@julian @silverpill We could define a dedicated type for Thread or Conversation or whatever you want to call "a Collection that contains only "post" objects", but it would still be a Collection as well. I think this was something I was considering for a FEP that I ended up never really writing because it felt unnecessary and also very premature. The general idea is to define some way to know what a Collection "contains" -- is it a Conversation or a MediaAlbum or whatever. The problem is taxonomy

@julian @silverpill Really we need to take a step back and first define what a "post" object is. I'm tentatively leaning toward "any object that has content", but I'm sure there are plenty of edge cases I haven't accounted for that will pop up when thinking more deeply about the issue.

@trwnh @julian @silverpill Content types? Note, Article, Image, Video, Audio, Document? That should cover most Web content collections.

If you want to add an extension (Listicle, say) you could multi-type with the most appropriate Activity Vocabulary content type (`type`: ['buzz:Listicle', 'as:Article']`).

@trwnh @julian @silverpill

Jargon term, should define:

@julian @silverpill @trwnh So, what about returning the root object, like a `Note` or `Article`, with `replies` and `context` included?

@evan @julian @silverpill This goes back to a convo from yesterday about how to handle Activity types with content, which conceivably makes them "posts" in the sense of an "activity stream". ("John Created a Note" is a first-class item in much the same way "Sally Liked a Note" is also a first-class item in Facebook's activity feed, or "Alice Added 9 Images to a MediaAlbum" would be.)

If you put content on an Announce, then that Announce is ostensibly its own "post" in addition to being a share.

@evan @julian @silverpill But yes, in most cases, you will probably be using types such as Note or Article.

@trwnh @julian @silverpill OK. I mean, we just call that an `Object`.

@trwnh @julian @silverpill especially in a forum thread, right? It's just not the place you put an `TentativeReject` activity or a `Relationship` object.

@evan @julian @silverpill In terms of a potential WIP FEP, I would tentatively define a Conversation as a Collection where each item has at least `content`. I would likewise define a MediaAlbum as a Collection where each item is an Image or Video. There are probably other type definitions that could make sense.

@trwnh @julian @silverpill yeah, I just don't like the ducktyping on the 'content' property.

@trwnh @julian @silverpill I think the question here is "does a thread actually have any distinct properties of its own?"

Maybe a title, but that can also be inherited from either the first or most recent post. Many threaded discussion systems don't have thread objects at all, of course (email is perhaps the canonical example)

So I lean towards the idea that you should just redirect to the first thread in the post, and place the context (which when becomes just a collection of in-thread posts; an implementation detail) at another URL where it mostly becomes invisible to users.

And I think that's better, especially because having significant semantics on collections starts getting confusing when e.g. you have collection pages flying around

Really I think most types which can be represented directly as a collection (e.g. image galleries) are best represented as an object that possess a collection, though not everyone might agree

@erincandescent @julian @silverpill It makes sense for threads to have not just their own title, but also their own audience and moderators, as well as flags for whether the thread is pinned or locked.

@erincandescent@akko.erincandescent.net said:

So I lean towards the idea that you should just redirect to the first thread in the post, and place the context (which when becomes just a collection of in-thread posts; an implementation detail) at another URL where it mostly becomes invisible to users.

That's why I'm still on the fence about this whole thing. In principle, a thread object can and does exist in software, but in practice there is lots of prior art that says otherwise.

That said, email might be a threaded chain of messages, but most email clients I know have standardized around representing them as a discrete topic, if only in the UI.

@trwnh@mastodon.social @evan@cosocial.ca @silverpill@mitra.social

@trwnh @julian @silverpill (the other option is instead of redirection do <link> tags, and then you can link to both if you wish; imagine including <link rel="as:context" href="...">)

@julian @erincandescent @evan @silverpill Let me put it this way: the latter half of FEP-7888 can be summarized as "reifying context as an object, and specifically a Collection". If you *just* want the grouping, then it could be an arbitrary opaque IRI. But what you gain by reifying the context as an object is specifically the ability to give it metadata properties. Particularly things like `attributedTo` or `audience`. Maybe even `followers` or `outbox`. An opaque IRI cannot do this.

@trwnh @julian @silverpill

I think you could also put a summary or name on a Collection and use that for the title of the thread?

@trwnh @julian @evan @silverpill I never did the URI should be opaque; what I implied was that perhaps it should be an implementation detail URI as opposed to a directly visible one.

Some of this is that I wonder how decoupled such a thread truly is *semantically* from it's root post

@erincandescent @julian @trwnh @silverpill a thread is a tree with a root. Every non-root node in the tree has an `inReplyTo` that points to one of the other nodes.

It's represented by a `Collection` in the `context` property of each object. (I don't like this, but it's common so we should just use it).

It's in reverse-chronological order.

If you started at the root node and walked the tree using the `replies` collection, you should visit exactly the same nodes as in the `context` collection.

@trwnh @julian @erincandescent @silverpill you can also get the whole thing! That's the big benefit of having a `Collection` -- you can retrieve it.