6 months ago
Note that I said "quoted posts", not "quote posts", don't @ me!
After the last WG meeting @thisismissem@hachyderm.io @trwnh@mastodon.social and I chatted a bit about how NodeBB handles quoted posts, but also in relation to quote posts. I thought that it was an interesting chat that merited further discussion; also because some of it was over my head.
When asked how NodeBB handles blockquotes specifically, I replied that blockquotes themselves are rather simple. We set a copy of the text wrapped in
The rationale is simple: forums typically represent content in a linear fashion, and quoted posts are a handy way to reinforce subcontext within a topic. A typical topic/thread could have many separate discussions all happening together (aka thread drift), so quotes help others know what you're responding to. We don't have special handling or references to our blockquotes because there is a history in forums of edited blockquotes.
It's also better netiquette (god, that term is old) to trim down the quote to only the relevant parts.
Another upside is that a copy-paste of a post preserves that post to history. That can be useful if the quoted user tries to edit their post later, etc.
vis-a-vis the concept of "quote posts", which I take to mean an embedded post within a post, allowing for replies, likes, etc. How that is represented via ActivityPub is probably detailed in some FEP, but NodeBB doesn't implement that yet. It's a more complicated mechanism that requires a lot more thinking through, and to be honest, we haven't had the need for that in the 10+ years we've been building NodeBB.
After the last WG meeting @thisismissem@hachyderm.io @trwnh@mastodon.social and I chatted a bit about how NodeBB handles quoted posts, but also in relation to quote posts. I thought that it was an interesting chat that merited further discussion; also because some of it was over my head.
When asked how NodeBB handles blockquotes specifically, I replied that blockquotes themselves are rather simple. We set a copy of the text wrapped in
<blockquote>.The rationale is simple: forums typically represent content in a linear fashion, and quoted posts are a handy way to reinforce subcontext within a topic. A typical topic/thread could have many separate discussions all happening together (aka thread drift), so quotes help others know what you're responding to. We don't have special handling or references to our blockquotes because there is a history in forums of edited blockquotes.
Perhaps you want to have a block quote and add some emphasis?
It's also better netiquette (god, that term is old) to trim down the quote to only the relevant parts.
Another upside is that a copy-paste of a post preserves that post to history. That can be useful if the quoted user tries to edit their post later, etc.
vis-a-vis the concept of "quote posts", which I take to mean an embedded post within a post, allowing for replies, likes, etc. How that is represented via ActivityPub is probably detailed in some FEP, but NodeBB doesn't implement that yet. It's a more complicated mechanism that requires a lot more thinking through, and to be honest, we haven't had the need for that in the 10+ years we've been building NodeBB.
6 months ago
This also reminds me of a discussion I had way back when I first joined fedi, with @leroy@indiehackers.social . When mocking up a forum-like frontend for ActivityPub data*, he actually rendered the content of the
* Also, is there anything more indie hacker than that? lol
inReplyTo as a blockquote before the reply, which is actually quite an interesting use-case for inReplyTo!* Also, is there anything more indie hacker than that? lol
@julian @leroy I think <blockquote> is fine, so long as it's attributes link to the post it's quoting from? That way in Tags you could have a Quote Tag or something that's just a Link to the quoted post.
Obviously you'd probably want to align with @renchap and the Mastodon team on the difference between Quote Posts and Quotes within Posts — does it make sense on a forum to prohibit quoting of you?
Obviously you'd probably want to align with @renchap and the Mastodon team on the difference between Quote Posts and Quotes within Posts — does it make sense on a forum to prohibit quoting of you?
@thisismissem @julian @leroy Yes, we are starting again exploring how to represent quoted content (in a generic way) in ActivityPub, to then use this for our specific usage (quote posts).
Side note for Julian: I sent you a DM a while ago and never got a response, can you contact me either in DM, email or Discord? :)
Side note for Julian: I sent you a DM a while ago and never got a response, can you contact me either in DM, email or Discord? :)
Hi @renchap@oisaur.com — yes, once again NodeBB's lack of DM support causes me to miss a message! I'm literally working on it right now, so hopefully end of week.
I'll message you from @nodebb@fosstodon.org directly.
I'll message you from @nodebb@fosstodon.org directly.
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io said in Quoted posts:
I will say that back in the day nobody ever thought about this particular use case. Also me earlier:
Even writing that now I was struck by how problematic that can be. It just simply wasn't something you thought about back then, but the right to be forgotten needs to be addressed too.
I'm not weighing in on that issue specifically, but just remarking on how our approaches to public discussions have changed over the years.
cc @renchap@oisaur.com
does it make sense on a forum to prohibit quoting of you?
I will say that back in the day nobody ever thought about this particular use case. Also me earlier:
Another upside is that a copy-paste of a post preserves that post to history. That can be useful if the quoted user tries to edit their post later, etc.
Even writing that now I was struck by how problematic that can be. It just simply wasn't something you thought about back then, but the right to be forgotten needs to be addressed too.
I'm not weighing in on that issue specifically, but just remarking on how our approaches to public discussions have changed over the years.
cc @renchap@oisaur.com
@julian Here is one post with screenshots: https://indiehackers.social/@leroy/111746082634398937
I ended up not continuing with this idea. I still really like the simplicity of it BUT it suffers from the fact that people might have auto-deletion of their posts, which can cause gaps in data quite quickly. Which goes against my love of forums (a trove of data for future ‘generations*’).
*generation in this use means a person looking for same knowledge, but it’s new to them
I ended up not continuing with this idea. I still really like the simplicity of it BUT it suffers from the fact that people might have auto-deletion of their posts, which can cause gaps in data quite quickly. Which goes against my love of forums (a trove of data for future ‘generations*’).
*generation in this use means a person looking for same knowledge, but it’s new to them
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io Yes, I've noticed that Megalodon also doesn't support blockquotes, but the web client definitely does (I just checked hachyderm), which is a great start.
5 months ago
Little heads-up: So far, Hubzilla renders everything the way I guess it's intended. Nothing out of the ordinary.
5 months ago
@julian @trwnh @thisismissem
>How that is represented via ActivityPub is probably detailed in some FEP
FEP-e232? I think you can add
>How that is represented via ActivityPub is probably detailed in some FEP
FEP-e232? I think you can add
content or summary property to FEP-e232 link to represent HTML content of a quote
@thisismissem @julian @leroy @renchap I take the same view as @leroy as well -- you can render replies as a rich preview above every post that happens to be a reply. Discord does this, for example. In fact, if Mastodon did this, then they would only need a way to tell when to insert such "quote replies" into timelines and when not to. It could be as simple as a boolean toot:quoteReply = true. With management of the `replies` collection via FEP-7458 (and some proof/stamp mechanism like FEP-0391).
@silverpill @thisismissem @julian I think you could define a Quote type that is a subclass of Link and use microsyntax to find-and-replace the blockquote with a rich entity with `content` or maybe even `preview`. But this generally makes sense only when you want that rich entity, and not just a "simple" blockquote.
Discourse for example uses [quote]tags kinda like bbcode, and they add metadata something like [quote author:someone,thread:2319,post:69] where the metadata is used in the preview.
Discourse for example uses [quote]tags kinda like bbcode, and they add metadata something like [quote author:someone,thread:2319,post:69] where the metadata is used in the preview.
@trwnh@mastodon.social part of the reason we don't do this special syntax is because we (probably) made the conscious decision to keep the composer as simple as possible so that end users wouldn't have to relearn a bespoke syntax.
... but I'm not really sure anymore. My rationale could just be post facto lol
... but I'm not really sure anymore. My rationale could just be post facto lol
@julian yeah, if you have a rich composer it's less bad. i don't think i've ever manually authored a quote tag in Discourse, for example. every single time i quote someone it's via the floating button that appears when you select something, or via the dropdown menu option
5 months ago
For reference, Hubzilla renders both the same way.
If you "share" someone's post (what Mastodon users call a "quote post") is basically just:
which gets translated to:
If someone quotes someone's post in a forum, it is the same exact thing.
And users can also add their own blockquotes to posts by using the BBCode
It's all blockquotes.
Note: This posts uses
If you "share" someone's post (what Mastodon users call a "quote post") is basically just:
@channel@example.com
[quote]Whatever they said.[/quote]which gets translated to:
@channel@example.com
<blockquote>Whatever they said.</blockquote>If someone quotes someone's post in a forum, it is the same exact thing.
And users can also add their own blockquotes to posts by using the BBCode
[quote] tags too. It's all blockquotes.
Note: This posts uses
<code> blocks. This may not render properly on all platforms.
The ability to arbitrarily and retroactively remove all traces of yourself from a discussion you had in public, via a quasi-persistent medium has always felt to me like a violation of everyone else in the discussion, but I, too, come from the forum space, where you just don’t do that. The microblogging space doesn’t seem to care, and the microblogging space currently dominates fedi. It kind of feels like a culture clash to me, and one of many reasons why forum-fedi and masto-fedi probably don’t need a whole lot of cross-over.
I know there are safety concerns around harassment campaigns and the like, and things should change and evolve in response to stuff like that. And it’s not at all clear to me how something like this interacts with the EU’s Right to be Forgotten. But forum users posting on forums, though distributed, are much less likely to be a disruption to those forums than masto users who don’t even know that they’re posting on forums, while behaving in ways that are normal for their space.
I know there are safety concerns around harassment campaigns and the like, and things should change and evolve in response to stuff like that. And it’s not at all clear to me how something like this interacts with the EU’s Right to be Forgotten. But forum users posting on forums, though distributed, are much less likely to be a disruption to those forums than masto users who don’t even know that they’re posting on forums, while behaving in ways that are normal for their space.
@Kichae Ideally, people should be notified that they are posting to a forum and not replying to a post on an individual channel, that way we can set some expectations in advance.
I am not sure how ActivityPub handles it, but Hubzilla somehow communicates with other Hubzilla instances that a particular channel is a forum. It's probably communicated in webfinger, or something like that.
Just having an icon, tag, or Bootstrap-style badge next to a channel saying "forum" would be helpful.
I am not sure how ActivityPub handles it, but Hubzilla somehow communicates with other Hubzilla instances that a particular channel is a forum. It's probably communicated in webfinger, or something like that.
Just having an icon, tag, or Bootstrap-style badge next to a channel saying "forum" would be helpful.
4 months ago
@julian said in Quoted posts:
Quotes should involve resources. With the current citation mechanism, if the user deletes the original post, the quoted content will still exist. The ideal mechanism is that if the user deletes the original post, the quoted content should also be deleted. This is very important for the federation system, so I think the citation system should be upgraded to display the quoted content through pid and forum-fedi.
Note that I said "quoted posts", not "quote posts", don't @ me!
After the last WG meeting @thisismissem@hachyderm.io @trwnh@mastodon.social and I chatted a bit about how NodeBB handles quoted posts, but also in relation to quote posts. I thought that it was an interesting chat that merited further discussion; also because some of it was over my head.
When asked how NodeBB handles blockquotes specifically, I replied that blockquotes themselves are rather simple. We set a copy of the text wrapped in <blockquote>.
The rationale is simple: forums typically represent content in a linear fashion, and quoted posts are a handy way to reinforce subcontext within a topic. A typical topic/thread could have many separate discussions all happening together (aka thread drift), so quotes help others know what you're responding to. We don't have special handling or references to our blockquotes because there is a history in forums of edited blockquotes.
Perhaps you want to have a block quote and add some emphasis?
It's also better netiquette (god, that term is old) to trim down the quote to only the relevant parts.
Another upside is that a copy-paste of a post preserves that post to history. That can be useful if the quoted user tries to edit their post later, etc.
vis-a-vis the concept of "quote posts", which I take to mean an embedded post within a post, allowing for replies, likes, etc. How that is represented via ActivityPub is probably detailed in some FEP, but NodeBB doesn't implement that yet. It's a more complicated mechanism that requires a lot more thinking through, and to be honest, we haven't had the need for that in the 10+ years we've been building NodeBB.
Quotes should involve resources. With the current citation mechanism, if the user deletes the original post, the quoted content will still exist. The ideal mechanism is that if the user deletes the original post, the quoted content should also be deleted. This is very important for the federation system, so I think the citation system should be upgraded to display the quoted content through pid and forum-fedi.
4 months ago
If I change my username after posting a post, the original username is still displayed on Activitypub？
@kichae@lemmy.ca said in Quoted posts:
This is a VERY interesting point, and I think it comes from the difference of context between forums and microblogging : A Forum always har a context and community : the message stand by itself, the user is secondary. Microblogging is more a way to communicate yourself ; the message is secondary.
Which makes the crossover a can of worms : A message from a forum published out of contex of the forum discussion to the Microverse, can be as bad as a miss-composed message being published as a forumpost.
On the other side, the value of fedi is in the ability to solve these kinds of context switches. It should be a part of HOW we do fedi.
The ability to arbitrarily and retroactively remove all traces of yourself from a discussion you had in public, via a quasi-persistent medium has always felt to me like a violation of everyone else in the discussion, but I, too, come from the forum space, where you just don’t do that. The microblogging space doesn’t seem to care, and the microblogging space currently dominates fedi. It kind of feels like a culture clash to me, and one of many reasons why forum-fedi and masto-fedi probably don’t need a whole lot of cross-over.
This is a VERY interesting point, and I think it comes from the difference of context between forums and microblogging : A Forum always har a context and community : the message stand by itself, the user is secondary. Microblogging is more a way to communicate yourself ; the message is secondary.
Which makes the crossover a can of worms : A message from a forum published out of contex of the forum discussion to the Microverse, can be as bad as a miss-composed message being published as a forumpost.
On the other side, the value of fedi is in the ability to solve these kinds of context switches. It should be a part of HOW we do fedi.
@Panzz said in Quoted posts:
In MOST forum contexts: no way!
Seriously, that would break the fundemental context of a forum. Especially in all areas that follow the GDPR types of privacy law. (Since you are allowed and recomended to delete all your data, if you leave a service). I´m willing to accept there are some areas for forums that mimic SoMe, where this makes sense, but most forums are content- and conversations oriented, and nonone should be able to one-sided sensor a community.
This is a Fedi problem, and need a tailored Fedi solution.
Quotes should involve resources. With the current citation mechanism, if the user deletes the original post, the quoted content will still exist. The ideal mechanism is that if the user deletes the original post, the quoted content should also be deleted.
In MOST forum contexts: no way!
Seriously, that would break the fundemental context of a forum. Especially in all areas that follow the GDPR types of privacy law. (Since you are allowed and recomended to delete all your data, if you leave a service). I´m willing to accept there are some areas for forums that mimic SoMe, where this makes sense, but most forums are content- and conversations oriented, and nonone should be able to one-sided sensor a community.
This is a Fedi problem, and need a tailored Fedi solution.
Could it be that the idea that quoted posts on forums are not rich resources (and thus liable for deletion) are an artifact of an older age of the internet, but at the same time is a feature, not a bug?
100% agreed that in a forum context the ability to quote the text of a post is important. Forum users often extend this in many ways, not limited to:
@Christian-Stange @kichae@lemmy.ca @Panzz
100% agreed that in a forum context the ability to quote the text of a post is important. Forum users often extend this in many ways, not limited to:
- Holding a user accountable (by preserving their words from future editing)
- Emphasis of certain portions of text
- Excision of unrelated portions of text
@Christian-Stange @kichae@lemmy.ca @Panzz
The issue – as is the case with so many Fediverse headaches – is Mastodon, and its persistent behaviour of obfuscating the nature of the Fediverse itself. They really seem to bend over backwards to hide or distract from the fact that they’re seeing content authored and hosted on other server software. I can’t see them alerting users to the different contexts they’re viewing while they remain the biggest game in town, unfortunately, which means Mastodon users will have no signals that there are different expectations on them when they hit ‘Reply’.
But yeah, as a best practice for everywhere else, that seem like a really good basic courtesy.
But yeah, as a best practice for everywhere else, that seem like a really good basic courtesy.
Microblogs are also treats as ephemeral spaces, which is why people have long been caught off-guard by their old Tweets wrecking their lives. It’s a space where people behave as if they’re having a vocal conversation, and the form of ‘public’ they’re in is like a public park. People are around who could hear, but they have to be at the park and nearby as it’s said to hear. The idea that someone could show up to the park 5 years later and put up a fuss over something that was casually expressed is an impossibility.
People have never treated forums as ephemeral. They’ve always been quasi-permanent spaces, where even the ability to edit your posts or replies is often time gated, or outright disallowed.
People have never treated forums as ephemeral. They’ve always been quasi-permanent spaces, where even the ability to edit your posts or replies is often time gated, or outright disallowed.
4 months ago
An interesting hybrid version I'm a bit unsure of the technical issues connected to, is offering two seperate parts : the blockquoted text and a signature with a link.
If the resource still exist, give a link back to it, scoping the source, if it has been deleted, delete the link and any reference to source.
It means that we will have quotes that you can't doublecheck the context of. But by simply stripping the text of it original context, you drop it in the context of the post of the blockquote.
The Implementation issues with this model though....
If the resource still exist, give a link back to it, scoping the source, if it has been deleted, delete the link and any reference to source.
It means that we will have quotes that you can't doublecheck the context of. But by simply stripping the text of it original context, you drop it in the context of the post of the blockquote.
The Implementation issues with this model though....
This is one of those things where it is a culture clash.
Forums are designed for discussions, and that includes quoting what was said. The quotes are purposefully kept intact in case someone else deletes their post and falsely claimed they didn't say that. Whereas micro-blogging platforms like Mastodon are not designed for discussions, and users tend to call anyone that replies to their post a #replyguy and hate being quoted.
Forums and Facebook-style platforms can make these changes to accommodate quotes that can be deleted by the person who was quoted. But the bigger issue is a cultural one. If a person can delete their quote, forum users will purposefully quote them in a manner that cannot be deleted, even if it means just copy and pasting the text, because forums have a culture of holding people accountable for what they post.
I am not sure how you will resolve this cultural issue with technology. There are too many ways to bypass it.
Forums are designed for discussions, and that includes quoting what was said. The quotes are purposefully kept intact in case someone else deletes their post and falsely claimed they didn't say that. Whereas micro-blogging platforms like Mastodon are not designed for discussions, and users tend to call anyone that replies to their post a #replyguy and hate being quoted.
Forums and Facebook-style platforms can make these changes to accommodate quotes that can be deleted by the person who was quoted. But the bigger issue is a cultural one. If a person can delete their quote, forum users will purposefully quote them in a manner that cannot be deleted, even if it means just copy and pasting the text, because forums have a culture of holding people accountable for what they post.
I am not sure how you will resolve this cultural issue with technology. There are too many ways to bypass it.
@Marcus Rohrmoser 🌻 Some platforms, like Hubzilla, actually tell you that the thread (conversation) you are commenting on is from a forum. It helps provide context and also lets you know your post will be distributed to forum members in addition to your own followers.
@scott@loves.tech @Christian-Stange @mro@digitalcourage.social I think I disagree that a conversation need mark that it is a "forum". It explicitly flags that the thread is different from microblogging, but why shouldn't microblogs mark their conversations instead (I ask purely to play devil's advocate because it isn't feasible nor realistic)?
Especially in this case when you yourself said it's a cultural problem (💯 agreed btw), the distinction is especially meaningless to the end user, who doesn't give two cents whether they're replying to a microblog or not.
Especially in this case when you yourself said it's a cultural problem (💯 agreed btw), the distinction is especially meaningless to the end user, who doesn't give two cents whether they're replying to a microblog or not.
@mro@digitalcourage.social it's a cognitive dissonance that demands that their content be given the absolute maximum reach with the absolute minimum of repercussions.
@julian It's interesting how different platforms implement things. Some platforms, like Friendica, tell you which platform someone is using by showing a little icon next to their name on all of their posts (Mastodon icon, Hubzilla icon, potentially a NodeBB icon, etc.), whereas Mastodon makes it appear as if everyone is on Mastodon. Some Mastodon users are not even aware that they are talking to people on other platforms.
The reason why I say indicating that it is a forum or group discussion is useful is not just the cultural issue, but also because replies to forum posts are distributed differently than a normal post. You are not just replying to your followers and the person who posted, but also to everyone following the forum (or forum category).
But, this is something that is nice to have, and not needed. It just is useful information to have. And I doubt that platforms like Mastodon will make such a change anyway.
It's also interesting to see how platforms that pre-date Mastodon implement things versus platforms that came later and are influenced by Mastodon.
The reason why I say indicating that it is a forum or group discussion is useful is not just the cultural issue, but also because replies to forum posts are distributed differently than a normal post. You are not just replying to your followers and the person who posted, but also to everyone following the forum (or forum category).
But, this is something that is nice to have, and not needed. It just is useful information to have. And I doubt that platforms like Mastodon will make such a change anyway.
It's also interesting to see how platforms that pre-date Mastodon implement things versus platforms that came later and are influenced by Mastodon.
@scott@loves.tech I think it's a neat thing to show the software icon next to a post.
... but at the same time, think about who you want to use your software. Software geeks? Totally on board with that.
... but everyday people won't know what they're even looking at, and this (among other items people constantly bring up re: explaining ActivityPub) is all stuff that should be abstracted away from the end user.
It's not a matter of "before Mastodon" and "after Mastodon", at all.
... but at the same time, think about who you want to use your software. Software geeks? Totally on board with that.
... but everyday people won't know what they're even looking at, and this (among other items people constantly bring up re: explaining ActivityPub) is all stuff that should be abstracted away from the end user.
It's not a matter of "before Mastodon" and "after Mastodon", at all.
@julian
I was trying not to state this so bluntly, but basically, platforms that came before Mastodon has blockquotes before Mastodon existed. We did not get rid of them in 2016, and we aren't getting rid of them now.
So, even if you implement this proposed feature, which is your right, some platforms will stay with the tried and true blockquotes.
It's not a matter of "before Mastodon" and "after Mastodon", at all.
I was trying not to state this so bluntly, but basically, platforms that came before Mastodon has blockquotes before Mastodon existed. We did not get rid of them in 2016, and we aren't getting rid of them now.
So, even if you implement this proposed feature, which is your right, some platforms will stay with the tried and true blockquotes.
@julian By the way, edits don't appear to be appearing on NodeBB. I fixed a typo, but NodeBB still displays it.
@julian Or, to put it more diplomatically and to give a little context, this argument over blockquotes has been going on for about 8 years now. I don't think everyone is going to be on board with a single solution.
@scott@loves.tech at it's core quote posts and block quotes are separate constructs. I have no plans to disallow users from making block quotes (not to mention there's no way I can even do that).
@scott@loves.tech FYI I just tested editing against activitypub.academy, with successful results.
@julian I don't think that will matter. People who want a quote that cannot be deleted with figure that out and will pick the method that makes the quote undeletable. It seems like a lot of work for something that people will simply bypass.
@julian To be fair, platforms that don't have quote posts might be interested in this, since they can offer quote posts without the risk.
@silverpill @julian
that's a bit simplistic imo. software doesn't matter, sure; what matters is what the software lets you *do*. but "interoperability" is not a goal in itself. it's a means to an end. for different software that let you do fundamentally different things in fundamentally different worldviews, there can be no meaningful interoperability.
example: fedi has concepts and abstractions for "posts" and "profiles". what happens when you don't have these same building blocks?
that's a bit simplistic imo. software doesn't matter, sure; what matters is what the software lets you *do*. but "interoperability" is not a goal in itself. it's a means to an end. for different software that let you do fundamentally different things in fundamentally different worldviews, there can be no meaningful interoperability.
example: fedi has concepts and abstractions for "posts" and "profiles". what happens when you don't have these same building blocks?
@silverpill @julian i posit a different goal, at least for myself: empowering people with effective tools by which they can express themselves.
i'm posting this from mastodon right now, but i could just as well be posting this locally from within nodeBB. the federation is irrelevant, and in some cases, the federation is actually a burden. it creates the seams in UX. federation is a boundary that information crosses. the goal of a discussion form is to get information across various interfaces.
i'm posting this from mastodon right now, but i could just as well be posting this locally from within nodeBB. the federation is irrelevant, and in some cases, the federation is actually a burden. it creates the seams in UX. federation is a boundary that information crosses. the goal of a discussion form is to get information across various interfaces.
@silverpill @julian reframing it in terms of information and interfaces, of data stores and transports, we find that there are multiple ways to participate in a centralized conversation:
- by web app + sign in (local or federated credentials)
- by HTTP POST to an endpoint (plus additional protocols on top)
- by emailing a certain address, if you wanted
- in theory you could physically send a letter to some building, if that was agreed upon beforehand, to manually enter it into the database...
- by web app + sign in (local or federated credentials)
- by HTTP POST to an endpoint (plus additional protocols on top)
- by emailing a certain address, if you wanted
- in theory you could physically send a letter to some building, if that was agreed upon beforehand, to manually enter it into the database...
@silverpill @julian so the exact protocol and its finer details are less important than what you can *do* with that. the goal is to make information reach your destination with minimal information loss.
in that sense, whatever subset of whatever fedi-adjacent protocol you adhere to is only useful insofar as it allows ingesting information without missing anything important.
and when it comes to publishing information (a separate concern from discussing!), you again likewise have interfaces...
in that sense, whatever subset of whatever fedi-adjacent protocol you adhere to is only useful insofar as it allows ingesting information without missing anything important.
and when it comes to publishing information (a separate concern from discussing!), you again likewise have interfaces...
@silverpill @julian
the primary publishing interface we have is the Web. that should be the primary focus, not "publishing to the fediverse". the fediverse shouldn't be the end-all-be-all. we shouldn't be poorly reinventing the Web from first principles.
in a similar vein, the "network" is made up not of fedi nodes, but of mutually intelligible interfaces for information. instead of negotiating an exchange of content, it is just as valid if not moreso to negotiate an exchange of *identity*.
the primary publishing interface we have is the Web. that should be the primary focus, not "publishing to the fediverse". the fediverse shouldn't be the end-all-be-all. we shouldn't be poorly reinventing the Web from first principles.
in a similar vein, the "network" is made up not of fedi nodes, but of mutually intelligible interfaces for information. instead of negotiating an exchange of content, it is just as valid if not moreso to negotiate an exchange of *identity*.
@silverpill @julian given this framing, it is incredibly limiting to say "the network consists solely of URIs hosting JSON documents which contain an inbox and an RSA publicKey which is used to generate a Cavage draft 8 Signature on an AS2 Activity payload of a certain shape which is then delivered to another inbox via HTTP POST with a certain Content-Type, after which the activity will be unwrapped and discarded... no exceptions to any of this" (etc)
because maybe there's better ways.
because maybe there's better ways.
@silverpill @julian
can the network not consist of all manner of agents whose identities can be established by all manner of methods? in the same way TLS negotiates an encryption suite, a generic "TLI" can be used to negotiate an identity proof without relying on TLS client certificates.
can the application layer not similarly negotiate a semantic profile for which data models, serializations, etc are supported, and what will be done with thr payload?
can the network not consist of all manner of agents whose identities can be established by all manner of methods? in the same way TLS negotiates an encryption suite, a generic "TLI" can be used to negotiate an identity proof without relying on TLS client certificates.
can the application layer not similarly negotiate a semantic profile for which data models, serializations, etc are supported, and what will be done with thr payload?
@silverpill @julian because at the end of the day, it all boils down to agents passing around resources. or if you take an RDF view, resources communicating with other resources.
the question is in how we allow that to happen. on which terms. within which semantic framework.
the protocol is once again irrelevant, beyond its function of passing the message from A to B. it's what B does with A's message that matters. it's the set of every possible message A could send... regardless of transport.
the question is in how we allow that to happen. on which terms. within which semantic framework.
the protocol is once again irrelevant, beyond its function of passing the message from A to B. it's what B does with A's message that matters. it's the set of every possible message A could send... regardless of transport.
@silverpill @trwnh @julian@community.nodebb.org Remember that one AI-based social network that said that they would never have follow relationships? Trying to imagine how to make that work with federation was a bit of a brain teaser. Their attempt at Mastodon interoperability fell apart for much simpler and much worse reasons though, so that experiment quickly turned into a nonstarter.
https://wedistribute.org/2024/06/maven-mastodon-posts/
https://wedistribute.org/2024/06/maven-mastodon-posts/
@julian@fietkau.social @silverpill @julian@community.nodebb.org i think the real question is what kind of world are we building here -- one limited to being a "social network"? that's so constrained. i don't want to live in that world. i don't want to "post" to "followers". i want to publish on my website and maybe syndicate to other websites of my explicit choosing. i want to be able to participate in discussions on various forums without having to make a new set of credentials for each one. neither of these require federation...
@trwnh @silverpill @julian@community.nodebb.org I guess we don't have to do pubsub if we don't want to. 🤷 But addressing conversations to a closed circle of people instead of having everything public is something that, broadly generalizing, people want, so we probably want some form of identity management and authentication and recipient addressing. My gut feeling is at that point we're in "social network" territory. But I've never been someone to dwell much on semantics and I don't feel strongly about it here.
@julian@fietkau.social @silverpill @julian@community.nodebb.org that's basically just message passing. a message doesn't have to be a "post".
@julian@fietkau.social @silverpill @julian@community.nodebb.org to clarify: a message can also be a request, or a command, or a statement, or a query. we limit ourselves greatly when we think only in terms of “posts”. even within the limits of a “post”, we still have multiple contexts within which we can consider the message.
@infinite love ⴳ We already have different types of messages. Notes, articles, likes, etc. ActivityPub can handle those and more. How it typically works is that platforms ignore types they don't understand, which is expected behavior.
For example, Hubzilla has events and RSVPs. Other platforms don't. So only Hubzilla displays the post as an event. Everyone else displays it as a note.
Or a project management system might manage tasks over ActivityPub, but that doesn't mean other platforms will support it.
Platforms that understand posts and followers will interoperate. Project management systems will interoperate. But you have to get creative to get both of those to work together.
For example, Hubzilla has events and RSVPs. Other platforms don't. So only Hubzilla displays the post as an event. Everyone else displays it as a note.
Or a project management system might manage tasks over ActivityPub, but that doesn't mean other platforms will support it.
Platforms that understand posts and followers will interoperate. Project management systems will interoperate. But you have to get creative to get both of those to work together.
@scott i mean “message” in the sense that raw HTTP requests and responses are “messages”.
@infinite love ⴳ If it's a post, I'll use ActivityPub or Nomad Protocol. For everything else, I'll just use an API or something like that.
@scott i want an ecosystem of standardized APIs with semantics beyond just “posts”. does that help?
i want an API to talk to people and machines in equal measure
i want an API to talk to people and machines in equal measure
@infinite love ⴳ Sounds reasonable to me. I'm not sure how that's related to quoted posts (the topic of this thread), but I support the idea.
@scott the thread drifted a lot from “showing software icons” to “interoperability is the goal of software” to me disagreeing with that last bit
@julian Sorry if I was a bit salty earlier and I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade.
There are many benefits to this proposed variation of quote posts where the person being quoted can update or delete their quote.
Let me argue the other side then.
One big benefit of this proposed quote post methodology is that it would be a version that Mastodon, et. al. would probably be willing to support. They have valid concerns that people will abuse quote posts to harass others. This proposal mitigates that.
It also is useful in non-malicious contexts since people can fix typos and errors in their original post. It's also useful if the person being quoted wants to retract what they said, perhaps because they changed their mind on a topic or found new information.
Malicious use can be mitigated in the UI by indicating the quoted person changed their post and providing a history of changes. Some platforms already do this for regular posts.
The quoted person being able to delete their quote raises some unique philosophical questions, like whether a politician can delete something they said from a journalist's quote post. Or where someone intentionally changes their post in a malicious manner, which alters the quote post and makes the person quoting someone else look bad.
So, there are many facets to this proposal. It still may be good to pursue even if some platforms aren't going to implement it. But there are also some scenarios we want to consider.
There are many benefits to this proposed variation of quote posts where the person being quoted can update or delete their quote.
Let me argue the other side then.
One big benefit of this proposed quote post methodology is that it would be a version that Mastodon, et. al. would probably be willing to support. They have valid concerns that people will abuse quote posts to harass others. This proposal mitigates that.
It also is useful in non-malicious contexts since people can fix typos and errors in their original post. It's also useful if the person being quoted wants to retract what they said, perhaps because they changed their mind on a topic or found new information.
Malicious use can be mitigated in the UI by indicating the quoted person changed their post and providing a history of changes. Some platforms already do this for regular posts.
The quoted person being able to delete their quote raises some unique philosophical questions, like whether a politician can delete something they said from a journalist's quote post. Or where someone intentionally changes their post in a malicious manner, which alters the quote post and makes the person quoting someone else look bad.
So, there are many facets to this proposal. It still may be good to pursue even if some platforms aren't going to implement it. But there are also some scenarios we want to consider.
@scott@loves.tech said in Quoted posts:
Well, and Mastodon et. al. are free to implement it that way. There is of cause the limitation of the technical solution on the Forum side regarding editing or deleting; but Mastodon is free to implement it as links. In the same way as a Forum solution has to implement it as qoutes, because the context is different.
That means that if the forumpost actually becomes edited or deleted, Mastodon will delete it, because the link has disappeared, but if the Mastodon qoute disappears, the qoute stays in the forum, but the link back to source disappear so now it is just a statement witout a source.
One big benefit of this proposed quote post methodology is that it would be a version that Mastodon, et. al. would probably be willing to support. They have valid concerns that people will abuse quote posts to harass others. This proposal mitigates that.
It also is useful in non-malicious contexts since people can fix typos and errors in their original post. It's also useful if the person being quoted wants to retract what they said, perhaps because they changed their mind on a topic or found new information.
Well, and Mastodon et. al. are free to implement it that way. There is of cause the limitation of the technical solution on the Forum side regarding editing or deleting; but Mastodon is free to implement it as links. In the same way as a Forum solution has to implement it as qoutes, because the context is different.
That means that if the forumpost actually becomes edited or deleted, Mastodon will delete it, because the link has disappeared, but if the Mastodon qoute disappears, the qoute stays in the forum, but the link back to source disappear so now it is just a statement witout a source.