How do I sign up for a Matrix account at Social.Coop?

After using Mastodon since late October, I've figured out the main reason why I don't like it: I need to join (or subscribe to) rooms, teams, communities, or groups. People with whom I have shared interests or needs.

Mastodon (and twitter for that matter) do not encourage me to feel as though I'm part of a community. However, mailing lists, news servers, and forums (a.k.a bulletin boards) do. Slack does. Even Facebook and Yahoo Groups did, when I was still on those platforms. Reddit does, but - eeewww. Siloed, centralized platform owned by a corporate entity with absolute control over the data, the policies, the technology, etc.

The Matrix technology has the concept of rooms built into its paradigm. Matrix is the protocol & content format definition, while Synapse is the name of the Server software, and Element is the name of one of the Client apps.

ActivityPub (the technology behind Mastodon) does not have rooms, groups, teams, communities, etc. It isn't a concept in that technology. This is one of the reasons I could never get into Twitter and am struggling with Mastodon so much. So much disorganized noise and distraction.

If we already have a Matrix server set up, I would like to create an account on it. Please point me to the instructions on how to do so. Also, I'm a Python programmer, and I would like to join and contribute to the tech team responsible for our implementation of Matrix.

If Matrix has not been approved here, I'll create an account elsewhere, explore it and learn about it. If I find it satisfactory, perhaps I'll bring this back to this group again at some point in the future.

Thank you!

Linda Murphy

Former Network Engineer

Data Communication and Computing Services

University of Pennsylvania

1986 to 1995.

>I need to join (or subscribe to) rooms, teams, communities, or groups.

Me too!

>ActivityPub (the technology behind Mastodon) does not have rooms, groups, teams, communities, etc. It isn't a concept in that technology.
To clarify a bit: ActivityPub the protocol does have Groups and Organizations (coming from the ActivityStream vocabulary which it uses). They haven't been supported very much in the fediverse, for example they aren't in Mastodon, which social.coop uses. But I think that is starting to change, I've heard of some newer implementations that are supporting or will support groups of various kinds. I hope that spreads within the fediverse!

Thank you Lynn! I've read parts of the ActivityPub specification at w3.org and it was too dense. I must have missed the part where it said there are Groups and Organizations in it.

Are there any currently active ActivityPub servers & clients which are actually using these? Dolphin?

I looked at Mobilizon but it seemed to be for Event planning. I haven't created an account anywhere to try it yet.

Hi Linda, as I understand it, our channel is hosted on Matrix.org. Have you contacted the tech working group? @David Mynors @Noah As for community -- what do you think of platforms like Mobilizon or Karrot.World?

Hi @Matt Noyes - I've sent a message to @David Mynors and @Noah . I've heard of Mobilizon. It's description emphasizes Events, but it mentions Groups as well. And, it is ActivityPub based, which is in the same fediverse as Mastodon servers (using some of the same standards.)

I looked at Karrot and I could not figure out what network standards (e.g. protocols, API) they are using. It's important because if they don't use standards already in use or going to be adopted by others, then their platform won't interoperate with others unless someone develops a gateway or a bridge.

Thanks,

Linda Murphy

I created an account on matrix.org yesterday. When I attempted to use my account on Android today, it refused to recognize me as the same person, even though I used the same username and password.

In fact, when I signed back in using the desktop Web client after that, I'm no longer verified there anymore either.

My opinion: Matrix has made the sign on/verification process too difficult and regular people won't be able to work it out without a lot of hand holding. I'm glad I set up a free account. If I could figure out how to delete it, I would.

The Android Element App needs to send an email message to the original email address of my account, tell me to sign into my email on my Android device, and provide an easy and secure way to transfer the "token" from the email into the Element App. I'd tell them this myself, only I haven't figured out where to give them feedback yet.