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If you haven't heard, sadly, #ChirpSocial, one of the popular #ActivityPub “groups” platform, is shutting down “probably” on February 29th.

In an email they sent to admins, the owner and developer can no longer support https://chirp.social financially as they failed to find a new job after they were laid off by #Google last year.

So, if you have a Chirp.Social groups, either move to #Guppe (https://a.gup.pe) (as suggested by Chirp.Social), or if I may, to #FediaIO (https://fedia.io), an #Mbin [flagship] instance.

This reminds us the importance of having a built-in groups feature, and one where the groups feature actually federates.

Back in 2008, when the #Fediverse was born, we did have a built-in federated groups in #Laconica / #StatusNet (today known as #GNUsocial). We used bang (!) instead of at (@). A built-in groups feature is more stable as established instances can host them.

Today, we have #Friendica and #Hubzilla (as well as #Streams-based instances) to fill in that, as groups is a built-in feature in those software products. It's just a matter of finding an instance that's open to hosting groups for any topic for the ActivityPub protocol.

That said, any Friendica, Hubzilla, Streams-based instances you suggest for groups?