Backfilling Conversations: Two Major Approaches

https://community.nodebb.org/topic/18844/backfilling-conversations-two-major-approaches

#ActivityPub #Backfill

Progress update for Conversational Contexts

This past June, I put together a write-up about two major approaches to backfilling conversations. The ability to properly backfill conversations means we will be able to make major inroads toward solving the feeling that the fediverse is quiet.

https://community.nodebb.org/post/105743

A conversational context is what the ForumWG uses to describe what you might see as a reply tree or comment thread. One of the short-to-medium term goals of the ForumWG is to get conversational backfill working reliably.

What this means — conversational backfill means that when you encounter a post/status/note/etc. (e.g. you're mentioned or boosted/shared something), there is a reliable and comprehensive way to retrieve the entire conversation around it, so you are not interacting with the object on its own, but in its proper context with all its sibling replies.

We plan to achieve this with a combination of a top-down (FEP-driven) and bottom-up (implementor-first) approach. While this sounds incongruent, top-down approaches tend to overcomplicate and bottom-up approaches tend to violate the protocol (unintentionally of course .)

There are a number of independent top-down efforts to achieve this:

• FEP-7888: Demystifying the context property
• FEP-171b: Conversation Containers
• FEP-76ea: Conversation Threads

These FEPs are in the R&D phase.

State of the Top-Down approach

At this time, the ForumWG is only recommending the following:

• Publishers SHOULD use context for grouping related objects in a thread (but this is not the only way to use context).

There is general agreement over:

• A context SHOULD resolve to a resource.

There are concerns over:

• What that resource is (as:OrderedCollection, a new type, something else?)
• What is included in that context (plain objects or activities)

State of the Bottom-Up approach

The bottom-up approach is results-oriented, and while certain implementors may follow certain FEPs, the overarching goal is "cross-compatible conversational backfill".

Separately, these implementors are (or have signalled interest in) implementing conversational backfill:

• FEP 7888
  • NodeBB (@julian) and Discourse (@angusmcleod@mastodon.social)
    • Attaches context to objects
    • context resolves to an OrderedCollection containing objects
    • Two-way conversation backfill is tested and working (7888 only).
  • WordPress (@pfefferle@mastodon.social) and Frequency (@jesseplusplus@mastodon.social)
    • Attaches context to objects
    • context resolves to an OrderedCollection containing objects
    • Outgoing conversational backfill is tested and working — others can backfill an entire conversation from these implementors.
  • Lemmy (@nutomic@lemmy.ml) and PieFed (@rimu@mastodon.nzoss.nz)
    • Have signalled interest (neither positive nor negative) in conversational backfill and are waiting and watching at this time.
• FEP 171b
  • Mitra (@silverpill@mitra.social)
    • Attaches context to activities
    • context resolves to an OrderedCollection containing activities
    • Incoming conversational backfill is tested and working — Mitra can backfill an entire conversation from FEP 7888 and 171b implementors ( nice!)
  • Hubzilla (@scott@authorship.studio) and Streams (@mikedev@fediversity.site)
    • Attaches context to activities
    • context resolves to an OrderedCollection containing activities
    • Outgoing conversational backfill is tested and working (against Mitra)

What's Next

This thread will likely contain updates and discussion from related parties about their implementations and what they wish to do next. In the cruelest irony of ironies, because conversational backfill is not ubiquitous yet, you will need to "View Original URL" in order to see all of the replies.

The ForumWG will meet again on 6 March 13h00 EST where all of this will be discussed, as well as planning out the future focus items for the ForumWG.

If you are an implementor, there is no reason you cannot join the fray. Boost this post, reply to it, join the conversation(al context)!!

If you're not an implementor, boost me anyway 

Just wrapped up a call with @pfefferle@mastodon.social and @jesseplusplus@mastodon.social to review their implementations of FEP 7888, specifically in relation to conversational backfill.

 individual objects serve a context property
 that context property is a URL that resolves

One of the concerns raised was related to the OrderedCollection of items served by the context. Specifically, if the items presented in the collection were not in chronological order, NodeBB failed at importing some of the items as the inReplyTo referenced an object that did not exist.

The solution to this was to ensure that the collection items were in chronological order from oldest to newest. Once fixed:

 the context resolved to an OrderedCollection containing objects
 NodeBB was able to pull in the entire conversation

NodeBB used to guard against this by ordering all received items by chronological order, but I realized that while this worked 99%+ of the time, there are some fun (ahem...) individuals who send objects with timestamps way in the future.

Personally I think removing the sorting just to fix one edge case was premature. At the same time, I think specifying that the OrderedCollection be sorted in chronological order should be a requirement.

cc @trwnh@mastodon.social

#Fediverse #Frage: Ist es immer noch so, dass ein Account einer Instanz A, der einem 🔒-Account auf einer Instanz B frisch folgt (und dem von Instanz A auch niemand anders folgt), nur Posts sehen kann, die nach dem Folgen gepostet wurden?

Oder kann man sich auf den #Backfill inzwischen verlassen?

Word Search Puzzle 514

Word List : #saut #whangees #chroma #unto #tarsals #jolter #patellar #cotset #shraddha #continua #subsume #daytide #salving #oarlock #costumic #backfill #fainer #outvie

http://karafinance.com/2024/02/27/word-search-puzzle-514/

Here's some #writingadvice: Do not make overly detailed notes about a scene, especially when you are about to write that scene.

If you do that, and lock yourself into writing that scene as detailed, you'll likely find that you've drained all your interest in writing that scene. (This applies to overly detailed #plots or #outlines, too.)

Best practice when #notetaking is to hint about the scene, provide yourself an emotional hook—or many. Do this especially if you have to stop writing and continue later.

For me, I *want* to discover what my characters will do in tense, dangerous, or overly personal situations, to see their reactions. *This makes writing like reading, substituting page-writing for page-turning*. Works for me.

Yes, characters go off on tangents; I either #backfill #foreshadowing or reprimand them severely! *Bad character!* More often than not, the result is delightful. I admit to #rewriting two scenes in the last months, one 5 times, coming up with something completely different each time!

But. I'm an #author. Rewrites happen, am I right?
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Big #thanks to @oneoveralpha for sparking this idea.