🫧 socialcoding..Do NOT create out-of-bound custom and app-centric mechanisms that define new and expected behavior on protocol level.
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediverse-ideas/issues/33
#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb #ActivityPub #ProtocolDecay #Botiquette
cc @evan relating to earlier #TagsPub discussion we had on the matter.
This bot is already combining logic, has multiple 'profle logic' tags. Dunno if "NoBots" is also already common protocol-decaying practice.
Maybe a solution might be that an #ActivityPub bot actor - OT: which I'd personally perhaps had chosen to be Application, not Service actors - would have a botFlags property. Simple to implement, and #FEP that.
More involved but also much more versatile might be a "Botiquette" as:Profile, or even a bots:Botiquette type, and a namespace to register them at, and where others may find what they mean and how they operate exactly.
Evan Prodromou@smallcircles thanks! Service is for servers, Application is for clients.
@smallcircles I think it might be possible to do something with the "extra profile fields", but we get so few by default!
@evan 2x protocol decay in a row? 🤔
Is there any formalized approach on choosing actor type, or did you express your personal app-centric preference? Is there anything not app-centric to having a max. amount of app-centric 'profile fields'? Genuine questions. Am I holding it wrong when I say 'app-centric'?
@smallcircles you use an idiosyncratic jargon sometimes and that makes it hard to talk to you.
Evolution of a protocol is not "decay". Nor is the Postel principle. Learning and adapting protocols and data types to new situations or creating extensions is success, not failure.
@smallcircles for choosing object types for software, I think the difference between a client and a server can be tricky, but in the case of tags.pub, everything is implemented on the server, so I think Service is a good choice. Why do you think Application?
@smallcircles when you say things are my "personal" preference, you make it sound like I am just some guy off the street. I'm not. I wrote StatusNet and pump.io. I developed OStatus, and cowrote AS2 and AP. I wrote the book about ActivityPub. My personal preferences were built into the standard a long time ago.
It is not meant that way at all. I mean "any developer's personal choice at time of impl" because the standard allows such versatility. Since in this case you posed it to me its "you as a dev's personal choice". There are 3 options:
1. It is not standardized, everyone is free to choose.
2. There's an informal convention, turning de facto standard.
3. It is formalized, part of the standard.
When saying "protocol decay" I always mean as the IETF doc on it defines it: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9413.html#name-protocol-decay
On "evolution". Evolution to where? What are the common goals, the shared vision? When is something evolution vs. devolution if people are hemmed into a de facto standard full of app-specific choices made in the past?
"I can't have more profile fields". Why? Does Linked Data restrict you, or does some app not handle more than N fields? The latter is protocol decay.
I've been tooting about Emergence. Many emergent systems in Nature have no interesting outcome. What fedi is emerging?
RFC 9413: Maintaining Robust Protocols
The main goal of the networking standards process is to enable the long-term interoperability of protocols. This document describes active protocol maintenance, a means to accomplish that goal. By evolving specifications and implementations, it is possible to reduce ambiguity over time and create a healthy ecosystem. The robustness principle, often phrased as "be conservative in what you send, and liberal in what you accept", has long guided the design and implementation of Internet protocols. However, it has been interpreted in a variety of ways. While some interpretations help ensure the health of the Internet, others can negatively affect interoperability over time. When a protocol is actively maintained, protocol designers and implementers can avoid these pitfalls.
If after a bunch of years the AP dev community came all together in a big event and reflected on the past, suppose they might conclude:
"We have evolved into a decentralized copy of existing big tech social media platforms."
You can say that it is evolution, and you'd be right too. But is it the best evolution we could have had? Which branch of the Tree of Fedi Life did we grow?
If now that branch can only form microblog-like sub-branches, is it evolution? Evolution is in the eye of the beholder.
I am inclined even say that ActivityPub in its original raw potential constitute magic seeds for trees that over time will form a large forest, whereas fedi has branched from the single tree, and you can choose to be a sub-branch.
Both can technically be said to constitute progress. But one has more power and promise for rich tapestry social web.