idk where to really put this (might turn into a blog post later or something).
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to by_caballero@mastodon.social last edited by
@by_caballero the blog post is basically just gonna be this thread but formatted in html with headings, so you're not missing much lol. maybe will be up by tomorrow, still need to decide on the uri, probably gonna create an /unstable directory for things that might get moved out later
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blaine@mastodon.socialreplied to by_caballero@mastodon.social last edited by
@by_caballero @trwnh this would work except for the specific way that number portability is implemented. At least historically, and very likely still today, the "database" used to map phone numbers as assigned by exchange blocks (i.e., to a given carrier) to phone numbers that have been ported to a different carrier by the customer (under number portability laws) was a set of spreadsheets synchronized by FTP at intervals. Access to said "databases" is entirely contractual.
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blaine@mastodon.socialreplied to blaine@mastodon.social last edited by
@by_caballero @trwnh so _in theory_ PSTN operators could provide a lookup system, but it'd be jank af at best, and more likely it would be a horrendous unfixable security disaster.
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to blaine@mastodon.social last edited by
@blaine @by_caballero i was thinking more that you could declare a tel: as one of your "aliases" at your authoritative wf and then it percolates through the rest of the system
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blaine@mastodon.socialreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
@trwnh @by_caballero since tel: is extremely fraught, especially nowadays with insane phone spam etc, a Signal/WhatsApp/etc address might be a good alternative example?
I particularly like the "established encrypted messenger" example because the wf->[rel=messenger]-> lookup could get Fedi encrypted DMs "for free."
(obviously lots I'm glossing over that make it more complicated, but in theory it'd be less complicated than many alternatives)
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darius@friend.campreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
@trwnh This is related to my recent-ish realization (which I always knew on some level but never formulated explicitly) that AP simply does not have much to say about the mechanics of federation. And that there is basically nowhere that federation is defined; it is pretty much left as an implementation detail for the author of a server to figure out
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darius@friend.campreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
@trwnh Hmmm. In the open web we have a thing called a browser vendor whose job is de facto to act as the choke point where they are the ones who have to be aware of every implementation. Then as devs we get to black box it as "this is what web browsers support".
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to darius@friend.camp last edited by
@darius yeah, this is complicated by every fedi thing being its own web browser and this is on top of it also being its own mail server... it just ends up doing both poorly.
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michaeltbacon@social.coopreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
<gestures to the sign>
Michael T. Bacon, Ph.D. (@MichaelTBacon@social.coop)
This is my regular nitpicky post that "walled garden" is really a terrible metaphor for "corporate controlled monolithic media environment." People put up walls around gardens largely to keep things like deer and sheep out. In a lot of places, if you want flowers and vegetables, you have to have walls. Mastodon is much more like a lot of walled gardens (IN A GOOD WAY!) than the big socials.
social.coop (social.coop)
Non-corporate/non-VC social media really needs to stop hating on "walled gardens" and start thinking about how you mind the gate that lets you into the garden and who gets in and who gets out.
If this exclusion still seems bad, start with "fascists" and then work outward from there.
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michaeltbacon@social.coopreplied to michaeltbacon@social.coop last edited by
I want fedi folks to start thinking about commons instead of getting hung up on stuff that's basically warmed over "the cathedral and the bazaar."
All functional commons involve inclusion and exclusion. They are neither purely closed nor open. They are variously open or closed depending on the combination of who you are and what you want to do.
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to michaeltbacon@social.coop last edited by
@MichaelTBacon i think you're using closed/open in a different way from how i'm using it, which for formal logic means either "everything is true unless it's false" or "there are some things i don't know, and they aren't necessarily false, i just don't know"
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
@MichaelTBacon In other words, a "protocol" needs to know everything there is to know, and it is undesirable to have unknowns. Contrast with the viewpoint that it's perfectly fine to have unknowns, and in fact, you can expect unknowns by default. You'll never have a complete view of the universe.
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michaeltbacon@social.coopreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
In that regard, I have to say that I think I'm still in a little bit of a grey area. The power of AP is in the fact that it can socialize a wide range of things, and I don't think that world should be closed in advanced.
At the same time, a protocol needs a set of sub-standards at least (lots of old IETF protocols had CAPABILITY commands) that let you figure out which specific closed world you're operating in.
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to michaeltbacon@social.coop last edited by
@MichaelTBacon i'm rotating in my head the idea of a FEP that defines a conformance profile for a "social networking profile" that basically formalizes what you'd need to implement a "fediverse network", basically as a superset of AS2+AP (because AP is not enough on its own, it says nothing about message shapes or how to interpret specific props in a social network setting)
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
@MichaelTBacon actually my main reservations about it are like
- how much do i base it off of current practices, and how much do i base it off of *correct* practices?
- is it worth the effort? is any project going to be on board with it?
- no really, is it worth the effort? should i be putting that effort into doing the better thing from the start? -
michaeltbacon@social.coopreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
If I can give unsolicited advice on nebulous question . . .
- If it's going to get to correct practices, there has to be a bridge to get there from current practices. Nothing will make a big jump without a transition process.
- It's not worth the effort if you do it alone, because no one else will be invested in it.Those may be totally useless or non-sequitur to your actual concerns. Wouldn't be the first time in this thread alone I misunderstood!
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to michaeltbacon@social.coop last edited by
@MichaelTBacon right, i'm just wondering how to nudge implementers in the "right" direction on here (story of my life for the past 5 years lol)
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
@MichaelTBacon unfortunately the common response to "can we make things better" is "we need $200k"
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michaeltbacon@social.coopreplied to trwnh@mastodon.social last edited by
On a vaguely related note, I think a really interesting way to do a proof of concept of this would be to demonstrate its use in a social media game.
The old adage that everything on the internet truly only takes off at first as either games or porn is still somewhat relevant. I think a mastodon-adjacent but very much not mastodon-specific form of social gaming could be really fun, demonstrate some ideas, and bring a different set of people to the fedi.
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trwnh@mastodon.socialreplied to michaeltbacon@social.coop last edited by
@MichaelTBacon this has the potential to be like when people kept getting farmville activities in their facebook feeds