I've seen an ongoing debate between "Note" versus "Article" in ActivityPub / ActivityStreams.

[reiver@mastodon.social]

I've seen an ongoing debate between "Note" versus "Article" in ActivityPub / ActivityStreams.

When is something a "Note"‽
When is something an "Article"‽

Personally — I would probably have made the distinction this way.

An "Article" has a title.
A "Note" doesn't have a title.

(In ActivityPub / ActivityStreams, a 'title' seems to tend to get represented in the "name" field.)

#ActivityPub #ActivityStreams #FediDev #FediDevs #Fediverse

[reiver@mastodon.social]

In the old blogging software I created back in the 1990s, I had a handful of posts types

There was a type of rich-text oriented post that had a title. (Article)

And, there way another type of rich-text oriented post that did not have a title. (Note)

(There were also other types of posts, but they aren't relevant here)

These 2 types of posts were rendered / displayed differently

I.e., my 1990s software already had this distinction

#ActivityPub #ActivityStreams #FediDev #FediDevs #Fediverse

[thisismissem@activitypub.space]

@reiver@mastodon.social that's a good summary for it.

[toddsundsted@epiktistes.com]

@reiver I like this distinction well enough that I might implement it.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@reiver there's a page on this in the primer:

https://www.w3.org/wiki/Activity_Streams/Primer/Article_and_Note

But it's not always clear.

One thing that might distinguish is presentation.

I expect an Article to appear on its own page. References to an Article in a stream or tree layout might just include title and summary, with a link to a UI to show the full text.

But lots of Note objects can fit in a stream or tree presentation.

[khleedril@cyberplace.social]

@reiver I don't think there really are any articles in the #fediverse. There are links, but the texts themselves are read through URIs.

Edit: Happy to be corrected! I've yet to implement ActivityPub into my new blog, but hopefully will be able to put articles out there when I get around to it.

[liaizon@social.wake.st]

@khleedril @reiver that's not true at all. Every post from @writefreely and @WordPress (with federation turned on) federates the whole post. It's just that mastodon doesn't render the post it self but most other fediverse servers do.

[reiver@mastodon.social]

@khleedril

Some of that is more about Mastodon, than the Fediverse.

Mastodon doesn't give you the text of an Article, but instead gives you a link to it.

But, at this machine-level (in the ActivityPub / ActivityStreams data), the content is there for both Notes and Articles.

Mastodon just treats them differently.

[liaizon@social.wake.st]

@khleedril @reiver try using akkoma https://fe.disroot.org is a good instance, and follow some blogs

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@reiver

Btw, I am sorry as I should've added "tangential" to the above, but was out of chars. I borrowed your post to continue my argument made elsewhere.

Adding an analogy that popped up as a showerthought just now, to clarify further what I refer to..

In a different context someone who creates a Webshop webapp might ask:

> When is something a "Product" or "Invoice" in HTTP / HTML?

It is not fully equivalent, but demonstrative of how the concepts clash, mixing solution space with protocol vocabulary in language use.

Yet this is what happens continuously in all fediverse developer talk, sowing endless confusion, but also leads to complete different, incompatible views and expectations on what fediverse is, and where it is headed.

We have a laissez-faire fediverse. Handy, as you can just hack things in. But also directionless and random.

@thisismissem

[julian@activitypub.space]

@khleedril@cyberplace.social there absolutely are!

Any NodeBB topic over 500 characters is an article with a title, and federates out as the Article type.

Mastodon gets a sub-500 character summary, and displays that.

[julian@activitypub.space]

@reiver@mastodon.social Mastodon can, and that's what the long form text FEP enables.

If you set a summary, Mastodon will faithfully show it, even for Article types.

[thisismissem@activitypub.space]

Just don't set as:sensitive with summary because that'll trigger a content warning!

[julian@activitypub.space]

@thisismissem ironically, I am debating rolling back the summary generation logic for NodeBB because sending the first 500 chars means fewer people go off-site to read the rest of the post.

I was able to get much more engagement by sending the entire darn thing in summary.