#dev 2020-01-15

2020-01-15 UTC
jenelizabeth, raucao, [asuh], petermolnar, [tantek] and strugee joined the channel; mblaney left the channel
#
@billbennettnz The IndieWeb and Webmentions https://brettterpstra.com/2020/01/13/the-indieweb-and-webmentions/ @ttscoff offers a more technical description of how the IndieWeb can kick start conversations. Here's a journalist's perspective: https://billbennett.co.nz/journalism-tools/ (twitter.com/_/status/1217295577970401280)
[schmarty], [dmitshur], gRegorLove, swentel, cweiske, vika_nezrimaya, [KevinMarks], dgold, simons, superjen96, [jgmac1106] and [Marlin_Forbes] joined the channel; dgold left the channel
#
[Marlin_Forbes] how do you handle the mismatch between micro/nano blogging and rss/atom validation which requires a title?
KartikPrabhu joined the channel
#
[jgmac1106] posts get a title and notes use content as the title, this is done with p-name for a note versus having p-name and e-content for an article
#
[jgmac1106] I don't what this means for rss/atom, I just let Granary do all the heavy lifting fo me
#
[jgmac1106] What is note?
#
Loqi A note is a post that is typically short unstructured* plain text, written & posted quickly, that has its own permalink page https://indieweb.org/note
#
[jgmac1106] What is article?
#
Loqi https://indieweb.org/article
#
[Marlin_Forbes] the rss/atom specs were written more for blog articles, so their validation fails with some of the less complex entries
#
[jgmac1106] What is Granary?
#
Loqi granary is the social web translator https://indieweb.org/granary
#
[jgmac1106] I just make sure my mf2 are proper and let granary do all the translation for rss
#
[Marlin_Forbes] are you running a backend-service? or static site?
#
[Marlin_Forbes] ie do you use granary at generation time, or dynamically?
#
[jgmac1106] I remember when I made my first h-entry and I was like...wow...my posts work with social readers without me having to do any plumbing just add mf2
#
[jgmac1106] I guess I am kinda static...silly distinction IMO, I make changes in sublime and a push to GitHub, an action then FTPs to my site
#
[jgmac1106] so I take my link, I drop it in granary, it gives me a new link, and I add to my <head> with rel="feed"
#
[Marlin_Forbes] ok, so it's using it dynamically
#
[jgmac1106] <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://granary.io/url?input=html&output=rss&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjgregorymcverry.com%2F" title="Latest articles">
#
[Marlin_Forbes] what i mean by static is: submit to granary, download the rendered format, add to site, deploy
#
[jgmac1106] before granary I was manually updating xml...got old quick, but I am not a dev, just a blogger fooling around a bit
#
[Marlin_Forbes] manually updating xml? that sounds like hell on earth 😛
#
[jgmac1106] rel="alternate" not feed but I do add feeds to my h-card
#
[jgmac1106] yeah only did it for my podcasts for like a day, then I /Sawyered [snarfed] into adding the right elements to make the Apple podcast feed overlords happy
kevinkDiscord[m] joined the channel
#
[jgmac1106] I should add the atom feed as well
#
Loqi agreed.
#
[jgmac1106] you may want to ask more technical folk. I know [schmarty] does some neat stuff with different feeds and Granary
#
[Marlin_Forbes] currently using a node-js based approach, generating from source files using https://github.com/jpmonette/feed for that
#
Loqi [jpmonette] feed: A RSS, Atom and JSON Feed generator for Node.js, making content syndication simple and intuitive! 🚀
#
[jgmac1106] If you are building in node-js [grantcodes] is a huge asset, he has many building on Glitch
#
[jgmac1106] building blocks*
#
[Marlin_Forbes] k, looking at his postr project now
#
[jgmac1106] https://glitch.com/@indieweb
#
[Marlin_Forbes] thanks for the pointer
#
[jgmac1106] I originally was going to try and do everything in node.js so I could use Glitch but just found PHP more intuitive to start learning and more widely used in my peer group
#
[jgmac1106] on my domain since I think summit 18, I won't add anything I don't understand, why I don't display webmentions yet, some day
#
[Marlin_Forbes] nodejs can be a PITA esp when it comes to callbacks / async / await hoopla
#
[jgmac1106] tried Kirby for a bit, really liked it, but it introduced its own kind of markup sometimes, and I couldn't get the webmention plugin to work (probably my shared host)
#
[Marlin_Forbes] playing around with 11ty.dev, it takes away a lot of that pain
#
[jgmac1106] yeah that is waht got me...the idea of having to keep compiling and rebuilding resources for the slightest changes
#
[Marlin_Forbes] recompiling is fast ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#
[jgmac1106] I may look into 11ty seeing a bunch of people being successful, but again my knowledgebase isn't really there yet
[tantek] joined the channel
#
[jgmac1106] not recompiling has to be faster though than fast recompiling ? yes? at least for my tiny personal website, I am not churning through any data or even a database
#
[jgmac1106] I do hope we could get all the building blocks up on Glitch so people can quickly remix and launch a personal website. [grantcodes] made huge progress
[grantcodes] joined the channel
#
[grantcodes] https://glitch.com/~indieweb-starter is pretty close tbh
#
[grantcodes] But the actual frontend of it isn't very impressive
#
[tantek] datashaman, treat RSS/Atom as a down level syndication target and they’ll make more sense
#
[tantek] Both are out of touch with modern publishing practices
#
[Marlin_Forbes] my SPoT is the mf2 feed file, which is added to by micrpub
#
[Marlin_Forbes] html/rss/atom/jsonfeed are all generated from the mf2
#
[jgmac1106] [grantcodes] do you need to do anything with the .env files to use IndieWeb Starter?
#
[grantcodes] Don't think so. I think it should show a form once you remix it that you need to fill in
shakeel joined the channel
#
[jgmac1106] that seems to be a clear line of dilenation for Glitch users, those who understand what envrionmental variables are and those that do not, I see many people avoid projects that require any .env changes or set up
#
[jgmac1106] and wow are you on a DC kick
#
[jgmac1106] [grantcodes] did you ever make a webmention app using something like couchDB or other small storage for Glitch?
#
[grantcodes] Oh nah I think that's a mix of other peoples views because ownyourtrakt wasn't working
#
[grantcodes] I don't think I made a webmention app. That project should send and receive webmentions though.
#
[jgmac1106] What is utm?
#
Loqi utm_ is a commonly used prefix for URL query parameters used for tracking (like utm_medium utm_source utm_campaign) by various media and content publishing sites; it is considered good URL design to automatically drop them when publishing, sharing, or just linking to a URL that has them https://indieweb.org/utm
#
[jgmac1106] wiki++
#
Loqi wiki has 1 karma over the last year
simons, jenelizabeth and [schmarty] joined the channel
#
[schmarty] I should make a todo to update my atom feed sometime soon. I still use Granary but I have differences of opinion on how some of my entries become RSS/Atom and I now realize that this is okay and a stylistic choice. 😄
#
[Marlin_Forbes] lol _should make a todo_ ... _sometime soon_
#
[Marlin_Forbes] do the _todo_ now. 😛
#
Loqi totally
#
[schmarty] This channel is logged 🤷‍♂️😆
#
[Marlin_Forbes] :tinfoil-hat:
#
[jgmac1106] jgregorymcverry.com/todolist
#
[jgmac1106] Though I track website goals more on wiki
#
[jgmac1106] Not sure I know anyone outside of this community who follows my site using anything but rss readers
superjen96 and [jgmac1106] joined the channel
#
[tantek] [schmarty] I’m interested in your different perspectives on how to construct RSS/Atom entries as I do think that’s an area that can use some iteration and evolution
#
[schmarty] I don't know when I'll get to it but I'll document it when I can. My basic complaint is that some post types like reads and listens end up with empty content
[KevinMarks] joined the channel
#
[schmarty] In the past this has happened for photo posts, and the fixes started with workarounds (put the photo in e-content) and eventually special handling in Granary
#
[KevinMarks] Atom doesn't require a title, but since readers expect it
#
[schmarty] And once I realized how much special case handling was involved I realized that mapping these mf2 posts to RSS/Atom feed entries is a bunch of design choices
#
[Marlin_Forbes] yeah atom is more flexible
#
[KevinMarks] Right - there is no clear way to do an author photo per post, and the feed level thing is called "logo" and so on.
jenelizabeth joined the channel
#
GWG Who allows local comments on their site?
#
GWG Do we have a wiki page for that,
[asuh] joined the channel
#
[Marlin_Forbes] JF2 is the bomb
#
[jgmac1106] What is comments?
#
Loqi Comments are displayed in the context of an original post, and may be a mix of syndicated reply posts from other sites received via Webmention, as well as locally created comments https://indieweb.org/comments
#
[tantek] [schmarty] pretty sure I tried to address that "empty content" problem with such responses / special posts with "plain text design" sections in the post types I've implemented myself
#
[tantek] tl;dr: always include a plain text equivalent as an explicit summary
#
[tantek] something that's readable / listenable like alt text.
#
[tantek] essentially, "summary" is the alt text for the entire post
#
[tantek] and you can autogenerate such summaries for like, listen, read posts etc.
gRegorLove joined the channel
#
[tantek] another way to come up with how to design plain text summaries is to ask the question (if you care) about how would you POSSE such posts to Twitter
#
[schmarty] tantek: i started using p-summary for some things and ran into issues
#
[tantek] well that's interesting
#
[schmarty] i may come back to summary as a way to get what i want out of granary
#
[schmarty] but for now i find that i am fighting my understanding of how granary understands my mf2 markup and how it constructs RSS/Atom entries
#
[schmarty] meanwhile i feel pretty comfortable designing my own mappings. so, why not give it a shot?
[snarfed] joined the channel
#
[snarfed] granary generates synthetic content for special post types too! just not yet the more exotic ones like listen or read posts. i'd happily accept PRs for those though! should be straightforward. https://github.com/snarfed/granary/blob/master/granary/microformats2.py#L924-L950
#
gRegorLove what is local comments
#
Loqi local comments are comments (sometimes called native comments) that are made directly (locally) on a post (like an article) in the UI of the site serving it, instead of posting a reply post on an indieweb site and sending a webmention https://indieweb.org/local_comments
#
gRegorLove GWG^
simons joined the channel
#
gRegorLove I have local comments if you want to test or have questions
#
[tantek] what is plain text design
#
Loqi Text-first design refers to the practice of designing information and UIs so they are readable/usable/actionable at least as basic plain text https://indieweb.org/plain_text_design
#
[tantek] [schmarty] definitely! looking forward to seeing your own designs and please link / add them to brainstorming even if they're in-progress ^^^
#
[snarfed] agreed! plurality++
#
Loqi plurality has 1 karma in this channel over the last year (4 in all channels)
#
[snarfed] (speaking of which, i'd kill for more in the way of backfeed! https://snarfed.org/backfeed-without-code#vote )
#
[tantek] snarfed, indeed I'm considering building my own backfeed specifically from Twitter using the Twitter API so I can demonstrate at least one instance of Twitter backfeed that does *not* depend on Bridgy
#
[tantek] I feel we need to broaden our approaches there
#
gRegorLove I used p-summary on IBC to get around the empty content thing. https://indiebookclub.biz/users/gregorlove.com
#
[tantek] Also I'd like to be able to show my site using my own Twitter credentials / API keys as an example to folks at Twitter, and not put any other efforts "at risk"
#
[tantek] what kind of posts gRegorLove?
#
gRegorLove read posts
#
[tantek] what is read
#
Loqi To read or reading is the act of viewing and interpreting posts or other documents; on the IndieWeb, a read post expresses that something has been read, like a book or section thereof https://indieweb.org/read
#
gRegorLove Haven't tried putting that through granary though
#
[snarfed] [tantek] oof. twitter backfeed is particularly complicated and difficult, since the API doesn't have a direct way to get either replies or likes for a given tweet. you may want to try a different silo like flickr first
#
[tantek] no I specifically want to do Twitter since I started with and consistently POSSE to Twitter
#
[snarfed] sadly github is also nontrivial, and instagram takes scraping. silos gonna silo i guess. mastodon is maybe the only other easy one.
#
[tantek] and yeah I recognize it will be hard
#
[snarfed] oh i understand. just saying, it's hard
#
[tantek] part of the reason I feel obligated/responsible to attempt it. you know, the mountain is there and all
#
[snarfed] sure! love it
#
[snarfed] i assume you'd work on displaying responses (with your need for moderation etc) first?
#
[tantek] yeah
#
[tantek] well not really "first" but in parallel
#
[tantek] have each inform the design of the other
#
[snarfed] eh yeah but you already have twitter backfeed. i'm guessing you wouldn't be building your own to get features missing in bridgy
#
[tantek] also to possibly inform feature requests for new APIs (from Twitter)
#
[snarfed] hah
#
[snarfed] regardless, tantek++ ! sgtm, happy to help. fortunately lots of the trailblazing i had to do for bridgy backfeed is now documented in both wiki and code
#
[tantek] so I want both realtime auto-display of responses, *and* some amount of auto-filtering out of bad / nonsense response
#
[tantek] s
#
[tantek] that's not really a bridgy feature per se
#
[tantek] not saying it should be either (per keep bridgy simple etc.)
#
[snarfed] filtering, no. realtime, maybe
#
[tantek] the balance of what to auto-display vs auto-moderate (put in a queue for review) vs auto-reject is difficult and will require a lot of thoughtful design
#
[snarfed] or, you could reasonably use the streaming API for just yourself, which could get you realtime, where bridgy couldn't
#
[snarfed] yes! backfeed filtering/moderation is definitely an orthogonal direction that would benefit from new work
#
[tantek] I believe that's something the indieweb can do better than silos
#
[tantek] specifically I'm hoping to use what I learn to try to make it easier for folks to get *less abused / harassed* than they do by default on Twitter.
#
[snarfed] agreed
#
[snarfed] godspeed
shakeel joined the channel
#
[tantek] thank you
danyao and dietricha joined the channel
#
[tantek] gRegorLove could you create a "plain text design" subsection in https://indieweb.org/read#Brainstorming and add both your p-summary experience and frankly, see if you can integrate others's proposals / techniques too?
#
[tantek] I feel we need a collaborative place to work on post-specific plain text designs like that, as a next step after folks document their own personal experiences / examples
#
[tantek] and you've thought *a lot* about how /read posts work in the ecosystem of personal sites and indie aggregation services etc.
#
[tantek] both "want to read" and "have read" posts
#
gRegorLove I need to update it some, but there's https://indieweb.org/read#gRegor_Morrill_thoughts
#
gRegorLove I've not done a lot of plain text design brainstorming honestly
#
[tantek] yup - saw that for "want to read" posts. figured you had some documentation for "have read" and "have finished reading" posts
#
gRegorLove tangentially, I should get back to evaluating p-read-status
#
gRegorLove that's the p-x-read-status bullet
#
[jgmac1106] Not sure the benefit of p-read-status versus action states for all media types or using p-category
#
gRegorLove Agreed, that's the discussion
#
[jgmac1106] Like can we get a future, present and past that would work for read, listen, watch?
#
[tantek] um that feels a bit abstract
#
[tantek] would rather see a concrete list of use-cases first, then figuring out what each "means", then syntax
#
gRegorLove reference: https://indieweb.org/read#on_the_read-status_property
#
gRegorLove and https://github.com/microformats/h-entry/issues/18
#
Loqi [dshanske] #18 Discussion of Status for Proposed Properties watch, read, and listen
swentel, [manton], [tantek] and [jgmac1106] joined the channel
#
[jgmac1106] removed local comments until I can set up the askimet plugin on Known
[Rose] and [schmarty] joined the channel
#
[schmarty] oooh, Edge-on-Chromium is now generally available? i just learned that from my company's blog haha: https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/01/15/the-new-edge-browser-based-on-chromium-is-finally-available-edgechromium-microsoftedge/
dietricha joined the channel
#
[tantek] and once again there's a Microsoft browser for the Mac
#
[tantek] I wonder if I know anyone who worked on it
KartikPrabhu, gRegorLove and TGiske joined the channel
#
gRegorLove This is interesting https://canarytokens.org/
#
aaronpk neat
[KevinMarks] joined the channel
#
[KevinMarks] But does it have New Look?
[manton] joined the channel