'Course I think it calls for as an approach, the harmonisation of the topic post navigator for mobile devices with the bottom progress bar and pop-up post cycle preview cycle into the fruit machine way, right now it's like a mini version of the topic itself but with desktop timeline scroll, ultimately so many different things kinda doing the same thing differently if ya dig?

Ok I found the thing I was yappin' on about in previous post, the substack article contents navigation solution/approach that reminded me so much of the fruit machine concept / map of posts nav bar and how it appeared post-facto of this topic, and to think the idea lay hidden on my HD for longer still.

I found it after a quick poking around on this substack if you want to look at it in the flesh https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/how-anthropic-built-artifacts

An idea will eventually get implemented somewhere sometime.

It is almost a year later I wonder, maybe no one thinks this is a good idea, or did not get the presentation. Or did not "grok" it as they say.

Maybe someone in substack picked up on this idea from here and saw value in it. I don't know, but stranger things have happened and this substack nav feature was not there the last time I looked which wasn't that long ago.

What would be nice if someone was brave enough to want to code up the topic navigation map of posts aka fruit machine so NodeBB can benefit rom the utility.

Another way to perceive this design, is as a "map of posts" in a given topic, and what better way to navigate the journey of a topic than with a dynamic map!

Yesterday I had what was probably the experience of encountering un-propagated fediverse posts in an already fully read topic run (here), I came across some important but confusingly new posts, only discovered when scrolling up and down for another reason.

After posting yesterday iteration on the concept.

I realised the fruit machine timeline nav approach could visually solve the problem I think I encountered via this UI element to avoid confusion when dealing with schrodinger's posts in the fediverse

A user should clearly see 2 unread posts (for whatever fediverse reason) are waiting as "new-unread-post" in the topic post time line nav structure instantly

I would make it a hard rule that a click on the timeline navigator to navigate to the unread-post being the only way to clear the unread-status, not a scroll by

@eeeee indicated they did not understand what this "fruit machine" concept was for, please see gfx below:

A neater design that could also be tucked into the a side-panel

Also want to note here for now as I can not find the example, substack introduced a similar concept and it might only be very recently.

I saw it as a left side bar of lines, like ruler notches sans numbers. I stumbled upon it two weeks ago somewhat randomly - it gives a quick visual cue and click space to let the reader navigate quickly up and down the section of a very long substack post, cycling through the H tags, and is very similar in approach to my original idea posted here.

I use substack from time to time but missed this feature myself and when it was implemented, does anyone know what I am referring to and when it was deployed by substack?

Today looking at a few low post topics earlier today, I realised I needed add another layer to this designs working potential

Instead of a jumpy scroll distraction which looks out of place, this approach, this design, we can have a static visual index, and the post in focus is highlighting with a nice fade in/out transition in the typical blue - also not the lack or need for text taking up real estate

The swiss army knife of timeline navigators
No takers to iterate this in code?

@eeeee In the context of this topic how many quantum instances might exist out in the fediverse?

@eeeee When you wrote Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

a thread with 100 different origin posts

Do you mean each post originating first post action and commitment occurred on a different platform while the entire thread of 100 post is potentially equally visible on each of those different platforms all at the same time?

@eeeee Ha ha maybe you answered my last post as I was writing it!

Plus there is another maybe even better word i.e. federated > disseminated / propagated

I believe propagate/propagation is even more accurate way to describe the adventures of efforts in the fediverse!

Hmmm @[email protected] is it possible for whatever reason your posts no. 6 and no. 10 in this topic, were not originally available for me to read yesterday/ but I am reading them today, one was a reply to me (but saw no notification) other than that maybe I scrolled past too fast and missed them

How about... the fediverse is like what happens when you build a bunch of interstates between big websites

You could get into railroad and telegraph analogies to, draw your frame. It's the quantum location superposition of your post that's kinda the pickle to explain to the average noodle, or is it?

Here is an edited version of the wiki entry for the fediverse:

The fediverse is a collection of social networks that can communicate with each other using a common protocol. Users of different websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia files and other data across the network.

Personally I think the word Federated is being used as if it was the word disseminated, which to me is more descriptively apt for common understanding.

“your post is disseminated across multiple platforms at once… across the fediverse… and you are like a sun, each post a ray of light that eventually reaches planets... soon disparate planetary religions spring up worshipping your name spanning light years across many galaxies”

Maybe not the last bit

Federated as it is used rather than it’s definition, seems more like a conflation shorthand of federation and dissemination into a single word placeholder, this might be my very personally arcane issue.

@eeeee I always get a Schrödinger's cat vibe off these fediverse topics am I the only one?

Going where no fediverse topic has gone before... not!

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-string-theory-2699363

String theory is a mathematical theory that tries to explain certain phenomena which is not currently explainable under the standard model of quantum physics.

30 words or less people!

@eeeee I am native posting only

@caesar Yep that's it in a nutshell, nailed it, when it hits the "it just works" moment, this affords intuitive mass adoption

Getting to that point is filled with blood sweat and tears.

@[email protected] said in Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post.

This is a good observation and anecdote, but do they have to get it?

They only have to get it if they want it, if they want to do it.

Why would they want to do this?

Perhaps you are encountering an unarticulated confusion they are experiencing as you try to explain it. In their mind they are thinking, but sure wy would i need this, I have insta, all my buds are there.

Habits are powerful and once people are locked into a platform they are sticky, they leave they are usually gone for good. It's all or nothing most of the time.

Early adoption is invariably more miss than hit and is not the preserve of the masses.

I cite Apple again, they learned this, they wait till things mature and there is a decent enough desire. Their latest headset is a good example. They might be pushing their wait envelope on this but they did wait. Whereas others were out of the gates years before, in fact the idea has been around for decades.

VR is one of the harder sells, and ActivityPub may be the VR of online content creation.

Does the ordinary person even think of themselves as a "content creator" they really don't, they think of themselves as themselves (if posting under their real name or at least photo, and then even as a non they still are themselves most of the time) That's the majority of people. They want to express as is there want in the moment, they get the likes and insights, feedback or whatever and they feel a positive feedback or some worth and value to their actions - is amplifying that across disparate platforms something they really need?

If they do not need it, then they do not need to get it.

... enter stage left MARKETING!

@[email protected] said in Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

<p><span><a href="/user/bean%40uvix.cc">@<span>bean</span></a></span><span> </span><span><a href="https://community.nodebb.org/user/julian">@<span>julian</span></a></span><span> </span></p><blockquote><span>And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post. </span></blockquote><span>The thing that gets me is how people don't grok this. It's still weird to me that so much of the Internet has become closed off. Growing up with email, forums, and IRC, it seems only natural that the internet is modular and portable.<br /><br />And the kicker is, even people on the Fediverse have this centralized model for how it works in their mind. People behave as if everything lives in some central place, and that their chosen instance is just some kind of dumb terminal with a window. You can see it when people talk about blocking users or even other instances at the server level -- people react as if they're arbitrarily being denied access to some part of this central repository by some lording gatekeeper, rather than witnessing a website owner or community refusing to host content from actors they don't want to platform.</span><p></p>

I think the only problem here is you assume people should be able to "grok" it. Most people didn't actually grow up in those other "fields", forums IRC etc. etc.

In fact tech has moved on so much that people need to think zero about how things work they just work - magic, you can thank Apple or not for that approach but they understand their users bases and all segments and when you want to cast the widest net you need everyone to be able to use your product without a bad experience - this is where the tech has simply evolved into an appliance to the user, like a microwave, not hard to use, easy to understand without having a clue about magnetrons or the birth of radar, but we can tell each other the anecdote about the scientist whose mars bar melting in his pocket was the inspiration for the microwave to use it to hear food (even if that that story is true or a modern myth) it doesn't matter, we all stand back a few feet from the brrrrr'ing microwaves until the dish is done! Just in case, so often more than not, we understand how the tech works better through the danger of it than anything else!

So really, I think it is perfectly normal for people not to get this. If we orientate around this truth then you can solve the problem you perceive.

The clue is in the title of the OP

@baris @julian a gentle FYA note on the nested quote not happening.