XSF Communications Team - 2026-08-08

Hello everyone!

Sorry for not being around for the last few days .. but I had my birthday and it took me longer than expected to get back on my feet 😁

Anyways .. the thing is: Am I the only one who noticed that the link to the Fluux video in the Newsletter is broken?

Thank you emus !! 🤗❤️🤗

> Anyways .. the thing is: Am I the only one who noticed that the link to the Fluux video in the Newsletter is broken? Ah damn it cal0pteryx: can you help? ↺

I saw it when preparing the mail, but thought it was a issue in the email

emus, I think he already did, as I noticed that there was a new file added to the PR

🤔

themes/xmpp.org/layouts/shortcodes/video.html

https://github.com/xsf/xmpp.org/pull/1691/changes#diff-53cfa655bc487ef9f794f862daa8bccf73827ca1f659d92418d9f19d695a5af2

But it seems it didn't do the trick

> Ah damn it > > cal0pteryx: can you help? Yeah .. quite a pity .. it was looking great when I submitted the PR 🙁 ↺

Need to wait for help. I cannot fix it

Neither can't I .. unless I revert the changes and leave it as it was when I opened the PR

But I *really* don't want to step over cal0pteryx's foot

Im pretty positive he had really good reasons to make those changes and I trust what he did

Anyways .. and in all honesty, what worries me the most is that nobody noticed it .. or even worse: that they did but no one care to report it or let us know ..

> Anyways .. and in all honesty, what worries me the most is that nobody noticed it .. or even worse: that they did but no one care to report it or let us know .. Yes, did we got comments online I havent seen? Usually we get feedback if something is wrong ↺

Seems that, at least on Mastodon, we didn't get any comments ...

Even though I think we broke a record with 19 boost ..

> Even though I think we broke a record with 19 boost .. I think we managed to have more in the past ↺

MattJ: Can we see how many accesses are out there to the newsletter blogpost page?

No comments or feedback on the content of the Newsletter on Reddit either

So .. yeah .. it basically took 3 days for me to get to a computer again, check the Newsletter, realize the link to the video is broken and report it here ..

Yeah, I usually take a look as I have to post it, but did not see it. Will take care on this more in the future. Most people read the newsletter through RSS and in my reader you dont see it at all. So thats maybe why people dont complain. And a broken video does not prevent you from reading anything else.

Yes .. I do it every month, and that's how I manage to catch last minutes errors .. but I couldn't do it this month as I was out celebrating 😉

> Yes .. I do it every month, and that's how I manage to catch last minutes errors .. but I couldn't do it this month as I was out celebrating 😉 And thats alright! ↺

Itssad, but not a big thing. We should find out and learn from it for sure

Just got an invite over at LinkedIn from an account named XMPP Standards Foundation. Is this any of you? If so: section 1 here says that's not allowed: https://nonprofit.linkedin.com/blog/2022/04/how-to-create-a-linkedin-page-for-a-nonprofit

emus: ^

That already fixed, sorry ralphm

Fixed how?

> Fixed how? I renamed the account ↺

Ok, I'll try again. LinkedIn is a platform for *individuals*. Company pages' posts, etc. are supposed to be posted by individuals. Not "team" accounts. LinkedIn doesn't approve of it, and it is a bad look. Don't do this.

ralphm: ok, I did not claim to be a company and thought being a team account / member of a company page is ok. Then I wonder how we could achieve this best? It would be great to have our communication there and also connected to our automation.

The best way to do this, is manually post as an individual. And tailor the message to the platform.

(post on the page, of course)

Doesn't XSF already has a "company" profile?

is that what you are complaining about or?

Polarian: we have had an XSF page for many years. As the linked page explains, the way you work with that, is that people associated with the organization can post on that page. Emus however created a new user account, not as an individual, but as a team, in order to use that instead of a personal account. This is not the way to do it on that platform.

> The best way to do this, is manually post as an individual. And tailor the message to the platform. I understand that this is of course the normal way. But I think its also not meaningful to communicate publically all the organisation communication through ones private account and also I dont want not connect a private account to automated distribution that then others have access to. Question the other way: would one be willing to offer their account for this? ↺

I understand the reluctance to use your own credentials. However, I believe the API tokens can be scoped to post to pages only. That might help?

> I understand the reluctance to use your own credentials. However, I believe the API tokens can be scoped to post to pages only. That might help? Thanks, yes I think thats a point. Still, I would struggle to process all communication through my own account. I will delete the account I made for the moment and think about it. ↺

why bother with linkdin in general?

seems completely unrelated to XSF

A business platform where people connect to folks using xmpp, that's relevant

Right, it seems pretty reasonable to have a presence and interesting posts by the XSF on LinkedIn.

I don't see the relevance of a presence of the XSF on a recruiting platform

Kris: I don't think you understand the way LinkedIn is used

that's the most positive way I could think of describing it

Kris: you don't have to go there or like the platform. I am not a super-involved user myself, but our audience might be. The XSF is a standards organization that develops protocols enhancements and promotes the technology for commercial, non-commercial, research, educational, governmental, etc. entities and people therein.

yes, hence my question how "facebook for headhunters" is relevant to the XSF

seems like a total waste of time to post there

Kris: I'm sorry, but I don't think you know what you are talking about. There is very interesting (to me) writing on that platform that is simply not there in other places. My timeline is filled with posts from people I have met (because I only add contacts that I know or met in person), suggestions from their organizations and contacts, and explicit subscriptions to organizations. None of that has to do with recruiting.

The XSF and the XMPP community in general could very well benefit from people and the XSF itself writing about XMPP on that flatform.

that's great for you, but I still fail to see how any of that is relevant for the mission of the XSF

personal networking has nothing to do with what the XSF does

Part of the mission of the XSF is telling the world about XMPP and the stuff that gets built with it. Writing on LinkedIn allows people that do use it, to take notice of it and potentially investigate if and how they could benefit from it themselves or their organization. The fact that the platform originated and is still also used for recruitment (both as a job seeker or recruiter) does not really have much to do with the end result: a network of people you have met and their contacts. How is this different from the fediverse or X or BlueSky or Facebook?

I see little point in posting on X or Facebook either (because their algorithms systematically disadvantage projects like the XSF), but beside that, as you say yourself, Linkdin is for individuals promoting themselves (originally to recruiters, but whatever). How that has any relation to the actual work of the XSF continues to be nebolous. What exactly would be the outcome of promoting the XSF on that platform? Finding people to hire when the XSF doesn't have staff? Please give concrete examples and not something neboulous like "the XSF is better known with people that use Linkdin", which is completely useless.

Kris: I'm very reluctantly on LinkedIn for professional reasons but there are technical communities on there and people who read it daily on technical matters (do not ask me why)

You continue to take the angle that posting there is only useful for recruitment purposes. That is objectively false. That you don't like a platform doesn't mean that the people there then must be ignored. I believe in casting a wide net, and not restrict ourselves to particular audiences that you happen to like.

please concrete examples. me disliking the plaform is irrelevant to the argument.

mathieui, if someone wants to share details to those technical groups as a matter of personal engagement, sure. but we are talking about an official XSF account.

(And also there are non-technical people who make or at least inform technical decisions based on what they read there, so growing awareness makes sense)

I've never been on LinkedIn but afaict it's just a general purpose social media since some time

Kris: If we reach people and professiobals there, that are not yet aware of us or would prefer to see information there its worth to post there. Other than that, please keep a friendly tone. You dont need to put attention to the topic if you are not interested.

most technical discussion groups are actively hostile to promotional accounts dropping "news" in their groups.

Linkedin also offers to promote events etc which can be helpful.

emus, I would like to see more active engagement of the XSF in efforts that actually make sense. Posting on Linkdin is busywork with no measurable outcome.

like for example, other than personal overlap of some people, were is the XSF on the FOSSY conference right now?

How do you mean? (About fossy)

Ok, a concrete example could be a post that focuses on the virtues of an open protocol for communication, and how that's done in XMPP. This could be picked up by technical people, sure, but also to journalists, policy and decision makers. Not reaching out there limits chances of people considering XMPP in the first place. See, for example, how the Matrix people have completely dominated mindshare in governmental organizations by aggressively being everywhere. Even though there are strong concerns about some aspects of their technology specifically for governmental use. We, collectively, haven't really done a good job in making people aware of why XMPP might be a far better choice.

Kris: also, the discussion wasn't really on whether we should post over at LinkedIn, we have done so for a very long time, but rather how to best do this practically, given some restrictions in the platform.

I was not aware of FOSSY. What prevents you from promoting XMPP there? If you think this should be an XSF effort, contact the SCAM team. The Jabber/XMPP booth at FOSDEM was initially manned by me and a few friends, and was not an JSF (at the time) effort initially.

> How do you mean? (About fossy) like was there any practical activities from the XSF side regarding it? Other than sharing a link this channel was entirely quiet about it, despite FOSSY having significant presence of people involved in XMPP. ↺

the Fediverse people were also actively discussing FEP development and other such things that are directly equivalent to the core mission of the XSF, yet the XMPP contributions seem to be entirely individual pet interests of the people presenting them.

The matrix people have successfully captured mindshare by being highly present where it matters, not by posting on linkdin (are they even doing that?)

>> How do you mean? (About fossy) > like was there any practical activities from the XSF side regarding it? Other than sharing a link this channel was entirely quiet about it, despite FOSSY having significant presence of people involved in XMPP. How do you come to this conclusion. Its wrong. ↺

The XSF is not an entity that somehow magically gets stuff organized. This is done by people taking an interest and doing something, so go ahead and do that.

the point is that there is a difference between things people do in their personal capacity and things the XSF does.

Kris: yes, Matrix and Element and people involved all post regularly on LinkedIn

Kris: I do everything in the XSF in my personal capacity

well, then post on linkdin on your personal account about xmpp?

> emus, I would like to see more active engagement of the XSF in efforts that actually make sense. Posting on Linkdin is busywork with no measurable outcome. Which measures have we taken and which insights gained through our work so far that tells the other platforms are worth it? ↺

> well, then post on linkdin on your personal account about xmpp? And that we did so far... ↺

Im out for today

I don't think posting on social media is very helpful at all. but at least of the fediverse etc, the noise to signal ratio in reaching a technical audience that would be interested in volutarily contributing to the standards process is much higher. ✏

>> How do you mean? (About fossy) > like was there any practical activities from the XSF side regarding it? Other than sharing a link this channel was entirely quiet about it, despite FOSSY having significant presence of people involved in XMPP. I think it was in the newsletter? Though admittedly I haven't been on top of that as much as I should have been ↺

We're not just doing it to get volunteers, we do it to promote the technology. And not just to technical audiences.

A very good percentage of the people that we as the XSF should want to reach aren't on fediverse, which is a niche solution. Those that are already on there have are much more likely to already know about XMPP.

This

> I think it was in the newsletter? Though admittedly I haven't been on top of that as much as I should have been yes it was in the newsletter and that is about it. Which is my point. ↺

What else would you have wanted besides that? I'm happy to consider doing things differently in future

> A very good percentage of the people that we as the XSF should want to reach aren't on fediverse, which is a niche solution. Those that are already on there have are much more likely to already know about XMPP. I am not disagreeing with that. ↺

Kris: what did *you* do

I am not even an XSF member. do you expect me to do official XSF activities on FOSSY?

please be serious

But you do complain. Did you apply to become a member (registration open for Q3 for 8 more days)? And even as a non-member I see no reason why you couldn't promote XMPP in general at an even like this?

no, I don't want to become a member because of discussions like this.

That is unfortunate. The XSF is a completely volunteer driven organization and so we need people to get things done. If something isn't being done then the most likely reason is: individuals didn't make time for it because of, well, life.

> What else would you have wanted besides that? I'm happy to consider doing things differently in future I am not asking you personally to do things differently. I am wondering where the XSF strategy is regarding such events. but instead we are discussing about posting on linkdin, which is almost entirely pointless. ✏ ↺

I mean, the XSF is just people. And when it comes to fossy the person is me

for eg fosdem it is someone else

Well, this is the Communications Team room, and so that was topical. The more wider discussion isn't really. We have a separate team for Summits, Conferences, and Meetups (SCAM), which I had pointed out. I see now that you may not have been familiar with it.

well, you could have raised the topic here and invited others to come up with ideas how to make the XSF presence more prominent in this event.

We have an XSF booth at the event and are having some good discussions with attendees etc. Besides the track and talks

maybe it is more obvious in person than when just looking at the schedule and following the streams.

Our track only starts today so I guess you'd not see anything on streams yet yeah

> maybe it is more obvious in person than when just looking at the schedule and following the streams. The FOSSY event is already communicated three times and will be more tonight. Kris, please keep a tone. ↺

emus, I am the one that is trying to keep things professionally here. please stop tone policing me when others have done personal attacks and insinuated that I am just complaining because I don't like some platform or don't understand how it works. This constant deflection to avoid discussing the actual topic raised is highly unprofessional.

Where are personal insulations? and your tone is certainly insulting me with the aggression you push your points.

> Our track only starts today so I guess you'd not see anything on streams yet yeah well I invite you to compare the schedule and topics discussed between the "fedicon" and the "xmpp" track with the specific question on where is the XSF or the XEP process in that (as compared to ActivityPub and the FEP process). ↺

> Where are personal insulations? > > and your tone is certainly insulting me with the aggression you push your points. I am doing that because I am tried of these very transparent attempts to deflect my point. ↺

I'm sorry you feel attacked. You made statements about the purpose of people posting at LinkedIn that are provably false. I interpreted your position as more ideological than factual. Additionally I tried to explain I (and Board and many people in the community) feel that *is* worth posting there and why.

you have yet to answer my question what practical outcome you expect from posting on linkdin. Only mathieui even tried that, and I think we can agree that posting with an official promotional account into some technical discussion groups is much less effective compared to doing so as a trusted individual in the context of an actual technical discussion.

and you have completely ignored my suggestion that conferences like FOSSY deserve way more attention from the "XSF communications team" than linkdin.

I did attempt an example above. And then comms team have also posted on our fediverse account. What do you actually expect more?

"people engage with the XSF on linkdin" is not a practical outcome, that is empty word salad ✏

That no-one here uttered

I paraphrased it 🤷

But it is important. I do want people to passively become aware of XMPP and the XSF by posting at multiple venues, often. This is not wishful thinking, but common practice. I do think we can do better, but that applies to many things.

> and you have completely ignored my suggestion that conferences like FOSSY deserve way more attention from the "XSF communications team" than linkdin. Wow - this is an absolutely disrespectful point looking at _alone_ the hour of my unpaid free time I put to schedule numerous upcoming posts at the right time for the talks. Please stay away with such non-sense statements on other peoples work. ↺

I was talking about this discussion here.

gonzalo, emus, I've just pushed a fix for the video. It is now an image linking to the video in a new tab. There were two problems: 1) Using HTML in markdown templates is forbidden (a security measure), that's why I added a shortcode for videos. These videos have to be hosted locally though, and I did not think about that. 2) They have to be hosted locally, because the website's content security policy does not allow embedding external content. Now we could enable that for specific sites, but not for GitHub user content, which may be arbitrary content. The video embedding works locally, but not when deployed on the webserver (that's why it worked for you and me locally). I think the best way forward is either serving video files (like we do for images) or like in this case, serving a still image and linking to the external video.

Late to this. I'm catching up after a few hours. The tone got heated on more than one side today. I'd rather we all assume good faith in each other going forward and leave that part behind. Disagreement is fine, but we don't need it to be personal. On the substance, Kris: we already track some engagement on our postings as far as I know, so it's not completely unmeasured. That could go deeper, but that costs volunteer time, and I'd rather have us spend scarce hours on outreach than on better measuring it. And I don't think dropping LinkedIn would free up much effort either way, so beyond disagreeing it misses the a target audience, there's not much upside to cutting it, from my perspective. emus, the scheduling and everything else you put in this week doesn't need defending, that was never in question. Thanks for putting in all that effort - again.