our members can be described as "civil society" -
> > people who might describe themselves as activists or promoters of
> > XMPP rather than developers. (And/or people who do software
> > development for a living, but whose jobs are unrelated to XMPP
> > and who joined the XSF more in the capacity of a user.)
> >
> > At the same time, I’m observing that a lot of our Last Calls (and
> > standards work in general) have few participants, at least
> > relative to our overall membership numbers. Furthermore, I've
> > heard criticism that the XSF doesn’t take the concerns of some
> > minority groups seriously enough. (Which may or may not be true;
> > I don’t want to take sides on that at this point.)
> >
> > This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three birds with
> > one stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in
> > the Last Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback
> > from "civil society" (for lack of a better word)?
> >
> > I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
> > list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
> >
> > * Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP
> > client you currently use?
> > * Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
> > impact your community?
> > * Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your
> > community?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Daniel
> > _______________________________________________
> > Standards mailing list -- standards(a)xmpp.org
> > To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave(a)xmpp.org
> _______________________________________________
> Standards mailing list -- standards(a)xmpp.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave(a)xmpp.org
>
9 Jan
9 Jan
10:11 a.m.
Hi all,
There's a lot happening in this thread, but I do like the general
direction in which this is going. I have read the entire thread, though
not watched the talk yet (I'm actually planning to listen to the audio,
since watching videos for a long time tends to tire me more; I hope that
doesn't cause me to miss out anything too important).
Going back to Daniel's original idea:
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three
birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?
I think these are questions that would certainly encourage more
participation among people who are following the list without
participating. (How to get more people reading them is a different matter).
Personally, despite being an XSF member and also the developer of an
XMPP client, I feel something of an impostor syndrome commenting on
standards thinking that maybe I'm not well-versed enough. Strangely, I
don't feel the same way about asking questions on the jdev MUC. This
might be some kind of vicious cycle where only the most engaged people
(and therefore the ones most well-versed in the technical internals) end
up replying on the list, leading people to think that they have to be
similarly well-versed, and therefore keeping silent while only
well-versed people reply...
One way to break out of this could be to make it clear that more basic
questions along the lines of "Will this XEP let me X in my client?" or
even "How exactly is this XEP going to be used?" are also welcome. Some
very rough ideas are:
* Do you have any questions about how this XEP could be used in practice?
* Is there a feature you would like to see that you think this XEP
could help with?
And maybe a comment like "This XEP is a technical specification, but
general non-technical discussion about how it would work are also
welcome". If we have a template like this, it could be included at the
bottom whenever a new XEP is announced on the list (we don't have to
wait for the Last Call!)
Regarding Schimon's reservations about the term "civil society", I am
okay with choosing some other term that doesn't have the connotations
described. I think the main aim is to find a word that means "anybody at
all who might use XMPP, not just tech people". So let's try to
brainstorm some ideas for that?
I don't know the background behind the whole mailing list thing, but if
it'll help reduce the barrier for people to post I can volunteer to
reply with a few silly (or not) questions on the XEPs that come into
this list ;-)
Finally, in response to Dave's proposed questions,
Would it also be helpful to have a survey to find out
why people don't
engage in Last Calls, why they wouldn't stand for Council, and why
they join (or don't join) the XSF?
This sounds like a good idea too! If there are people with "impostor
syndrome" like me, even posing the question could encourage them by
letting them know that we /do/ want them to engage/stand/join. Through
hanging out at various XSF MUCs, I've seen the sentiment passed around
once in a while about wishing there was participation beyond just tech
people (or often more narrowly just spec people!) but that's not
something one can pick up by just browsing the XSF website a few times.
Personally, the vague plan in my head was to start following the XEPs
more closely first and then thinking of standing for Council. I'm not
sure if that's how it's supposed to work. For Council specifically, a
question that comes to mind is: since it's meant to be a vetting of the
technical specifications, does it require people to be able to read and
digest the entire spec? If so, that would require people on the Council
to be at least somewhat comfortable with tech/programming. Or perhaps we
are okay with Council members who go by discussing the functionality
with others in the community and vote based on what they learn there? If
the latter, that sounds like something which should be spelled out
somewhere because by reading the lists today I'd assume it was the former.
I think I'm starting to ramble so I will stop here :-)
Looking forward to hearing what others think. And FWIW if it comes to a
"figuring out what questions to ask and how to phrase them" session I'm
willing to help with that!
Best,
Badri
12:28 p.m.
Badri. Good afternoon.
Thank you for responding.
Please. Consider my conclusion.
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 15:41:30 +0530
Badri Sunderarajan <badrihippo(a)disroot.org> wrote:
Hi all,
There's a lot happening in this thread, but I do like the general
direction in which this is going. I have read the entire thread,
though not watched the talk yet (I'm actually planning to listen to
the audio, since watching videos for a long time tends to tire me
more; I hope that doesn't cause me to miss out anything too
important).
Going back to Daniel's original idea:
Thank you for writing this.
I think, that your statement may also be used to support my approach,
that there are already too many regulative layers in this XSF forum, be
these regulations optional or compulsory; these regulations distance
XMPP from more humans; and, humans, are those which, I think, that XMPP
was intended to serve.
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or
three birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP
client you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your
community?
I think these are questions that would certainly encourage more
participation among people who are following the list without
participating. (How to get more people reading them is a different
matter).
Personally, despite being an XSF member and also the developer of an
XMPP client, I feel something of an impostor syndrome commenting on
standards thinking that maybe I'm not well-versed enough. Strangely,
I don't feel the same way about asking questions on the jdev MUC.
This might be some kind of vicious cycle where only the most engaged
people (and therefore the ones most well-versed in the technical
internals) end up replying on the list, leading people to think that
they have to be similarly well-versed, and therefore keeping silent
while only well-versed people reply...
One way to break out of this could be to make it clear
that more
basic questions along the lines of "Will this XEP let me X in my
client?" or even "How exactly is this XEP going to be used?" are also
welcome. Some very rough ideas are:
* Do you have any questions about how this XEP could be used in
practice?
* Is there a feature you would like to see that you think this XEP
could help with?
And maybe a comment like "This XEP is a technical specification, but
general non-technical discussion about how it would work are also
welcome". If we have a template like this, it could be included at
the bottom whenever a new XEP is announced on the list (we don't have
to wait for the Last Call!)
Regarding Schimon's reservations about the term "civil society", I am
okay with choosing some other term that doesn't have the connotations
described. I think the main aim is to find a word that means "anybody
at all who might use XMPP, not just tech people". So let's try to
brainstorm some ideas for that?
The term itself is a term. It is not a problem.
The problem is titling something. The problem is a jargon.
I sense, that the word "inclusive" is a code-word to exclude people,
and what that title does, is inciting us against each other, be it
indians against white, whites against latinos, jews against muslims, et
cetera.
Example
-------
This is a perfect example of how "inclusiveness" is being subverted.
https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/woodpeckersnest.space/~schapps/journal/2025-0…
Mr. Esmail EL BoB, A Muslim Arab man, who I conversed many times, and
who is a very good man, even though he thinks many bad things about my
own society.
However, he did nothing wrong, and he was harmed, and also everyone
else who advocate for freedom to humans.
Of note
-------
The actual term should be "common denominator", "cooperation",
"freedom" et cetera, to which we do not need to have a jargon.
We only need to communicate. This is not something to even think about.
Experience
----------
Pleaes. Do not mock me. I used to be very weird in the past.
I did not curse nor insulted anybody. I was somewhat impolite.
I do recall stating a curse at someone of "AradiRadio" (part of
AradiTracker), and I was asked by the chat administrator to behave.
Now, I remember myself at the age of 19, when I first learned English
on my own (not that school), by participating in digital activities of
my interest; and I was a TERRIBLE communicator, using weird words, and
having a bad attitude, at sites such as Userscripts.or, Userstyle.org,
and The Portable Freeware Collection.
Nevertheless, the more I FREELY conversed and argued with people,
without those contrived regulations, at which I misbehaved, then
gradually I BALANCED and improved my attitude; and every once or twice,
of every year, for a decade I read my past comments of last year or
years, and wondered how significantly terrible I was; and at later
years I wondered how improved I was in contract to the past.
To conclude
-----------
If the unnecessary document CoC (did you notice the sound of it?) and
the contrived doctrine of "inclusiveness" were introduced when I was
19, then I probably would not be involved with XMPP, not even FFree
Software, and I would be utilizing proprietary operating systems.
Final notes
-----------
XMPP should be more free, more open to everyone.
We do not have to have all the activities at a single hub.
My intenton is not to overwhelm us.
We can have obvious references over xmpp.or to direct people to
relevant communities.
For instance, project postmarketOS has tens of IRC channels, each
dedicated to that which is relevant to a particular niche; and so we
should do with XMPP.
We need to increase activity, engagement, and curiousity of the public.
Afterwards, a discussion of more regulations, compulsory or optional,
might be needed, and to which I will probably still be against.
Post script
-----------
I will still be against, because those couple of standard entities
which Daniel has referred to are not open. They are closed, and are
blatantly infested with infiltrators.
I therefore, do not want XMPP to also be closed, as more regulations
would retract from the public, and would make XMPP subjected to
sabotagers (i.e. moles) and infiltrators that would prevent progress.
An infiltration, of sort, actually happened with three prominent
members of XSF; yet, I will not mention it in this mailing-list,
because it will not be respectful.
We must not have more of it, if we do not want XMPP to lose its
relevancy.
I don't know the background behind the whole
mailing list thing, but
if it'll help reduce the barrier for people to post I can volunteer
to reply with a few silly (or not) questions on the XEPs that come
into this list ;-)
Finally, in response to Dave's proposed questions,
Best,
Schimon
Would it also be helpful to have a survey to find
out why people
don't engage in Last Calls, why they wouldn't stand for Council,
and why they join (or don't join) the XSF?
This sounds like a good idea too! If there are people with "impostor
syndrome" like me, even posing the question could encourage them by
letting them know that we /do/ want them to engage/stand/join.
Through hanging out at various XSF MUCs, I've seen the sentiment
passed around once in a while about wishing there was participation
beyond just tech people (or often more narrowly just spec people!)
but that's not something one can pick up by just browsing the XSF
website a few times.
Personally, the vague plan in my head was to start following the XEPs
more closely first and then thinking of standing for Council. I'm not
sure if that's how it's supposed to work. For Council specifically, a
question that comes to mind is: since it's meant to be a vetting of
the technical specifications, does it require people to be able to
read and digest the entire spec? If so, that would require people on
the Council to be at least somewhat comfortable with
tech/programming. Or perhaps we are okay with Council members who go
by discussing the functionality with others in the community and vote
based on what they learn there? If the latter, that sounds like
something which should be spelled out somewhere because by reading
the lists today I'd assume it was the former.
I think I'm starting to ramble so I will stop here :-)
Looking forward to hearing what others think. And FWIW if it comes to
a "figuring out what questions to ask and how to phrase them" session
I'm willing to help with that!
Best,
Badri
2:05 p.m.
Dear Schimon,
Thank you for sharing your perspective. We all agree on the goal of
increasing engagement and making XSF standards more user-focused. To move
forward, we could try practical, low-risk steps, such as optional
user-focused questions in Last Calls and open discussion channels.
I would also welcome any other ideas you have for achieving this goal, so
we can find a solution that works for everyone.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 1:29 PM Schimon Jehudah <sch(a)fedora.email> wrote:
Badri. Good afternoon.
Thank you for responding.
Please. Consider my conclusion.
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 15:41:30 +0530
Badri Sunderarajan <badrihippo(a)disroot.org> wrote:
Hi all,
There's a lot happening in this thread, but I do like the general
direction in which this is going. I have read the entire thread,
though not watched the talk yet (I'm actually planning to listen to
the audio, since watching videos for a long time tends to tire me
more; I hope that doesn't cause me to miss out anything too
important).
Going back to Daniel's original idea:
Thank you for writing this.
I think, that your statement may also be used to support my approach,
that there are already too many regulative layers in this XSF forum, be
these regulations optional or compulsory; these regulations distance
XMPP from more humans; and, humans, are those which, I think, that XMPP
was intended to serve.
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or
three birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP
client you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your
community?
I think these are questions that would certainly encourage more
participation among people who are following the list without
participating. (How to get more people reading them is a different
matter).
Personally, despite being an XSF member and also the developer of an
XMPP client, I feel something of an impostor syndrome commenting on
standards thinking that maybe I'm not well-versed enough. Strangely,
I don't feel the same way about asking questions on the jdev MUC.
This might be some kind of vicious cycle where only the most engaged
people (and therefore the ones most well-versed in the technical
internals) end up replying on the list, leading people to think that
they have to be similarly well-versed, and therefore keeping silent
while only well-versed people reply...
One way to break out of this could be to make it
clear that more
basic questions along the lines of "Will this XEP let me X in my
client?" or even "How exactly is this XEP going to be used?" are also
welcome. Some very rough ideas are:
* Do you have any questions about how this XEP could be used in
practice?
* Is there a feature you would like to see that you think this XEP
could help with?
And maybe a comment like "This XEP is a technical specification, but
general non-technical discussion about how it would work are also
welcome". If we have a template like this, it could be included at
the bottom whenever a new XEP is announced on the list (we don't have
to wait for the Last Call!)
Regarding Schimon's reservations about the term "civil society", I am
okay with choosing some other term that doesn't have the connotations
described. I think the main aim is to find a word that means "anybody
at all who might use XMPP, not just tech people". So let's try to
brainstorm some ideas for that?
The term itself is a term. It is not a problem.
The problem is titling something. The problem is a jargon.
I sense, that the word "inclusive" is a code-word to exclude people,
and what that title does, is inciting us against each other, be it
indians against white, whites against latinos, jews against muslims, et
cetera.
Example
-------
This is a perfect example of how "inclusiveness" is being subverted.
https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/woodpeckersnest.space/~schapps/journal/2025-0…
Mr. Esmail EL BoB, A Muslim Arab man, who I conversed many times, and
who is a very good man, even though he thinks many bad things about my
own society.
However, he did nothing wrong, and he was harmed, and also everyone
else who advocate for freedom to humans.
Of note
-------
The actual term should be "common denominator", "cooperation",
"freedom" et cetera, to which we do not need to have a jargon.
We only need to communicate. This is not something to even think about.
Experience
----------
Pleaes. Do not mock me. I used to be very weird in the past.
I did not curse nor insulted anybody. I was somewhat impolite.
I do recall stating a curse at someone of "AradiRadio" (part of
AradiTracker), and I was asked by the chat administrator to behave.
Now, I remember myself at the age of 19, when I first learned English
on my own (not that school), by participating in digital activities of
my interest; and I was a TERRIBLE communicator, using weird words, and
having a bad attitude, at sites such as Userscripts.or, Userstyle.org,
and The Portable Freeware Collection.
Nevertheless, the more I FREELY conversed and argued with people,
without those contrived regulations, at which I misbehaved, then
gradually I BALANCED and improved my attitude; and every once or twice,
of every year, for a decade I read my past comments of last year or
years, and wondered how significantly terrible I was; and at later
years I wondered how improved I was in contract to the past.
To conclude
-----------
If the unnecessary document CoC (did you notice the sound of it?) and
the contrived doctrine of "inclusiveness" were introduced when I was
19, then I probably would not be involved with XMPP, not even FFree
Software, and I would be utilizing proprietary operating systems.
Final notes
-----------
XMPP should be more free, more open to everyone.
We do not have to have all the activities at a single hub.
My intenton is not to overwhelm us.
We can have obvious references over xmpp.or to direct people to
relevant communities.
For instance, project postmarketOS has tens of IRC channels, each
dedicated to that which is relevant to a particular niche; and so we
should do with XMPP.
We need to increase activity, engagement, and curiousity of the public.
Afterwards, a discussion of more regulations, compulsory or optional,
might be needed, and to which I will probably still be against.
Post script
-----------
I will still be against, because those couple of standard entities
which Daniel has referred to are not open. They are closed, and are
blatantly infested with infiltrators.
I therefore, do not want XMPP to also be closed, as more regulations
would retract from the public, and would make XMPP subjected to
sabotagers (i.e. moles) and infiltrators that would prevent progress.
An infiltration, of sort, actually happened with three prominent
members of XSF; yet, I will not mention it in this mailing-list,
because it will not be respectful.
We must not have more of it, if we do not want XMPP to lose its
relevancy.
I don't know the background behind the whole
mailing list thing, but
if it'll help reduce the barrier for people to post I can volunteer
to reply with a few silly (or not) questions on the XEPs that come
into this list ;-)
Finally, in response to Dave's proposed questions,
Best,
Schimon
Would it also be helpful to have a survey to find
out why people
don't engage in Last Calls, why they wouldn't stand for Council,
and why they join (or don't join) the XSF?
This sounds like a good idea too! If there are people with "impostor
syndrome" like me, even posing the question could encourage them by
letting them know that we /do/ want them to engage/stand/join.
Through hanging out at various XSF MUCs, I've seen the sentiment
passed around once in a while about wishing there was participation
beyond just tech people (or often more narrowly just spec people!)
but that's not something one can pick up by just browsing the XSF
website a few times.
Personally, the vague plan in my head was to start following the XEPs
more closely first and then thinking of standing for Council. I'm not
sure if that's how it's supposed to work. For Council specifically, a
question that comes to mind is: since it's meant to be a vetting of
the technical specifications, does it require people to be able to
read and digest the entire spec? If so, that would require people on
the Council to be at least somewhat comfortable with
tech/programming. Or perhaps we are okay with Council members who go
by discussing the functionality with others in the community and vote
based on what they learn there? If the latter, that sounds like
something which should be spelled out somewhere because by reading
the lists today I'd assume it was the former.
I think I'm starting to ramble so I will stop here :-)
Looking forward to hearing what others think. And FWIW if it comes to
a "figuring out what questions to ask and how to phrase them" session
I'm willing to help with that!
Best,
Badri 
8:34 p.m.
I like the idea of reworking the Last Call.
I've never responded to one because I don't believe I've got the authority
to speak on the topics from an implementation perspective, and question 3
implies that the Last Call is for folks writing implementations.
Clarity that answers to other questions aside from Q3 (on the text of the
standard) and/or other questions from a user perspective would definitely
encourage me to respond to >0.
Dan
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026, 15:23 Daniel Gultsch, <daniel(a)gultsch.de> wrote:
Hi,
I saw a talk by Sophia Longwe, who I believe works at Wikimedia
Germany, at 39C3 (Chaos Communication Congress). I saw the talk in
person, but there is a recording of it here:
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-who-runs-the-www-wsis20-and-the-future-of-inter…
The talk is a rudimentary overview of how the different bodies that
"steer" the internet work t ranging from UN committees and ICANN down
to mere mortals such as us. The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) was
not called out specifically, but our colleagues at the IETF and W3C
were mentioned.
In her talk, she criticized the lack of participation from "civil
society" in standardization work. She attributed this partially to
high barriers to entry at IETF events (high costs, fancy hotels) and
said (I’m paraphrasing) that it’s basically just rich FAANG employees.
Some of that doesn’t exactly match my own experience at the IETF, but
I don’t think any of what she said was in bad faith. I hope to meet
her in Vienna (IETF126) to discuss some of these things in person. And
who knows, maybe she is right.
Anyway, long story short, this got me thinking about our processes
here at the XSF (which, again, she didn’t mention at all):
I think the XMPP Standards Foundation is in a unique position where
many of our members can be described as "civil society" - people who
might describe themselves as activists or promoters of XMPP rather
than developers. (And/or people who do software development for a
living, but whose jobs are unrelated to XMPP and who joined the XSF
more in the capacity of a user.)
At the same time, I’m observing that a lot of our Last Calls (and
standards work in general) have few participants, at least relative to
our overall membership numbers. Furthermore, I've heard criticism that
the XSF doesn’t take the concerns of some minority groups seriously
enough. (Which may or may not be true; I don’t want to take sides on
that at this point.)
This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three birds with one
stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
society" (for lack of a better word)?
I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
* Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
you currently use?
* Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
impact your community?
* Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?
Cheers,
Daniel
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9 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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Badri Sunderarajan -
Dan Caseley -
Daniel Gultsch -
Dave Cridland -
Guus der Kinderen -
Schimon Jehudah