blaineNov 12, 2022
"Mastodon sucks because any one of the 5000+ communities can set their own rules and might accidentally deprive people in that community of my witty hot takes for a reason I personally believe to be flippant" isn't the sick burn that the Twitter user with 50k followers thinks it is.
Show threadPelle WessmanNov 12, 2022

@blaine A slight problem with federated micro-Twitters versus fully decentralized IndieWeb setups in a way.

Mastodon instances amplify their users in a different way to actual independent web pages / the IndieWeb.

But still, yeah, you’re right. I’m just sad that eg the WebFinger setup ended up a lot less static site friendly than the original and is much more catered to micro-Twitters than to actually independent sites.

Show threadblaineNov 12, 2022

@voxpelli ❤️

For me, the webfinger stuff was/is just an idea - how can we give people an online name that they control?

(There's some new thinking in this direction that is very exciting, and I think better than any of our previous approaches!)

Show threadPelle WessmanNov 12, 2022

@blaine Yeah, I remember WebFinger itself never really being intended to be a spec in itself, rather just a pattern for how to apply Host Meta rules to usernames

Which new thinking are you referring to? IndieWeb ones? Crypto ones? Browser based ones?

Show threadSebastian LasseNov 14, 2022

@voxpelli @blaine

Please also note that webfinger is not part of any ActivityPub spec.
https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#conformance
It is just a masto thing.

But the fediverse is so many wonderful softwares.

ActivityPub

The ActivityPub protocol is a decentralized social networking protocol based upon the [ActivityStreams] 2.0 data format. It provides a client to server API for creating, updating and deleting content, as well as a federated server to server API for delivering notifications and content.

Show threadPelle WessmanNov 14, 2022
@sl007 @blaine Yeah, OStatus was WebFinger, WebSub, ActivityStreams and Salmon. I guess ActivityPub has replaced the three latter?
Show threadSebastian LasseNov 14, 2022

@voxpelli @blaine

well, for ActivityPub an URL is enough.
Just as it should be.

Only mastodon needs webfinger.

Show threadblaineNov 14, 2022

@sl007 @voxpelli the http spec also doesn't have anything to say about html, nor does webfinger say anything about ActivityPub, as it should be. Webfinger isn't "just a masto" thing, either - any social software will need to use the pattern if adoption and sharing is a concern.

It's perhaps best to think of webfinger as "DNS for people"

Show threadEd Davies

@blaine “It's perhaps best to think of webfinger as "DNS for people"”

I see it as more like DNS for resources (as in the R in URL). That could, of course, be a person but more usually it'll be a person's account. Webfinger acct:[email protected] returns different data from acct:[email protected].

@sl007 @voxpelli

Nov 14, 2022 at 3:19pmWeb
Show threadblaineNov 14, 2022

@edavies @sl007 @voxpelli yup! I don't think of the two as oppositional, since people have multiple identities, depending on context.

But yeah, webfinger is also a useful construct to talk about things or anything where the underlying handler might change (different server, same name) but registering a domain or setting up a subdomain isn't easy. So, strictly not people, but I've always used that as a way to simplify the concept. ☺️

Show threadSebastian LasseNov 14, 2022

@blaine @edavies @voxpelli

"registering a domain or setting up a subdomain isn't easy"

Thank you hypercapitalists, the instance is a domain in every case.
It will not work without.

Here is the thing called the Open Web.
We are not sitting in a bird cage here.