Hey @cagatay, that's a good question, and one well worth asking.

Right off the bat I'll say that if the majority of this work were not sponsored (by the NLNet foundation; @nlnet@social.nlnet.nl), then it wouldn't have happened, or happened as quickly. They were instrumental in accelerating the development of the AP integration.

To me the question isn't directly one of value for money, results over spend, etc. Its a more existential question of whether forums are able to persist in this world of fast-paced social media, hot takes, sound bites, and memes. Forums have always been closer to the kind of "slower" web, a more deliberate web, and the "network" part of forums only extended as far as the site itself.

A lot of forum admins think that's perfectly fine, and we support that world view. I wanted to explore what it meant if a forum could interconnect, not only with users on its own platform, not only with other NodeBBs, but to a worldwide fediverse of social networks. That's the potential that has been realized, but I'm still trying to figure out forums' place in this network.

It seems very much so that forums don't tend to be generalist "anything goes" networks — usually there's an overarching topic. That makes it a less than ideal fit for the fediverse, there's a lot of noise, and finding the signal is key.

So that's where I've been spending my time these past few months.

I personally think the AP integration was well worth it, but I am very strict in my stance that AP is a choice, and full federation isn't always the right fit for every community.