Dear OGF working group and community group friends and colleagues, Recent turmoil in the social media landscape has led several of us to look for ways to share information with each other in ways that could be a better fit to the academic research computing and data community. I am writing to let you know about a new resource recently made available to the community with support from the Open Grid Forum and the NSF center that I run. With input from the community as documented in the results of the survey conducted from early through mid-November of this year available for review at https://survey.hpc.social<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsurvey.hpc.social%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686412407%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Kj%2BYj6rPU2BdVuRvzDFi6GFSz6BpjK76QOojO7sVIPQ%3D&reserved=0>, we have launched a new community-based open project called “hpc.social" that includes a Mastodon instance available to the community and will support a web site at https://hpc.social<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhpc.social%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686412407%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0y1%2BEPRX94AnBmQxUpZhU7W39cN9z6tCBSxhMsGCKrM%3D&reserved=0> to accomplish similar goals. The new Mastodon instance is available at at https://mast.hpc.social<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmast.hpc.social%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686412407%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=mazLlbupGKXmTKA85K8gJVpOEgf9RIF%2FS0ojRJiYkno%3D&reserved=0> and is currently open for signups. It's our intention, speaking for a loose collection of people active in HPC and related fields who are helping, to have this and the web site associated with it at https://hpc.social<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhpc.social%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686412407%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0y1%2BEPRX94AnBmQxUpZhU7W39cN9z6tCBSxhMsGCKrM%3D&reserved=0> become a the nucleus of a resource to promote informal, community-driven exchange of information in the HPC and related community backed up by resources such as a GitHub area for joint projects, social media for sharing of information, and optionally mailing lists if needed. Rather than duplicate the functions of existing organizations, it's the intention of this effort to draw the attention of the community to such efforts on a global basis and to assist with contact and exchange of information pointing people wherever possible to existing organizations for further involvement. We'll probably start with a listing of such organizations indexed to provide usefulness and to include contact information, web site links, social media links, etc. and build out from there. The project is intended to support the ability to deploy code and active sites containing material of interest that is suited for self-maintenance by the community. The project is currently being supported by the NSF Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center (https://nsfcac.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnsfcac.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686412407%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Sot%2BqlpjHffY2grnWUjYxPZsscZx9LxW0Mma6AFCb%2Fo%3D&reserved=0>) in partnership with the Open Grid Forum (https://www.ogf.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ogf.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686568646%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=wHcSs6hvp64IDM5o%2BaJFPC9FOVJDLQjTwKyPpY9Qe3Q%3D&reserved=0>). We are seeking additional HPC-oriented organizations to help with its ongoing funding. For now, current or past participants in OGF and anyone in HPC-related fields are invited to sign up to the Mastodon server at https://mast.hpc.social<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmast.hpc.social%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686568646%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=cRTQEq%2BoZ0U9MjhNhCLKRwo8H1d%2B5a0mbNZMYmCis64%3D&reserved=0> while we start to work on filling out the above information based on our GitHub organizational pages at https://github.com/hpc-social<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fhpc-social&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686568646%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=fPvEsf4QeXtkbRM3FFx0D7P8IJpuMhleMIq7lkUnLfU%3D&reserved=0> and take steps to gather ideas for further ways to serve the community with this project. I’d like to stress that several people have already volunteered to be moderators on the Mastodon instance to help it comply with its stated terms of service and that participation is welcome by opening issues, making suggestions or pull requests, or volunteering to help with the web site and its developing features. Thanks and please pass this information on to colleagues, students, and those you think would find it of interest. Alan Alan Sill, Ph.D Managing Director, High Performance Computing Center Adjunct Professor of Physics and Astronomy Texas Tech University Drane 159, MS 4-1167 <http://www.hpcc.ttu.edu/>http://www.hpcc.ttu.edu<http://www.hpcc.ttu.edu/> Co-Director, NSF Center for Cloud and Autonomic Computing https://nsfcac.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnsfcac.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686568646%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=S%2FUYKnAP4iiT7t0sCUN0QVpOsA6UNjsKuafsgaGJl4A%3D&reserved=0> President, Open Grid Forum https://www.ogf.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ogf.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7CAlan.Sill%40ttu.edu%7C41ee39848dbc4737968208dacda877b8%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C638048420686568646%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=wHcSs6hvp64IDM5o%2BaJFPC9FOVJDLQjTwKyPpY9Qe3Q%3D&reserved=0> e-mail: Alan.Sill@ttu.edu<mailto:Alan.Sill@ttu.edu> ph. 806-834-5940