OK folks, we need to stop assuming #Mastodon is the entire #Fediverse and expecting its idiosyncrasies to be mandated on everyone else.

Steve Bate

@santisbon @fbievan I understand, but those /shared properties/ are wishful thinking. The AS2 core spec states "Actor objects are specializations of the base Object type" and they are defined "in only the most generalized way, stopping short of defining semantically specific properties for each." The AS2 vocab spec uses the phrase "Actor Types" but those are the specific types listed in the spec and those derive directly from Object (with no Actor-related abstraction).

Emelia 👸🏻

@santisbon @by_caballero yeah, I've given this a fair amount of thought, I think the "content warning" is what'll be most used, but I think some may opt into using structured labels too, which I think would be good, but only with finite labels

santisbon

@steve @fbievan since they are defined as "specific types of Actors" and contribute no additional fields to the concept of an Actor I found it useful to display it that way on my diagram for visualization purposes. It's weird to define it as literally a type of Actor when there's no Actor. Some examples where I would have gone in a different way from the spec:

- altitude should have Place as its domain, not Object.
- It's weird to have a specialization remove attributes from the entity it's extending the way collections and ordered collections do but alright.

Steve Bate

@santisbon @fbievan Again, I understand. After reading the AS2 spec numerous times, I think one must accept that the word "type" is used very loosely and informally in that context. Trying to make complete sense of the spec: "that way madness lies"... It's an interesting mental exercise though.

santisbon

@steve @fbievan maybe I'll add a note to the diagram to make it clear that the spec defines types of actors but no actor type and it's shown here for visualization purposes.

santisbon

@steve @fbievan on top of everything, since there are properties that are mandated for Actors in addition to those of Objects (like inbox) it makes it extra weird not to have an Actor type. So I find it useful to include it in the diagram, though as I said in another comment, maybe adding a note would help make it clear why it's there.

santisbon

@thisismissem @by_caballero I'd worry that devs would quickly feel too constrained by any set of labels and start extending them. I can't really argue against it in an extensible protocol, and before we know it we've reinvented the tag attribute or hashtags.

Mike Macgirvin 🖥️

Welcome to the fediverse. It isn't ruled by Twitter or Mastodon. We use hashtags to tag unsafe content here. It's part of the pre-existing culture you're trying to destroy in the quest to dominate and control. We also use Unicode and HTML. Length limits are optional. And we support using the 'summary' field as a summary.

Hashtags are content labels. What else did you think they were? They work across platforms and protocols and do not require an FEP. This solution wasn't chosen by geeks - it was chosen by the people of the fediverse long ago to tag their content. The original fediverse/federation projects built filters to let you choose what tags you wanted to collapse or block - if any. In this way the receiver is in control of what they don't wish to see. Not platforms, not protocols, not corporate owners. The sender just provides advice through the use of content tags (specifically hashtags). The platform (i.e. the fediverse or a specific project or product) is (or at least should be) neutral. It's a system that works.

silverpill

@mikedev Some developers need labels that are independent entities. Actors will use these (pre-defined) labels to categorize objects, including objects created by other actors.

Hashtags are usually ephemeral and are added by authors themselves.

For example Lemmy is working on a tag system but they don't want to use hashtags https://github.com/LemmyNet/rfcs/blob/main/0004-post-tags.md

Mike Macgirvin 🖥️

I've got no problem with community tags. We had those in Hubzilla years ago. The code is probably still there, but I don't think that project tries to federate them any more. That's a feature we lost in the move to ActivityPub as it never worked across projects and protocols. Whereas hashtags kept on working.

Which is my entire point.

Demon Queen Lucretia

@santisbon just for context, which common fediverse software *doesn't* have "content warning" fields or something closely aligned with that? This is my 4th fedi account now and everything I've used had that as a prominent feature.

santisbon

@lucretia I haven’t used every fediverse project out there but there’s more than just microblogging. There are blogs like Wordpress, event platforms like Mobilizon, video hosting like PeerTube, social networks like Friendica. All projects may or may not add CWs if they want but it has nothing to do with ActivityPub. Plus all the ones built according to the protocol spec now and in the future.