I have deeply mixed feelings about #ActivityPub's adoption of JSON-LD, as someone who's spent way too long dealing with it while building #Fedify.
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@hongminhee @sl007 @julian attempting to support this kind of "data contortion" (i made this up and prolly isnt the right way to describe this) would rapidly balloon the scope of every fedi software ever. i don't believe anyone would want to develop for such ecosystem
a similar example i saw was someone attempting to explain how you can partially inline an as:object you as:Like'd in order to specify you only liked that past version of it and if it changed your like shouldn't count. without describing this exact scenario i don't believe any software, json-ld capable or not, would interpret that Like as such. same thing with the long-form text FEP which attempts to support non-activitypub authorsjust btw, we had many W3C Social CG meetings about the importance and how to use the as:context property - not the JSON-LD @context and we all agreed.
About 30-40 devs attended.
Between 2016 and 2024 I attended basically any meeting. I felt that using wikidata urls in as:context was nice for anyone. -
@sl007 @hongminhee @julian i genuinely can't see where json-ld is relevant here. if your client wants to support wikidata and OSM then it can do that with or without json-ld being involved. you are going to have to document how this integration works anyhow if you want anyone else to do so
if I see wd: in lets say 3 of 12 AP software, I know tha I can give the user wikibase support.
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if I see wd: in lets say 3 of 12 AP software, I know tha I can give the user wikibase support.
anyway, if you like RDF and `content` is html how about RDFa ?
For us it would work similar. If we have any "convention" before we stop writing it might save time of rewriting
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just btw, we had many W3C Social CG meetings about the importance and how to use the as:context property - not the JSON-LD @context and we all agreed.
About 30-40 devs attended.
Between 2016 and 2024 I attended basically any meeting. I felt that using wikidata urls in as:context was nice for anyone.@sl007@digitalcourage.social eh? You use
context?ForumWG decided to use context to represent threads in threadiverse software (and Mastodon too, now).
Just FYI.
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@sl007@digitalcourage.social eh? You use
context?ForumWG decided to use context to represent threads in threadiverse software (and Mastodon too, now).
Just FYI.
hm, strange. I would really not ignore all the official ActivityPub meetings between 2016 and 2014
Maybe it would be worth to read the W3C minutes of SocialCG 2019 ff
Think, it _should_ have been 2019 or 2021 cause 2021 it wasn't on the "waitlist" anymore :https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2021-01-09-socialcg-meeting-fep/1246But:
It dates back to 2020 https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/context-vs-conversation/578 and after mastodon and pleroma agreed to the us , the 2 Social CG meetings are linked by me in the thread.
Then we had the 2020 brilliant Conf.So, well, we use it for ActivityPub spec says and what was decided there by all …
mastodon is _not_ able to introduce breaking changes to a W3C standard
Just FYI. -
hm, strange. I would really not ignore all the official ActivityPub meetings between 2016 and 2014
Maybe it would be worth to read the W3C minutes of SocialCG 2019 ff
Think, it _should_ have been 2019 or 2021 cause 2021 it wasn't on the "waitlist" anymore :https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2021-01-09-socialcg-meeting-fep/1246But:
It dates back to 2020 https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/context-vs-conversation/578 and after mastodon and pleroma agreed to the us , the 2 Social CG meetings are linked by me in the thread.
Then we had the 2020 brilliant Conf.So, well, we use it for ActivityPub spec says and what was decided there by all …
mastodon is _not_ able to introduce breaking changes to a W3C standard
Just FYI.Can you specify "threadiverse" software cause like all properties which are not marked as "functional" in the ActivityPub Spec, `context` is an Array and I do not see any problem …
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Can you specify "threadiverse" software cause like all properties which are not marked as "functional" in the ActivityPub Spec, `context` is an Array and I do not see any problem …
^ what I mean :
"context": [
"https://threadiversesoftware.example.org/thread/123",
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q64 "
];then says:
"Hi machine, I am in the context of thread 123 about Berlin." -
@sl007@digitalcourage.social eh? You use
context?ForumWG decided to use context to represent threads in threadiverse software (and Mastodon too, now).
Just FYI.
Is there a W3C minutes or kind of a meeting-protocol|spec. about this use of context?
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Is there a W3C minutes or kind of a meeting-protocol|spec. about this use of context?
@sl007@digitalcourage.social FEPs 7888 and f228 details the use of
contextand one use case of it, to backfill conversations. -
@sl007@digitalcourage.social FEPs 7888 and f228 details the use of
contextand one use case of it, to backfill conversations.well, but that is _exactly_ the same of the official Social CG meetings !
"This context property is the URL of the NodeBB topic."
vs.
"The context property should be used to identify the context in which the object appears in, form a common topic or group content. This can be a well known JSON-LD vocabulary or any ActivityPub Object useful for the implementation."
vs
https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/#dfn-context :„Identifies the context within which the object exists or an activity was performed.
The notion of "context" used is intentionally vague. The intended function is to serve as a means of grouping objects and activities that share a common originating context or purpose. An example could be all activities relating to a common project or event. “and I am glad cause, as said
"context": [
"https://threadiversesoftware.example.org/thread/123",
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q64 "
];
then says:
"Hi machine, I am in the context of thread 123 about Berlin."and then
🧵 1/2
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well, but that is _exactly_ the same of the official Social CG meetings !
"This context property is the URL of the NodeBB topic."
vs.
"The context property should be used to identify the context in which the object appears in, form a common topic or group content. This can be a well known JSON-LD vocabulary or any ActivityPub Object useful for the implementation."
vs
https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/#dfn-context :„Identifies the context within which the object exists or an activity was performed.
The notion of "context" used is intentionally vague. The intended function is to serve as a means of grouping objects and activities that share a common originating context or purpose. An example could be all activities relating to a common project or event. “and I am glad cause, as said
"context": [
"https://threadiversesoftware.example.org/thread/123",
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q64 "
];
then says:
"Hi machine, I am in the context of thread 123 about Berlin."and then
🧵 1/2
and then
1) machine gets thread (cause is JSON-LD by known/allowed `generator`)
2) machine fetches or gets cached wikidata entry about Berlin and displays the card (kind of "infobox" then).
.. from the named "SpecialEntitiyData" of wikidata which is JSON-LD as well.
3) machine is happyapart from our tools, I need to credit Max Lath who is doing inventaire, the federated book library and did a lot of previous work for wiki JSON-LD like the wonderful https://github.com/maxlath/wikibase-sdk
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and then
1) machine gets thread (cause is JSON-LD by known/allowed `generator`)
2) machine fetches or gets cached wikidata entry about Berlin and displays the card (kind of "infobox" then).
.. from the named "SpecialEntitiyData" of wikidata which is JSON-LD as well.
3) machine is happyapart from our tools, I need to credit Max Lath who is doing inventaire, the federated book library and did a lot of previous work for wiki JSON-LD like the wonderful https://github.com/maxlath/wikibase-sdk
PS - just btw;
about inventaire I am sharing currently photobooks for free rent in Dortmund, Germany
https://inventaire.io/users/sl007
they have also nice use for JSON-LD re. books /authors etc. https://data.inventaire.io/ like so many software in fedi.
If you ask the redaktor Service Actor for Place (`Question`) to find you a waffle restaurant in Amsterdam serving blue syrup near a train station then we do also use SPARQL like them - without the AI bullshit - just cause millions of friendly humans contributing to wd and OSM … -
@kopper @hongminhee As the person probably most responsible for making sure json-ld stayed in the spec (two reasons: because it was the only extensibility answer we had, and because we were trying hard to retain interoperability with the linked data people, which ultimately did not matter), I agree with you. I do ultimately regret not having a simpler solution than json-ld, especially because it greatly hurt our ability to sign messages, which has considerable effect on the ecosystem.
Mea culpa

I do think it's fixable. I'd be interested in joining a conversation about how to fix it.
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@kopper @hongminhee As the person probably most responsible for making sure json-ld stayed in the spec (two reasons: because it was the only extensibility answer we had, and because we were trying hard to retain interoperability with the linked data people, which ultimately did not matter), I agree with you. I do ultimately regret not having a simpler solution than json-ld, especially because it greatly hurt our ability to sign messages, which has considerable effect on the ecosystem.
Mea culpa

I do think it's fixable. I'd be interested in joining a conversation about how to fix it.
I don't remember it that way.
We started the WG off with AS2 being based on JSON-LD, and I don't think we ever considered removing it.
I don't think it was a decision you made on your own. I'm not sure how you would, since you edited AP and not AS2 Core or Vocabulary.
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I don't remember it that way.
We started the WG off with AS2 being based on JSON-LD, and I don't think we ever considered removing it.
I don't think it was a decision you made on your own. I'm not sure how you would, since you edited AP and not AS2 Core or Vocabulary.
I would be strongly opposed to any effort to remove JSON-LD from AS2. We use it for a lot of extensions. Every AP server uses the Security vocabulary for public keys.
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I would be strongly opposed to any effort to remove JSON-LD from AS2. We use it for a lot of extensions. Every AP server uses the Security vocabulary for public keys.
@cwebber @kopper @hongminhee It would be a huge backwards-incompatible change for almost zero benefit. People would still make mistakes in their ActivityPub implementations (sorry, Minhee, but that's life on an open network). We'd need to adopt another mechanism for defining extensions, and guess what? People are going to make mistakes with that, too.
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@cwebber @kopper @hongminhee It would be a huge backwards-incompatible change for almost zero benefit. People would still make mistakes in their ActivityPub implementations (sorry, Minhee, but that's life on an open network). We'd need to adopt another mechanism for defining extensions, and guess what? People are going to make mistakes with that, too.
@cwebber @kopper @hongminhee The biggest downside to JSON-LD, it seems, is that it lets most developers treat AS2 as if it's plain old JSON. That was by design. People sometimes mess it up, but most JSON-LD parsers are pretty tolerant.
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@cwebber @kopper @hongminhee It would be a huge backwards-incompatible change for almost zero benefit. People would still make mistakes in their ActivityPub implementations (sorry, Minhee, but that's life on an open network). We'd need to adopt another mechanism for defining extensions, and guess what? People are going to make mistakes with that, too.
@evan @hongminhee @cwebber my argument is that json-ld is way more prone to mistakes. in iceshrimp.net, for example, we ship and preload several modified contexts in order to correct some mistakes on our end, and even then we encounter a lot of software that do not, for example, include the security context in their actors
if, as per my suggestion, property names were always written in expanded form, the only mistakes you could really do would be typos, and that would fail pretty loudly compared to the current status quo where most software accept it and some software silently fail. how are those developers meant to even be aware that this is a problem? -
@gugurumbe @hongminhee @evan @cwebber
from my brief tests, compacting with no context (which is basically expanded json-ld, with very minor differences) compresses better, but standardizing on expanded ld would still be better than the status quo. yes backwards compatibility would be broken, but pretty much any other solution to this problem beyond not solving it would end up breaking it anyway
i'm still unsure about certain aspects of json-ld such as everything having the capability for multiple values, but without any context defined it's at least explicit and implementations can take that into account where it's actually helpful (sec:publicKeycomes to mind) and ignore it where it isn't
(edit: ignore the last part, i just re-checked and compact-with-no-context collapses arrays with single values, expanded would be clearer here)
RE: not-brain.d.on-t.work/notes/aihftmbjpxdyb9k7 -
@gugurumbe @cwebber @kopper @hongminhee AS2 requires compacted JSON-LD.
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