@jenniferplusplus @tess

Not-so-random thought:

The introduction and first chapters of the ActivityPub spec look like the intention is to create a "simple" protocol.

As in "go ahead, create your own implementation".
The resources linked on activitypub.rocks look like they have the same thing in mind.

Which makes me wonder why the result has become so complicated. Maybe because some decisions were deliberately left open?

A lot of the semantic stuff looks/feels/seems to me (who has little practical experience with the standard) as if decisions have been "moved up the ladder" to another layer, so it would be handled by the application implementer.

@jenniferplusplus @tess

Feels a bit as if we were running the protocol in an interpreter instead of compiling it.

(If that metaphor makes any sense outside my head.)

@tess @jenniferplusplus

I would even argue that the problem is mostly that it is underconstrained.

From what I about AP (which is rather little, I am afraid) is e.g. that there exist multiple ways to express something: From the activity types that are intended for a certain kind of information to throwing everything into one type. And maybe, depending on the use case, even the specific activity types and their use is not that clear.

Part of me thinks that defining a common "canonical form" (maybe in a more explicit way) could help reign in that format.

And maybe there could be preprocessors that transform the legacy forms beforehand, simplifying the actual implementation.

@tess @jenniferplusplus

It may actually be under certain circumstances.

(Please come back and hear me out :blobcatnotlikethisgoogly: )

So we have basically a semantic model thing that grew a bit into multiple directions through different implementations.

Somehow it feels as if we could actually describe what we expect of the protocol and then use some kind of automatic transformation to refactor the protocol into something that matches the requirements.

There could even be "migration paths" to e.g. transform the proprietary MissKey "is-cat" into a general, flexible fursona description.

Maybe it isn't really that complicated if we see the current protocol more as (sorry for the following word) a meta-model or a "semantic requirements model" from which we can derive simpler protocols.

@djsundog @Sandrockcstm

Combining this with the idea of a web of trust:

I trust my friends.
I trust the friends of my friends (but a little less).
I trust that if my friends block someone, they are likely worth blocking.

If someone is everyone's friend, that makes them not a good friend, because they simply don't have the capacity to be a good friend to a hundred people.

Therefore:
A decentralized network that priorizes delivering messages between good friends.
Other friends after that.

Why aren't there games like "network manager" or "data center manager"?

I don't want to manage a farm, I want to manage a server farm :neocat_angry:

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@darkphoenix

@darkphoenix

We just need more and better maps.

To quote Terminator 2: "We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went along."