I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol.
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I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol. The way it works, whenever you take an action, it sends that action to all followers. I would prefer if it simply stored them and then let each follower pull them when they see fit.
That would introduce latency and more async comms as your messages wouldn't pop up into someone elses feed until their software fetch the data, but I think it would make it easier to self host.
@soapdog Yes, lots of details to work out for our use cases, but the pull model is what makes RSS so crazy powerful and scalable. Push models are resource hogs that approach exponential growth in a large network like the fediverse — the medium-sized site that hosts my account is constantly struggling to stay one step ahead of the fedi's surging resource demands.
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@soapdog Yes, lots of details to work out for our use cases, but the pull model is what makes RSS so crazy powerful and scalable. Push models are resource hogs that approach exponential growth in a large network like the fediverse — the medium-sized site that hosts my account is constantly struggling to stay one step ahead of the fedi's surging resource demands.
@david_megginson that is the exact problem that I want to get rid of. It really sucks. For example, I'd like to host a single-user AP server here at my flat, but knowing that it will use so much bandwidth is enough for me to reconsider it.
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I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol. The way it works, whenever you take an action, it sends that action to all followers. I would prefer if it simply stored them and then let each follower pull them when they see fit.
That would introduce latency and more async comms as your messages wouldn't pop up into someone elses feed until their software fetch the data, but I think it would make it easier to self host.
@soapdog Why would it make it easier to self-host? Dealing with pull requests is on the whole more difficult than a simple send-and-forget. Tracking who is in on a conversation is easy enough. On the other hand, tracking every conversation you've ever been in is way more difficult, and wasteful pulling from every single one of them. It wouldn't work.
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@david_megginson that is the exact problem that I want to get rid of. It really sucks. For example, I'd like to host a single-user AP server here at my flat, but knowing that it will use so much bandwidth is enough for me to reconsider it.
@soapdog Part of the problem is that we set the expectation that the fedi would work just like a monolithic social media site. If we reduced that expectation just a little, the demands would go down a lot.
Users already accept (or fail to notice) that Mastodon's search and hashtag features aren't really global across the fedi.
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I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol. The way it works, whenever you take an action, it sends that action to all followers. I would prefer if it simply stored them and then let each follower pull them when they see fit.
That would introduce latency and more async comms as your messages wouldn't pop up into someone elses feed until their software fetch the data, but I think it would make it easier to self host.
@soapdog There's a poll-based version specced at https://fediverse.codeberg.page/fep/fep/b06c/, sadly with no notable implementations (wouldn't be interactable by Mastodon etc.), but it's an opportunity to break new ground as an implementer if you know anyone who'd like to experiment with it.
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@soapdog There's a poll-based version specced at https://fediverse.codeberg.page/fep/fep/b06c/, sadly with no notable implementations (wouldn't be interactable by Mastodon etc.), but it's an opportunity to break new ground as an implementer if you know anyone who'd like to experiment with it.
@julian that was a very interesting read. I think I can implement this. Will try a small experiement soon. Thanks for sharing.
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@soapdog Part of the problem is that we set the expectation that the fedi would work just like a monolithic social media site. If we reduced that expectation just a little, the demands would go down a lot.
Users already accept (or fail to notice) that Mastodon's search and hashtag features aren't really global across the fedi.
@david_megginson the good thing about expectations is that we can adjust them
I'm not saying replace AP with something else, I'm saying let's build something different and let them all blossom. I really liked the spec described here:
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@julian that was a very interesting read. I think I can implement this. Will try a small experiement soon. Thanks for sharing.
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I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol. The way it works, whenever you take an action, it sends that action to all followers. I would prefer if it simply stored them and then let each follower pull them when they see fit.
That would introduce latency and more async comms as your messages wouldn't pop up into someone elses feed until their software fetch the data, but I think it would make it easier to self host.
We're using pull semantics for data exchange in the federation of wikis, if you'd like to try that out. #FedWiki
via @smallcircles
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@evan @soapdog True. I was talking about this just yesterday, if we wouldn't be better served by something wiki-like to host a software project × FEP implementation matrix instead of asking FEP authors to keep their lists updated.
That aside, in this context I'm thinking about how more implementations in the wild can motivate other implementers. My own website still isn't AP-capable (it's planned, but low priority). If I knew there were a sizable ActivityPoll user base, I'd more likely use it.
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@evan @soapdog True. I was talking about this just yesterday, if we wouldn't be better served by something wiki-like to host a software project × FEP implementation matrix instead of asking FEP authors to keep their lists updated.
That aside, in this context I'm thinking about how more implementations in the wild can motivate other implementers. My own website still isn't AP-capable (it's planned, but low priority). If I knew there were a sizable ActivityPoll user base, I'd more likely use it.
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I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol. The way it works, whenever you take an action, it sends that action to all followers. I would prefer if it simply stored them and then let each follower pull them when they see fit.
That would introduce latency and more async comms as your messages wouldn't pop up into someone elses feed until their software fetch the data, but I think it would make it easier to self host.
@soapdog makes sense. I never had fear of not being able to selfhost an RSS feed
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I wish #ActivityPub was a "pull" protocol instead of a "push" protocol. The way it works, whenever you take an action, it sends that action to all followers. I would prefer if it simply stored them and then let each follower pull them when they see fit.
That would introduce latency and more async comms as your messages wouldn't pop up into someone elses feed until their software fetch the data, but I think it would make it easier to self host.
@soapdog@toot.cafe hmm... just thinking aloud here.
You posit in another post that the network effects inflate exponentially:
> Push models are resource hogs that approach exponential growth in a large network like the fediverse
That's not true. If you post a message then it sends a copy to each follower. That's linear growth. If you collapse recipients via shared inboxes you can reduce that further.
If you're referring to the torrent of requests that happen if your post is shared (the "thundering herd" problem) then that's actually a PULL happening from those requesting instances!
Secondly, in a pull model of AP, you would need to continually poll servers of all your followers so as to approach a real-time effect. You'd be polling servers over and over again, and many of them would have nothing new, with so much wasted traffic.
If your expectations include semi real-time updates, the push model is much more performant, in my humble opinion.
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