idk where to really put this (might turn into a blog post later or something). it’s what you might call a “hot take”, certainly a heterodox one to some parts of the broader #fediverse community. this is in response to recent discussion on “what do you want to see from AP/AS2 specs” (in context of wg rechartering) mostly devolving into people complaining about JSON-LD and extensibility, some even about namespacing in general (there was a suggestion to use UUID vocab terms. i’m not joking)

1/?

  • infinite love ⴳ@mastodon.socialOP
    1·
    2 months ago

    @[email protected] 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)

    • infinite love ⴳ@mastodon.socialOP
      1·
      2 months ago

      @[email protected] 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?
      • Michael T. Bacon, Ph.D.@social.coop
        1·
        2 months ago

        @[email protected]

        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!

            • Michael T. Bacon, Ph.D.@social.coop
              1·
              2 months ago

              @[email protected]

              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.

                • Michael T. Bacon, Ph.D.@social.coop
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  @[email protected] I mean hopefully we’re better than that! I don’t think the sum total of social gaming should be people posting their wordle scores.

                  There was a time when a big part of the appeal of Facebook was Words with Friends and other doofy little games that lived in the platform. FB decided it could print money other ways but those were strong early draws to the platform.

                  A fedi version of chess or go or mancala that used AP for its moves and allowed others to follow along would be cool.