Participation of civil society in the standardization process + Last Calls
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-intern... 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
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 at 15:23, Daniel Gultsch <daniel@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.
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@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-intern...
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@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
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@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@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-intern...
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@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
_______________________________________________ Standards mailing list -- standards@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 9:17 PM Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen@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
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@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@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@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-intern...
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@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
_______________________________________________ Standards mailing list -- standards@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
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
Badri. Good afternoon. Thank you for responding. Please. Consider my conclusion. On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 15:41:30 +0530 Badri Sunderarajan <badrihippo@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:
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...
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.
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/2025-02... 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,
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
Best, Schimon
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@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@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:
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...
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.
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/2025-02...
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,
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
Best, Schimon
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@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-intern...
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@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
I proposed in the MUC the other day abolishing the questions and instead asking for free-form feedback, prefaced with something along the lines of ’some of the things we care about are…but any relevant feedback is welcomed’, exactly for the reason that people might feel they have feedback to give, but not feel qualified to answer all of the questions and so not respond, and would seem to address this. /K
On 9 Jan 2026, at 20:34, Dan Caseley <dan@caseley.me.uk> wrote:
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@gultsch.de <mailto:daniel@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-intern...
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@xmpp.org <mailto:standards@xmpp.org> To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org <mailto:standards-leave@xmpp.org>
Standards mailing list -- standards@xmpp.org To unsubscribe send an email to standards-leave@xmpp.org
participants (7)
-
Badri Sunderarajan -
Dan Caseley -
Daniel Gultsch -
Dave Cridland -
Guus der Kinderen -
Kevin Smith -
Schimon Jehudah