#indieweb 2024-02-11

2024-02-11 UTC
tPoltergeist, rvalue and [Al_Abut] joined the channel
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[aciccarello]
I've thought about getting a short domain since my main one is hard to spell
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aaronpk
that's actually a big reason I got aaronpk.com
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aaronpk
gonna add that to the wiki
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GWG
That's why I have dshanske.com and di5.us
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[aciccarello]
I might buy my 2nd domain from this conversation
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GWG
[aciccarello]: What are your candidates?
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[aciccarello]
I just bought c8o.link
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GWG
How much is a .link?
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[aciccarello]
Under $15/yr
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[aciccarello]
Got the first year for $5
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GWG
I need to tell myself...Don't buy a another domain...don't buy another domain
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[aciccarello]
Your di5 domain name made me think of the a11y and i18n abbreviation notation. So I shortened ciccarello using the same pattern.
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GWG
DIS is hard to find... I'm competing with Disney fans for my initials
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[tantek]
c8o is clever aciccarello++
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Loqi
aciccarello has 4 karma in this channel over the last year (14 in all channels)
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[campegg]
I’ve seen some stuff (a couple of posts, a bit of Mastodon commentary) on webmentions over the last couple days—would be keen to hear people’s thoughts
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GWG
[campegg]: I have never gotten any Webmention spam.
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[Murray]
I find it interesting how often I've seen http://Brid.gy mentioned in these discussions as something that people no longer want, and then they remove webmentions entirely. The idea that the two are mutually distinct doesn't seem to factor much, which I find fascinating and a little weird
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[campegg]
[Murray] yeah, that seems a weird conflation to me, too. I don’t get it.
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[campegg]
GWG, likewise… I guess I’m just not popular enough 😉
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GWG
Extra features offered by Bridgy is a selling point for having Webmentions, but they also mention Webmention.io
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GWG
[campegg]: I always figured that no one is reading
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[campegg]
“Shouting into the void” is the primary use case for my site
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[Murray]
same 😄
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[campegg]
I do find the privacy/context collapse element of the discussion interesting, though—it’s something I’ve struggled to resolve my thinking around
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[campegg]
I jotted down some initial and incomplete thoughts this morning: https://campegg.com/2024/02/11/over-the-last.html
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Loqi
[preview] [Cam Pegg] Over the last day or so, I’ve seen some (not-so-great) commentary around webmentions, some around the implementation hurdles, most around the privacy implications; these posts by Wouter Groeneveld and Chris McLeod are considered and well-articulate...
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[Murray]
I find the privacy argument particularly interesting for Mastodon. For Twitter, I can see the argument; it's not expected behaviour. But on Masto, it's absolutely expected behaviour. I expect to be able to see my public comments underneath someone else's post regardless of what host I'm on. And people don't mind that 🤷
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[Murray]
There are some additional arguments here around delete requests, but I struggle with those too. I can see both sides of that argument and I'm not sure there's a definitive "right" answer. It's more context dependent
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GWG
I respect webmention delete requests
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[Murray]
I think you're approach is a sound middle-ground though. It respects per-person desires and I have also wondered about leaving a link to the OG post rather than copying it wholesale
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[campegg]
Federation does add a very different perspective. Maybe part of it is that people aren’t used to/don’t understand it as well as a single-site silo yet. And because Mastodon is the most common platform and every instance looks so similar, it’s not as jarring to see one of your posts on a different instance than it is on some other (seemingly) random site?
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[Murray]
@GWG I'm aware some people do, and that it's in the spec, and that's cool. I think there's a solid argument often made that few services support it, though, but I'd also argue that public statements should be quotable and copyable 🤷
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Loqi
[campegg] [Murray]: we try to keep jargon (federation, spec) out of this channel to make it more inviting to newcomers, can you move this to #indieweb-dev?
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[Murray]
Dang, was trying to avoid that 😄
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[campegg]
LOL, me too
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[Murray]
I can agree though that people don't think of sites as being Masto hosts in the same way, but I don't think people's misconception there is something that should be a concern either. Just because someone else has falsely created two buckets and sorted different sites into them, doesn't make that true
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GWG
I always want to do the right thing. Although I have noticed my opinion of what that is in regards to privacy does not always align
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[campegg]
[Murray] Agreed. I do think it’s still going to be a little jarring for many people to see something they’ve written on (e.g.) a Masto instance show up looking different somewhere else, which is probably what’s driving some of the resistance. The fact that they’ve created a false equivalency (or non-equivalency) isn’t going to lessen that.
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aaronpk
i think it gets back to the idea of people thinik\]]]]]
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[campegg]
GWG me too. In these kinds of cases I tend to go with whatever the others person’s idea of “the right thing” is, even if I don’t agree. Their privacy, their call.
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aaronpk
i think it gets back to the idea of people thinking that the "fediverse" is a single place made up of a bunch of instances, without really realizing that no it's not just just a place, its the internet
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GWG
[campegg]: That's great individually, but hard when you are trying to build a system to work with everyone.
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[Murray]
yep, agreed with all of that 😄
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[campegg]
For sure! I guess I was referring to tending my little corner of the internet. Building at that kind of scale will always necessitate compromises along the way and I don’t think I know enough to say whether the choices that have been made are right or wrong.
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GWG
For native webmention or something from Mastodon, I assume they know that I'm going to approach it as shared. With Bridgy, the other person doesn't... although they posted stuff on a public website, so should know anyone can capture it if nothing else
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[campegg]
“Knowing” something and then “experiencing” that something can often be very different 🙂
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[campegg]
[aaronpk] I think you’re right… even more so when many people’s idea of “the fediverse” is just Mastodon
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[snarfed]
[campegg] [Murray] https://snarfed.org/2024-01-19_moderate-people-not-code is squarely about all this, I'd love to hear any thoughts
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[snarfed]
one example re "it’s still going to be a little jarring for many people to see something they’ve written on (e.g.) a Masto instance show up looking different somewhere else" ...
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[snarfed]
that context collapse is true, and valid, but it's not clear how much it helps us draw useful lines. for example, you can use Mastodon to comment on a Lemmy link or a PeerTube video, and your comment will show up on that instance, which looks and behaves very differently, and has a different culture...
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[snarfed]
...and yet the fediverse seems to accept that ok
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[Murray]
Yeah, that's largely what I was trying to get across. By definition, these kinds of distributed and inter-linked networks have context collapse baked in; adding personal websites to that list doesn't just feel like an acceptable addition, I'd argue it's inherently already included via various accepted and common services and features
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[Murray]
If anything, the context collapse here should be minimal. If I'm commenting on someone's post on Lemmy, and that gets linked over to _their_ website, then the context is the same; I'm still communicating to that given person. It hasn't suddenly jumped to a _different_ community, it's stayed within the existing one
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[snarfed]
right, _in practice_ it should be minimal. but people seem to have already drawn in-group/out-group lines, and they're primed and sensitive to claiming context collapse across those lines, independent of the actual real world impact
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[Murray]
I can see that from something like Masto -> BlueSky, but I can't see the justification from anything -> someone's personal website.
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[Murray]
I can also see justification for things like quote tweets, which are inherently not replies but rather a form of forwarding, so there are situations I can agree with it. So for clarity: I'm specifically talking about likes and comments (that level of interaction)
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[snarfed]
and original posts
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[Murray]
yep, that too 🙂
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[Murray]
possibly that *particularly* 😄
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aaronpk
people like to get angry about things 🤷‍♂️
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[snarfed]
reinforces the in-group membership and identity
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[campegg]
[snarfed] [Murray] I do agree with the premise here; my assertion is more based on the idea that a person’s perception is their reality, and I can certainly understand why someone would be upset at seeing something they thought was going to one place (even if that “place” is a federated social instance) showing up someplace else.
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[campegg]
I also 100% agree with the idea of moderating people, not code, but—and zero disrespect intended here, [snarfed], I love Bridgy and appreciate your work!—I can see how that could come off as a “that’s your problem, not mine; I just wrote the code, what people do with it is up to them” kind of position.
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[KevinMarks]
People got angry about retweets showing up in their feeds originally - "why am I getting posts from someone I don't follow?"
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[snarfed]
[campegg] understood! definitely reasonable positions
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[snarfed]
I'd love to hear your (and [Murray]'s) thoughts on the content, if you haven't read it yet
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[KevinMarks]
That's partly a design flaw on twitter's part not showing who retweeted it for you, which mastodon is better at
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[campegg]
I read it when you first posted, but am re-reading now with a bit of a different frame of reference
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[snarfed]
(eg I mean something different by "moderate people, not code")
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[snarfed]
thanks!
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[snarfed]
(and fair, I get that you meant the first impression the phrase gives, not necessarily the content)
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[snarfed]
definitely open to other language
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[campegg]
Oh, yes! The content definitely doesn’t come off that way
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[Murray]
[snarfed] I read it before, have read it again, still agree with pretty much everything in there. I think I'm coming at this from a strong opinion that the web should be people-powered and people-centered. So I want to be able to follow _people_, and people should be able to move to the services they prefer without losing those networks
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[Murray]
I think that's where your comment of "should there be one internet, or many" hits home, because I don't think that's even really a question I want to entertain 😅 if we lose the concept of a single internet, we have lost the internet, and I think that's a net loss for humanity (and I'm aware that there are good arguments to say that this is already the case, but I think it's not an irreversible state right now)
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[campegg]
[snarfed] I do really like the idea of “people not code,” and think it’s the right approach, provided the tools to be able to do that are readily available.
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[campegg]
The context collapse piece is complicated… for content that is federated, I personally don’t have a problem with that being reproduced elsewhere (as long as it’s reproduced accurately), but I do struggle with the idea of backfeed from silo sources, because I would images most people would not expect that to appear anywhere but the silo. I agree that it’s probably still somewhat of a fedi problem too (which you covered).
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[campegg]
_( As an aside, I miss Yahoo Pipes, too.)_
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[campegg]
I think the positions you outline are reasonable and strike a good balance, but there are always going to be people who are going to be at either end of the spectrum who are going to disagree. I don’t think I know enough to be able to provide any kind of opinion that anyone should listen to, but FWIW, I agree with you.
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[campegg]
[Murray] 100%! A people-powered, people-centric web would almost necessarily lean into a moderate people, not code kind of approach.
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[campegg]
Another problem I can see people having is that MPNC (did I just coin an acronym? 🤔 ) puts the onus on them to do at least some of the work, and we all know it’s easier to shout at the person writing the code.
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[Murray]
Yeah, I can agree on backfeeding from closed silos RE: context collapse. Luckily, I guess that's either no longer an option or not something I'd be interested in 😄 But between Fediverse tech (inc. WordPress, Threads etc.), ATProto, and IndieWeb, if the default is broader distribution then I do think context collapse is hard to justify as an argument
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[Al_Abut]
[campegg] just caught up with the convo and I like your solution! Showing that people responded but just linking to it instead of republishing their words.
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[Al_Abut]
Here’s how much I like it: I didn’t realize you were doing it and that my Mastodon comments were showing up on your site, yet I felt zero weirdness around context collapse because of the way you handled it. So it was more like a pleasant surprise kind of feeling.
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[campegg]
Thanks, [Al_Abut]—I appreciate that!
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chronosaurus
join #indieweb-chat
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chronosaurus
sorry
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[Al_Abut]
You’re good Karen!
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chronosaurus
Thanks! Much appreciated.
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[tantek]
welcome chronosaurus++
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Loqi
chronosaurus has 1 karma over the last year
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[tantek]
[Al_Abut] I like that incremental discovery approach of linking before showing the whole comment
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[tantek]
I wonder if that could be the start of an opt-in UX for the person whose comment it is to grant permission to display the comment in full by default
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[Murray]
I definitely feel like that's a good way to distinguish between backfeed and "vanilla" webmentions (bonus points if there's a way via microformats to signal your preference, so that a regular wm could include that context to allay any doubt)
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[Al_Abut]
Yeah I didn’t want to harp on it but I like it so much that I can see that being a smart default.
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[Al_Abut]
Otherwise what’s the alternative? A constant Sisyphean educating the masses about underlying tech like “federation” and wordy jargon like “context collapse.” I don’t want to make fun of anyone taking this issues seriously, just being candid about how they come across to normies and may not jive with a “indieweb is for all” vibe.
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[Al_Abut]
(imo)
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[snarfed]
microformats => #indieweb-dev
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Loqi
friendly reminder [Al_Abut] [snarfed], can you move the tech talk (federation, Microformats) to #indieweb-dev to keep this channel more inclusive and inviting?
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[tantek]
you could analyze the permalink to see if its inside an account on an instance or not. not inside an account = show it as a direct site to site response
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[Al_Abut]
Smart and flexible
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