FEP Convergence (400e, 7888, 171b/Conversation Containers, 76ea)

julian

@[email protected] @[email protected] I have the feeling we're getting too into the woods about defining what exactly a thread or context ought to contain and specifying that those definitions need to persist across all implementations.

I don't think they have to.

NodeBB considers a conversational context as a "topic"/"thread". ForumWG decided to refer to these as "contexts" for ease of discussion, but other software need not follow that paradigm.

If one implementor decided to utilise context to contain only one specific line of objects (a "sacred ~~timeline~~ thread", if you will), I'd argue that's a perfectly valid use of context, and also fits into the definition of both of your FEPs. When they pull a NodeBB context they'll get what NodeBB thinks is a context (the entire reply tree), and that's okay too.

Basically, my argument is that yeah, as Evan said:

Anyway, I think we agree on more than we disagree on.

When we step back and think about what we want to achieve:

Ability to reliably backfill a conversational context
Declare a context owner that acts as a canonical source for context additions/removals (reply limiting and such)

Then what we're left with are three FEPs (7888, 171b, 763a) that all fit the bill but only differ in minor technical aspects.

julian

If we're going to talk about favouring FEPs over minor technical aspects, need I remind you of the following from @[email protected]:

I continue to feel that this general idea is in keeping with the as-written intent of the context property. Adding a new property is likely to make adoption slower and more complicated. Adding a new object type is also likely to make adoption slower and more complicated, but less so than the property.

The more complicated you make something, the fewer implementors you're going to get. I haven't thought about these concepts nearly as long as you two have, but especially when you're talking about volunteer developers who have to work with other volunteer developers, any stumbling blocks could become insurmountable.

Simply put: there's a reason when someone wants to use OAuth2 SSO on NodeBB it's a free plugin, and when they want to hook into their corporate SAML SSO I charge a rather hefty sum.

@[email protected] @[email protected]

Scott M. Stolz

@julian How I view it is:

1. What information is being transmitted now?
2. What information do we want to have?

We will always have to deal with implementations that vary, and we sometimes will have to assume things because they did not send all of the information we need.

But, we can still say "we would prefer the information be sent in this format." especially if that format includes additional information that tells us how to render it properly.

So there is a difference between the minimum amount of information we need and what information we want to have.

Or put another way, we can provide a way in the spec to declare that something is a thread, but still be able to process the data without it (by making assumptions since we are missing some of the data).

Evan Prodromou

@julian I think including the thread in the `context` property is fine; I think saying that the only thing that should go in `context` is the thread is not OK.

If you're concerned about simplicity, having a clear property to use only for the thread is the way to go.

julian

@[email protected] in that case if @[email protected] were to relax their restrictions on what context can contain to include both conversational contexts and reply trees, would that be sufficient?

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @evan That restriction doesn’t exist; technically the collection contains whatever the owner adds to it. Putting `context` on your object is no guarantee your object will end up in there. Neither will `inReplyTo`.

`context` should be used for grouping, but specifically for a *purposeful* grouping. At its base, it’s like a fancy hashtag, but instead of being a simple reference, it imparts meaning and understanding when you consider the object “in context of” it.

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @evan The problem is in social expectations. If I send you an object from a generic AP server that declares “inReplyTo” but a different “context”, it would violate my expectation for that object to end up in a different topic than the one i asked to be included in. But sending it from Mastodon, the calculus changes: Mastodon currently doesn’t support the concept of a reified thread as separate from the reply tree, so NodeBB including that post would be a fallback.

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @evan So the ideal would be signaling on the actor (or jumping ahead in theoretical developments, on the client attached to the actor) that a certain protocol is being followed. That way you don’t have to make guesses and uncertain assumptions.

And then I would ideally be able to send you an object for consideration to include in some collection. It seems reasonable to say that me declaring one of your contexts should be the primary consideration for inclusion.

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @evan But as Evan points out:

> saying that the only thing that should go in `context` is the thread is not OK.

It is possible that any given context may be a Person, or an Event, or a Place, or whatever. (This probably makes more sense in a GTD tasks app than in a forum software.)

It’s also possible it may be an opaque URI.

Nevertheless, if you can’t extract any useful information from it, you drop it from consideration. No owner means no one to address.

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @evan What 7888 tries to do is describe a potential generic framework for how to process objects declaring a `context`, all the way up from the base case (missing) to the simplest case (an opaque URI) and building upwards from there. This is similar to how you might process objects declaring a `tag` array to detect rich entities within the textual content of the post (mentions, hashtags, links, potentially quotes, emojis, whatever the future brings)

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @evan The “missing bit” is a signal for participation; in other words, a property and/or type that means “if i send an object matching a certain shape to the owner, they might add it to this collection.” Right now this is implicit; it would be better if it were explicit.

Scott M. Stolz

@infinite love ⴳ @Evan Prodromou @julian I am working on a fediverse-enabled project management system. And this discussion is very relevant to it, since we are talking about what are contexts and whether they are the same as threads.

Scenario:

Project is an actor.
Forum attached to the project is also an actor.
You can follow both, but one provides updates about the project and the other is a discussion group.

Posts related to the project will have the context set to that project. But that project is not a conversation. The thread is a conversation. And there will be multiple threads related to the context.

If we declare that the post has two contexts, how would you know which one is the thread?

This is why I think there needs to be a clear property that defines a thread.

julian

@[email protected] said in FEP Convergence (400e, 7888, 171b/Conversation Containers, 76ea):

Posts related to the project will have the context set to that project. But that project is not a conversation. The thread is a conversation. And there will be multiple threads related to the context.

If we declare that the post has two contexts, how would you know which one is the thread?

If in your system a single post can be both a response to the project and a response to a thread, and you wish to provide two contexts, then put the more specific context first (the thread), followed by successively less specific contexts (the project).

Implementors that don't support your structure will simply use the first context in the list by assuming it's the most specific.

Scott M. Stolz

@julian

If in your system a single post can be both a response to the project and a response to a thread, and you wish to provide two contexts, then put the more specific context first (the thread), followed by successively less specific contexts (the project).

Implementors that don't support your structure will simply use the first context in the list by assuming it's the most specific.

That's a good fallback behavior, but there still should be a way to explicitly declare which is the thread for platforms that support it.

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @scott to start with, i don’t think it’s necessarily correct to say that the post was created in context of the project; you might want to say that the post was created in context of a discussion topic, which itself exists in context of the project. but it’s up to the post author how they want to declare this.

the other thing is, consider the case where there are two contexts, and they’re *both* threads. by which i mean, all the necessary properties are there. //

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @scott Anyone wanting to respond to that post has the following options:

1) inReplyTo post, context = 1
2) inReplyTo post, context = 2
3) inReplyTo post, context = 1,2
4) inReplyTo post, context = something else (or nothing)

and then they deliver to the owner(s) of whichever context(s) they selected.

Or maybe they don’t want to respond. Maybe they want to participate without specifically responding to anything else in either thread. So they drop inReplyTo. //

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @scott anyway, situations with multiple contexts are probably going to be edge cases.

honestly, the most likely outcome will be that implementers will just incorrectly assume a max of 1 context, just like they already incorrectly assume a max of 1 inReplyTo. in this case, the restriction becomes part of the implicit protocol, alongside numerous other stated or unstated restrictions.

infinite love ⴳ

@julian @scott in any case, i think based on this conversation i probably need to add examples to fep-7888 of how one might process multiple contexts.

Scott M. Stolz

@infinite love ⴳ @julian @Evan Prodromou So, basically, we are saying that:

Context = Conversation = Thread

because everyone assumes that is the case.

And anything not a thread should probably be something else, like a collection?

Because, at least in every forum implementation I have ever seen, there is only one thread. And like everyone else, we will only support ONE thread.

Therefore it is unnecessary to support multiple threads because nobody plans on supporting it and it goes against 40 years of usage.

But, posts and threads can be associated with other things, like projects, that are NOT a thread, but rather a collection of related posts.

The question is: how do you associate non-threads (like projects) with a threaded conversation?

julian

@[email protected] I think I know how that one can be solved.

Using Hubzilla nomenclature:

When you have a post it defines the thread as context
Your post can also define the project as audience as per FEP 1b12
The thread (the context collection) would define the project as the collection owner (attributedTo)