I'm curious what other devs think about this.
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I'm curious what other devs think about this. If an actor posts an C2S #ActivityPub Create/Note to the outbox, what would you think if the object created by the server was a different type (e.g., Article)?
@steve from what point of view is this question?
What would I think as the user that sent a Create/Note? Probably would not care/know.
What do I think as a server that receives a Create/Article? Makes no difference. Would the canonical version of the saved object also be Article if I dereference it?As a spec implementor and user, I would probably be upset that my intent was not preserved.
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@steve from what point of view is this question?
What would I think as the user that sent a Create/Note? Probably would not care/know.
What do I think as a server that receives a Create/Article? Makes no difference. Would the canonical version of the saved object also be Article if I dereference it?As a spec implementor and user, I would probably be upset that my intent was not preserved.
@mariusor Like I said, this is a C2S context. Let's say they do know. Your opinion is that the user should not care? I'm guessing there are other kinds of C2S server-side changes that you'd believe they would care about (changing content, addressing, etc.).
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@mariusor Like I said, this is a C2S context. Let's say they do know. Your opinion is that the user should not care? I'm guessing there are other kinds of C2S server-side changes that you'd believe they would care about (changing content, addressing, etc.).
@mariusor And I'm thinking of a general C2S client (not one developed by the server developer for that specific server). The client developer might care for technical reasons. For example, some servers don't support Article S2S federation so the example I described (converting Note to Article in the server) could have undesired results.
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@mariusor And I'm thinking of a general C2S client (not one developed by the server developer for that specific server). The client developer might care for technical reasons. For example, some servers don't support Article S2S federation so the example I described (converting Note to Article in the server) could have undesired results.
@steve the problem as I see it is only with the "misrepresentation of the user's intention". Which might, or might not cover the aspect that you referred to...
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@steve the problem as I see it is only with the "misrepresentation of the user's intention". Which might, or might not cover the aspect that you referred to...
@mariusor Like you said, I'm not sure the user (rather than the client dev) cares about details like the AP object type. However, they may care from a UX perspective if their messages are silently dropped (during S2S federation because the type was changed). And if they do care, they'll probably complain to the client developer who didn't cause the problem. 😉
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@mariusor Like you said, I'm not sure the user (rather than the client dev) cares about details like the AP object type. However, they may care from a UX perspective if their messages are silently dropped (during S2S federation because the type was changed). And if they do care, they'll probably complain to the client developer who didn't cause the problem. 😉
@steve but did you actually observe this behaviour in any servers? What made you ask the question?
To me it sounds very implausible, because the server *actively* needs to do something instead of piping the received activity directly to its recipients. Is it a case of "the server doesn't render Note objects" so they silently convert to something they do?
Even that's implausible to me, because the same code can be used to render both...
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I'm curious what other devs think about this. If an actor posts an C2S #ActivityPub Create/Note to the outbox, what would you think if the object created by the server was a different type (e.g., Article)?
lets say there is a local-server sending this create/note to a distant-server.
Whatever object distant-server creates internally I am very neutral.
But I am very engaged from
1. viewpoint of local-server I expect to get feedback about a note object & being able to deref a note object.
2. viewpoint of distant-server user I expect to see a object behaving like a note.In a bottom line - naming a note different makes absolutely no sense at all ...
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@steve but did you actually observe this behaviour in any servers? What made you ask the question?
To me it sounds very implausible, because the server *actively* needs to do something instead of piping the received activity directly to its recipients. Is it a case of "the server doesn't render Note objects" so they silently convert to something they do?
Even that's implausible to me, because the same code can be used to render both...
@mariusor Yes, I'm seeing it in a real server while doing C2S testing/exploration. In this case, the server can handle Note and Article, in general, so I don't the rationale yet for the conversion. It's in pre-release code so it may or may not be intentional.
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I'm curious what other devs think about this. If an actor posts an C2S #ActivityPub Create/Note to the outbox, what would you think if the object created by the server was a different type (e.g., Article)?
@steve If you consider also peer 2 peer networking as an option, your client might switch it's role and act as a server.
In this case it having such a different inside outside mapping for objects will become confusing.
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@steve If you consider also peer 2 peer networking as an option, your client might switch it's role and act as a server.
In this case it having such a different inside outside mapping for objects will become confusing.
Keeping msgs immutable is a general best-practice, I gather.
In the case you mention it becomes confusing to still use client/server terminology. You have a full actor on the client's side, and when it sends a msg it acts in server/S2S role.
Btw, in that scenario we do not have to make the distinction client + server anymore, as we have just actors communicating with each other. Then we can think in terms of the actor model, and honor its qualities.
A client sending to the server's outbox is then analogous to an actor sending to another actor's inbox. That is a one-way msg exchange usually, fire and forget (esp. in a pure event-driven architecture... which the current fediverse is not). The remote actor is not responsible for keeping the Activity (event) in its server-outbox / actor.inbox. That corresponds to the spec part "may disappear at any moment".
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I'm curious what other devs think about this. If an actor posts an C2S #ActivityPub Create/Note to the outbox, what would you think if the object created by the server was a different type (e.g., Article)?
@steve I think I’d be Quite Annoyed if a server did that when the C2S app I’m writing sent a Note. I’m asking it to Create a Note - I expect it to create a Note or fail to create a Note, not do some weird, unexpected third thing.
I could maybe tolerate it adding a second type, but while my code can handle multiple types most ActivityPub software doesn’t seem to accept that kind of thing.
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@steve I think I’d be Quite Annoyed if a server did that when the C2S app I’m writing sent a Note. I’m asking it to Create a Note - I expect it to create a Note or fail to create a Note, not do some weird, unexpected third thing.
I could maybe tolerate it adding a second type, but while my code can handle multiple types most ActivityPub software doesn’t seem to accept that kind of thing.
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Keeping msgs immutable is a general best-practice, I gather.
In the case you mention it becomes confusing to still use client/server terminology. You have a full actor on the client's side, and when it sends a msg it acts in server/S2S role.
Btw, in that scenario we do not have to make the distinction client + server anymore, as we have just actors communicating with each other. Then we can think in terms of the actor model, and honor its qualities.
A client sending to the server's outbox is then analogous to an actor sending to another actor's inbox. That is a one-way msg exchange usually, fire and forget (esp. in a pure event-driven architecture... which the current fediverse is not). The remote actor is not responsible for keeping the Activity (event) in its server-outbox / actor.inbox. That corresponds to the spec part "may disappear at any moment".
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@steve If you consider also peer 2 peer networking as an option, your client might switch it's role and act as a server.
In this case it having such a different inside outside mapping for objects will become confusing.
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@mariusor Yes, I'm seeing it in a real server while doing C2S testing/exploration. In this case, the server can handle Note and Article, in general, so I don't the rationale yet for the conversion. It's in pre-release code so it may or may not be intentional.
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lets say there is a local-server sending this create/note to a distant-server.
Whatever object distant-server creates internally I am very neutral.
But I am very engaged from
1. viewpoint of local-server I expect to get feedback about a note object & being able to deref a note object.
2. viewpoint of distant-server user I expect to see a object behaving like a note.In a bottom line - naming a note different makes absolutely no sense at all ...
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@steve but did you actually observe this behaviour in any servers? What made you ask the question?
To me it sounds very implausible, because the server *actively* needs to do something instead of piping the received activity directly to its recipients. Is it a case of "the server doesn't render Note objects" so they silently convert to something they do?
Even that's implausible to me, because the same code can be used to render both...
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@mariusor Like you said, I'm not sure the user (rather than the client dev) cares about details like the AP object type. However, they may care from a UX perspective if their messages are silently dropped (during S2S federation because the type was changed). And if they do care, they'll probably complain to the client developer who didn't cause the problem. 😉
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@steve the problem as I see it is only with the "misrepresentation of the user's intention". Which might, or might not cover the aspect that you referred to...
