I think the #ActivityPub client-to-server API is extremely important and underrated.
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I was looking at #ForgeFed which is a very sizable #ActivityPub extension (constituting the "Code forge" app domain in app-centric view, but arguably "Software development" top-level business domain in a service-oriented fedi).
The way that things are modeled here adheres more to the actor model where there's a Factory actor, which in turn creates resource actors that expose various sub-domains. For instance for the management of Issues and PR's there's a TicketTracker actor to obtain via a Factory actor on a forge instance. Though I'm not sure whether I'd modeled that in similar fashion, it is a fascinating direction where we focus much more on good protocol extension design.
All in all AS/AP offers a very granular foundation that allows for very interesting architectures, if only we dare explore them and do not dogmatically stick to some engrained notion how "social media" ought to be. I see #SocialMedia as but a small subset of #SocialNetworking.
@smallcircles @deadsuperhero not just that, but if we evolve our understanding of what AP *could* be beyond what Mastodon *needs* AP to be.
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Can't help but wonder about terminology use and abstractions they indicate. Nowhere in the specs is there mention of 'timeline' and neither of 'feed' (except as example use in AS).
I feel we started with powerful specs to be able to model *any* social networking use case. But where the specs had blanks gradually the impls filled these in with leaky abstractions such that fedi is now hammered into a very narrow social media microblogging domain.
If an app needs "Timeline" and "Feed" concepts, then it should model them. Given the actor-based nature of AP they might be actors, or whatever is best. These concept are about solution development, i.e. what is built on top of the protocol, and not indicative of core protocol capabilities.
There's so much confusion on "where does the protocol end vs. where does my app design start".
SDK's should offer "Addressable actors exchanging msgs with object payload", and hide all impl details for the solution developer.
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Can't help but wonder about terminology use and abstractions they indicate. Nowhere in the specs is there mention of 'timeline' and neither of 'feed' (except as example use in AS).
I feel we started with powerful specs to be able to model *any* social networking use case. But where the specs had blanks gradually the impls filled these in with leaky abstractions such that fedi is now hammered into a very narrow social media microblogging domain.
If an app needs "Timeline" and "Feed" concepts, then it should model them. Given the actor-based nature of AP they might be actors, or whatever is best. These concept are about solution development, i.e. what is built on top of the protocol, and not indicative of core protocol capabilities.
There's so much confusion on "where does the protocol end vs. where does my app design start".
SDK's should offer "Addressable actors exchanging msgs with object payload", and hide all impl details for the solution developer.
@smallcircles @julian @deadsuperhero we call them collections.
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@smallcircles @julian @deadsuperhero we call them collections.
Except when they are called other names instead ;p
A timeline is a different thing than a collection imho. And an AS collection has some very particular functionality, which if I model a timeline in my app may not supported (e.g. reverse ordering).
Collection / 'timeline' is one of those words where sometimes they indicate an app domain, and sometimes a core protocol mechanism. Same is true with 'follow' which is sometimes a user action, sometimes indicates low-level publish/subscribe.
For core capabilities that must be part of the specs, in 'protocol space' it may be better to use terminology that is more common in messaging architectures and all the various architecture patterns that are involved. Perhaps idk we deal with a time-ordered event log or something like that.
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@smallcircles @julian @deadsuperhero we call them collections.
@evan@cosocial.ca gosh I can't imagine assigning Add and Remove activities for a "popular" collection. It changes so often that it seems a waste of resources to try to track it.
Dynamic Collection?
Or as @smallcircles@social.coop said, even just light algorithmic ordering in a timeline makes stuffing it into a collection unwieldy.
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I might not understand what we're talking about.
@smallcircles said that AP doesn't mention "timelines" or "feeds". We use a different term, collections. They are ordered in reverse chronological order, like what most people expect a "feed" to look like.
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I might not understand what we're talking about.
@smallcircles said that AP doesn't mention "timelines" or "feeds". We use a different term, collections. They are ordered in reverse chronological order, like what most people expect a "feed" to look like.
I haven't seen anyone use Add and Remove activities to notify updates to the `outbox`. I don't think it would work; it's too recursive.
I've done it for other feeds, like `replies` or `followers`, and it works pretty well.
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I haven't seen anyone use Add and Remove activities to notify updates to the `outbox`. I don't think it would work; it's too recursive.
I've done it for other feeds, like `replies` or `followers`, and it works pretty well.
#ActivityPub builds on top of #ActivityStreams in the sense that it adopted a number of its 'social primitives' defined in its vocabulary, and Collection being among those. These particular uses become 'protocol space', but other than that AS from the perspective of AP solution development is purely a set of social primitives, granular building blocks that one *may* use in a solution. AS is a utility library of sorts then. Or is that a wrong perception?
A 'feed' is something that lives in solution space, and I would only choose Collection to model it, if it offers a perfect fit in functionality. And aboveall.. does not assign some new app-specific use along the way.
I tooted today that I feel the biggest folly of the fedi is that everyone tries to cram their domain into the AS namespace. The AS primitives should not be Swiss army knives and have only singular well-defined meaning and purpose, yet they have become that along the way.
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#ActivityPub builds on top of #ActivityStreams in the sense that it adopted a number of its 'social primitives' defined in its vocabulary, and Collection being among those. These particular uses become 'protocol space', but other than that AS from the perspective of AP solution development is purely a set of social primitives, granular building blocks that one *may* use in a solution. AS is a utility library of sorts then. Or is that a wrong perception?
A 'feed' is something that lives in solution space, and I would only choose Collection to model it, if it offers a perfect fit in functionality. And aboveall.. does not assign some new app-specific use along the way.
I tooted today that I feel the biggest folly of the fedi is that everyone tries to cram their domain into the AS namespace. The AS primitives should not be Swiss army knives and have only singular well-defined meaning and purpose, yet they have become that along the way.
@smallcircles@social.coop I feel personally called out for this 😛
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I haven't seen anyone use Add and Remove activities to notify updates to the `outbox`. I don't think it would work; it's too recursive.
I've done it for other feeds, like `replies` or `followers`, and it works pretty well.
@evan @julian@activitypub.space @smallcircles Mind if I butt in here with a question about management of the `replies` collection? I'm looking at this for the interaction controls FEP draft.
GoToSocial currently broadcasts an `Accept(Note)` to let followers know a reply has been accepted (see https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/federation/interaction_controls/#broadcasting-accepts-for-the-benefit-of-third-servers). We'd want to add an inverse for revocation, which would be `Undo(Accept(Note))` imo.
I feel `Add` and `Remove` on the `replies` collection may be more idiomatic and, in a sense, easier. Opinions?
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@evan @julian@activitypub.space @smallcircles Mind if I butt in here with a question about management of the `replies` collection? I'm looking at this for the interaction controls FEP draft.
GoToSocial currently broadcasts an `Accept(Note)` to let followers know a reply has been accepted (see https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/federation/interaction_controls/#broadcasting-accepts-for-the-benefit-of-third-servers). We'd want to add an inverse for revocation, which would be `Undo(Accept(Note))` imo.
I feel `Add` and `Remove` on the `replies` collection may be more idiomatic and, in a sense, easier. Opinions?
@julian@fietkau.social @julian@activitypub.space @smallcircles I like Accept and Reject but @trwnh is pretty insistent on Add and Remove so I defer to them.