The Occasion Octopus @theoccasionoctopus@fosstodon.org

Installed own temp instances of Pleroma and Mastodon to debug/test ActivtyPub, and now if you follow an account on our software daily notes will appear with upcoming events. This is our attempt to provide some value to platform that don't understand the Event object. Also, Pleroma has better install instructions 🙂

@rhiaro Follow @w3_social_web_incubator_community_group to get note updates in your timeline like .....

And some things we didn't mention! Many rough edges and a lot to do, but if you are interested or just want to let us know what you think of the idea get in touch. There is more on our website: https://www.theoccasionoctopus.net/

For federation, follows and approvals are passed between servers and public events are federated between servers running our software. Over time, we hope to use #ActivityPub fully to trade data with other event software.

We can import iCal feeds online straight into events in your account. There is also a Read/Write API so you can program bots that add events; here's some Python code to scrape events from a website, for instance.

If your events are public, others can easily export them with JSON and iCal feeds. Totally open, no authentication needed.

We support events in different time zones, and let people browse in any timezone they want.

You can also tag events for easy sorting (and Tags have privacy levels too).

We even handle reoccurring events with the standard RRULE options (although the web UI to edit this needs work)

We are about event discovery and don't try to take over an events existing ticket system, sign ups, etc ... instead we direct people straight back to the original home of the event online.

Or add events you know about to pass on to your followers. (Note the various privacy level options, and you can choose different levels for different events). This way, you help others discover great events.

Then you can go to discover, and browse all the events people you follow are publishing. If you like one ... you've just discovered a new upcoming event! You can add it to your set of events to recommend to your followers.

Then you can follow other accounts, on the same server or on other servers (more on federation later). Your can allow anyone to follow you, or approve each follower.

So we are trying to help with event discovery. Here's what we have so far .... Firstly, you create your account:

Posted a small intro to our project on #activitypub forum - https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/anyone-working-on-event-discovery-intro-to-my-project/1137 If anyone wants to chat event discovery apps or event open data, let us know.

Ssssh, Sneak Peek! We put a basic website and our first open source code online: https://www.theoccasionoctopus.net/ Still a lot to do but we are just going to keep working slowly - when we do our first proper release you'll be hearing much more from us!

Just seen Google is shutting Structured Data Testing Tool https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool in favour of Rich Results Test https://search.google.com/test/rich-results Very disappointing because A) old tool shows all data; new tool does NOT; only shows data relevant to search results B) In new Tool you have enter a CAPTCHA every time you run a test. Their blog: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/07/rich-results-test-out-of-beta.html

Great to see #mobilizon reach version 1, congrats! 🙂 https://framablog.org/2020/10/27/mobilizon-your-events-your-groups-your-data/ [ We are working on a different use case to them and have already been looking into how data exchange & #activitypub would work ]

https://test.activitypub.rocks/ is down and has been for a while 😞 Anyone know who I can ping about this? #activitypub @rhiaro

Ok, I know this doesn't look like much but this event listing has been federated from ONE SERVER TO ANOTHER!