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2024-06-07 17:20:29

julian on Nostr: Please see below for minutes from today's *Forum and Threaded Discussions Task Force* ...

Please see below for minutes from today's *Forum and Threaded Discussions Task Force* monthly meeting.


*Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information*




<li>
<p>Housekeeping:</p>
<ul>
<li>Neither Angus nor Julian have updated the WG fediverse handles yet. Sorry about that! Good start, pat on the back, let's try again next month.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Angus: question of what we want to do with survey reports?</p>
<ul>
<li>Potential academic usage going forward</li>
<li>Use of spreadsheets has direct utility; no need to come up with anything more complicated at this time</li>
<li>Theoretically, one could develop an entire standard/knowledge graph for how the fediverse works</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Group Federation among implementors (1b12/400e)</p>
<ul>
<li>Angus: Disambiguation is an issue: is a remote implementor following 1b12 or 400e?
<ul>
<li>trwnh pointed out that it doesn't matter, you can differentiate based on behaviour</li>
<li>Angus: From an implementor perspective, I am reminded that it is worth supporting the actions described in 400e as well</li>
<li>Julian: If the FEPs don't directly conflict, what is the minimum set of 400e behaviour we need to support?</li>
<li>trwnh: just because a group announces, doesn't mean it is 1b12. Hubzilla/Friendica send out announces, but send out the object itself</li>
<li>Angus to follow up on that minimum set of behaviours to support</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Note vs. Article</p>
<ul>
<li>Seems to be a plurality of implementers sending as:Note (given Mastodon's substandard treatment towards Article types)</li>
<li>If you deal with text, you'll almost always be sending out as:Note</li>
<li>Much time was spent last meeting discussing the nuances of determining Article vs. Note.</li>
<li>Evan P. had put it generally: A tweet is an as:Note, a blog post is an as:Article</li>
<li>Conclusion: exercise in futility to attempt to determine with complete certainty whether any given submission fits "Article" or "Note"</li>
<li>In the end may be best to let implementers send whatever they want, and others display it as they want.</li>
<li>HOWEVER, undue influence from Mastodon because as:Article is reduced down to title/url.
<ul>
<li>renchap has opened the door to working out some sort of compromise</li>
<li>We will likely not get full representation (inline images, more html tags, etc.) in Mastodon, but a good compromise or stopgap would be to have Mastodon use <code>summary</code> to populate the text
<ul>
<li>Note that this conflicts with existing use of summary as content warning. Discussion to continue via fediverse.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Angus: Open to facilitating a Mastodon PR if the team are open to one</li>
<li>Darius Kazemi:
<ul>
<li>"I am happy to support robust implementations for new content types in Hometown as a proving ground for Mastodon "</li>
<li>"Also Hometown supports Articles if anyone wants to do proof of concept"</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Use of context in objects</p>
<ul>
<li>Angus: potential use case bulk importing conversations; if we could get a base implementation working, that would be a good first step</li>
<li>Julian: Given the results of the survey there is an opportunity here to trailblaze; there is no current observed standard of use for the <code>as:context</code> property</li>
<li>Angus: A report to SocialCG could come after test/base implementation between NodeBB and Discourse</li>
<li>Chris Moser: Feels like we've shoving forum/threaded discussions into an ActivityPub protocol
<ul>
<li>Should hash it out more instead of trying to fit it in</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Dmitri: We are talking about AS, not AP; could propose a forum-specific extension (see below re: extending AP/AS)</li>
<li>Dmitri: Additioanlly, we do have the affordance of interpreting the <code>context</code> field by using <code>as:type</code>.
<ul>
<li>e.g. If it is type Article, then it means root thread, vs. if it is type Note, then means something else, etc.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>trwnh: Partial agree - Doesn't really matter what type is. AS 2.0 was written around that; e.g. context is "put this thing in this bucket"
<ul>
<li>The base use of <code>as:context</code> is to group things together, e.g. Pleroma, <code>context</code> is a literal string match</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Aaron: We need to create a new context for a period of time, use it across some implementations, then add it to AS 3.0 or similar</li>
<li>Jennifer: Using context as grouping mechanism ; good first step
<ul>
<li>"The information I would hope to get out of a context collection is to know where to send that request to reply, or whether that would even be understood by the recipient"</li>
<li>e.g. managing reply control to a thread/topic</li>
<li>having an object there is a start, but reply controls would be great</li>
<li>trwnh: Some way to having an approval stamp; 0391 special collection proofs tries to describe this
<ul>
<li>we have two parallel paths, one with context collection, one with replies collection</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Chris Moser: AS supports multiple types? That could be used to our advantage; many devs use collection in context, we want to use it as an actor, can they be combined?</li>
<li>trwnh: it is possible and I advocate for that; logical path is to have collections that can be followed. Actors don't have to be limited by type</li>
<li>Dmitri: Should we expand the concept of actor? For the purposes of being able to follow. Got into that in previous AP triage meeting.
<ul>
<li>Counter-proposal: instead of collection being an actor, divorce the concept of outboxes and actors</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Julian: Let's take this offline to forum for now, reconvene next month</li>
<li>Chris: Inbox/outbox not necessarily limited to actors</li>
<li>a: Yes to adding to next month's agenda; an activitypub actor is anything that has an inbox/outbox. AS specifies types, but this can be discussed later.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Re: extending AP/AS</p>
<ul>
<li>Dmitri: A lot of devs would like to know how to extend the protocol
<ul>
<li>SocialCG is working on a "how do you add an extension" report, early draft is up</li>
<li>Super-basic and important question</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Jennifer: Extending can mean a couple diff. things; complication.
<ul>
<li>usually means adding a new term to the @context; that's trivial and permissionless</li>
<li>Alternatively, also FEP process, modifying AP/AS repo directly — much harder, whole w3c process</li>
<li>Dmitri: Adding to @context is easy</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Angus: Could be I or you (Julian) to write a standard</li>
<li>trwnh: Volunteering to help facilitate creation of note/report to CG</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Open floor</p>
<ul>
<li>Jennifer: Why the deference to Mastodon? Opportunity to go our own way.</li>
<li>Julian: Good question;
<ul>
<li>Likely a non-insignificant part of the ForumWG would be happy to turn the tables, but easier said than done.
<ul>
<li>Some software's users would not understand the full context and ask for a better experience from Mastodon.</li>
<li>e.g. WordPress federation, was originally as:Article but now as:Note after very quick feedback</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The ForumWG could play the card to let Mastodon play catch-up, and we might still, but given that they've signalled an interest in working towards a compromise, let's see where it goes (re: Note vs. Article)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>a: I would prefer to see other implementations go their own way, but mastodon CAN change, it will just take time
<ul>
<li>many users want something that works RIGHT NOW, not eventually</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Angus: viewing Mastodon compatibility as a starting point</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Action items:</p>
<ul>
<li>Angus to investigate the minimum set of behaviours required to support remote implementers adhering to 400e
<ul>
<li>Angus and Julian to work closely on proof-of-concept use of resolvable <code>context</code> between their softwares prior to a formal report</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Spin-off discussions:
<ul>
<li>If you <code>Announce(Object)</code> are you not following 1b12?</li>
<li>Article vs. Note; recommendations, article contains richer html, note CAN be stricter, post attachments? Summary, but conflicts with CWs?</li>
<li>Is renchap open to better treatment of as:Article; stopgap solution</li>
<li>Chris Moser/trwnh/Dmitri - What is an actor, can a collection be an actor? Dmitri summary of previous AP triage meeting</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>

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