What is the vision of lexicon.community?

[essential-randomness]

Context (same for all related discussions)

As projects I ran transitioned towards community governance, the most effective action we took was to clearly define our vision, mission, and aims. These help make sure that people are aligned towards a shared "north star" and help groups prioritize work and make shared decisions, especially as diverging opinions arise.

Recently, we had a (very good!) discussion in the lexicon Discord channel that showed people's mental models for this group diverge in subtle and sometimes less-subtle ways. It convinced me it'd be good to bring this discussion to the forefront. Nick already wrote about the group's goals in #3, but since those are "from the top", I wanted to hear from the community itself. Discussion is always good, even if we end up in the same place we started from!

I'm going to create 3 discussions, one for each topic. I'd love if people could reply with their thoughts on each. Even if you think it's not up to you to decide, or you have nothing worth saying, hearing everyone's agreements and disagreements on these matters will make the initiative stronger. I encourage people to participate!

This discussion's question

What is, in your opinion, the vision of the lexicon.community project? More generally, what is the vision behind a repository of shared lexicons created by the community?

Here's the definition of a vision:

The vision is [...] what you want the world to be. On a grand scale, it’s why your organization exists. This dream could have led you in many different directions, but the dream would be the same.

I'll give my own thoughts later on, and encourage others to do the same!

Related discussions:

• mission (What is the mission of lexicon.community? #38)
• aims (What are the aims of lexicon.community? #39).

Clarification: Mission vs Vision vs Aims

If people need further help understanding the difference between the 3, here's a framework that might help:

"We are dreaming of a world where is true that [vision]. To this end, we work to [mission] by [aims]."

Note that multiple groups can have the same vision (world they wish to create) and mission (what they work towards), but still have different aims (how they work towards the shared goal).

[ebwinters]

I would like to see community lexicon be a central jumping off point for large and small scale lexicon integrations. Getting from idea to app in the atmosphere has a bunch of steps - we are the first step or two

First and most importantly, we provide a framework for developing useful and community-vetted lexicons that are seen as trusted (due to processes, maintainability, and stability) by the wider AT community.

Second, we provide tools (types package, knowledge, connections) for further integrating the lexicon into other apps, from personal projects to Bluesky's app

If someone wants to add bookmarks to Bluesky for example, they can start here and feel like there is a path forward. Same goes for any other lexicons/applications

[verdverm]

These are good points, which I'd add a third to

1. Common lexicon and/or fragments
2. Support of all kinds around creating & using lexicon
3. Thought leadership that can inform best practices and upstream changes (like the protocol or atproto clients / sdks)

[ngerakines]

Closing this as we've recently overhauled our governance repository.