Re: ActtivityPub and Haunt

[Thompson, David]

Hi Jonathan,

On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 11:48 AM indieterminacy
<indieterminacy@libre.brussels> wrote:
>
> In wider fediverse news,
>
> The ActivityPub webpage is getting a rejig:
> https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/activitypub-rocks-portal-from-standards-movement-to-grassroots-fedi/3577
>
> Im emailing, as within the technical discourse page is whether the tech
> stack should be moved away from (scheme based) Haunt (which powers
> Guix's website):
> https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/activitypub-rocks-portal-technical-discussion/3578
>
> Naturally, Id be keen on continuing the furrow carved by Christine
> Lemmer-Webber and thought it would be worth seeing if there are any
> Lispers here who would be keen on volunteering, lest the platform goes
> Typescript.
>
> At my end, I consider the benefits to i18n to be a useful synergy:
> https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/activitypub-rocks-portal-technical-discussion/3578/3
>
> If you agree, Id love you contribute your input there.

I'm the creator and maintainer of Haunt. I can't volunteer time to
maintain activitypub.rocks but I can help answer questions about Haunt
and help with bug fixes, patch review, etc. for Haunt itself. Haunt
posts can be written in Markdown, BTW.  You don't have to layer on the
obscurity by using a format like Skribe (even though Skribe is cool.)
I haven't integrated anything i18n related in Haunt itself because I
don't know a lot about it, but Guix being able to add in i18n on top
of what Haunt provides is a good sign that it's workable. I'm totally
open to include built-in i18n features in future releases.

I also understand and sympathize that keeping Haunt will probably be
swimming upstream against the pressure to be more mainstream.  I guess
a positive spin on things is that ActivityPub has succeeded enough to
call attention to all the Scheme that was cleverly snuck in when
Christine was the driving force of the project. It's been a small
point of pride that activitypub.rocks was built with Haunt, so it
would be a bit disappointing to see it go away, but I understand that
whatever is easiest for the volunteers actually doing the work is the
right thing. Scheme is *obviously* better than TypeScript, though. ;)

- Dave