mike / is on Nostr

Farmer in Bugger All, Australia. Plays a mean guitar, upside down and backward. Communications technologist. Makes the best fediverse software you never heard of.

Last Notes

2023-09-05 20:28:16

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I provided my input to the AP spec editor and it was rejected outright. Everything I provided to the ActivityPub editor was rejected outright. If there were any questions, it had to go through the Mastodon dictator, who rejected anything he didn't invent. And then the ActivityPub editor would likewise reject it. "Mastodon has millions of users, you don't".
That's the way the process works.
The major concern was that nomadic identity is hard, and the clock was ticking on when the spec had to be finalised. The ActivityPub editor also insisted that it be done using the draft digital identity spec. So that ensured it would never make it into ActivityPub.
Here we are 5-6 years later and they still can't figure out how to do nomadic identity in a decentralised framework (outside of using torrents or centralised resolvers). Meanwhile we've had it, used it, and improved it for well over a decade.
There's a specification in the public domain. Some complain that it isn't enough, but I'm one person in a planet of 8 billion and haven't had any help developing this. The only help I ever get is with bike shed stuff - web interfaces. Not one person has offered any help polishing up the spec or improving the actual implementation code or even offered critique and discussing the subject. Just "I can't use this. Bye." [edit: apologies. That isn't entirely correct. I did get help from one person.]
I've started to pick it up and try again using did's as a proof of concept, but I'm retired now and really can't be bothered dying on the same hill over and over again.
But I will try and update Nomad (the protocol, formerly Zot) to use a did: form. It's just a replacement WebMTA for delivering JSON ActivityStreams which is nomadic aware. There's still no chance of it ever getting into ActivityPub unless it's invented by the Mastodon dictator.
Meanwhile the spec is in the public domain and there are working implementations and it federates with ActivityPub and nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head.
https://codeberg.org/streams/streams

2023-08-30 22:18:56

!Streams
Fresh release from the streams repository. Available now.
Includes some enhancements to our defenses against Meta/Threads after reviewing their updated ToS.
Also includes access to protected content via OpenWebAuth over Opensearch.
And some other stuff.
You will want this update regardless of your stance regarding Meta.
If you are uncomfortable with Meta and their business practises, visit 'admin/security' and add 'threads.net' to 'Block communications from these sites' -- and also set 'Require signed fetch requests'.

2023-08-24 21:12:17

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Be advised there may or may not be anything deserving of a warning in the summary field. It's purely a Mastodon convention.
The de facto usage definition comes from the early work on RSS by news organisations in the mid 90s. What they wanted was
title
summary (brief description)
body
Most syndication/federation protocols were built around that model. ActivityStreams maps these to name, summary, and content. Content warnings really belong elsewhere, but this wasn't offered in the AS spec. This might be a good subject for an FEP, so that there's something well-defined to use instead of summary. I for one would adopt it in a heartbeat to get our summary field back.
My advice to @@npub1970…we4s would be to ignore summary completely on DMs if they don't fit your UX design, but hide images if sensitive is set. People can lose their jobs (or got to jail) over "indecent" images popping up without warning.

2023-08-09 22:21:59

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I never asked anybody or anything to be compatible with the work I've done. There are lots of different ways to do this, and I would like to see the best emerge. In the meantime, we've got nomadic identity and you can use it today. Emphasis on today. And I work full time and run a farm and get 2 hours (at most) in the early morning to work on the fediverse and I very rarely get any help. I'm truly sorry that I don't produce documentation or code at the rate you expect it.

2023-08-09 21:12:37

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Nomadic Identity existed in the fediverse before ActivityPub did. And it's still here. Making it work on ActivityPub certainly set us back by 5-10 years though. We can federate with ActivityPub, but it's still not a viable nomadic transport. So we use Nomad or Zot6 for that.

2023-04-21 21:00:29

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(4). Some people are looking for specific software features (groups, circles, nomadic identity, html support, quote repeats, search, whatever) and waiting another 5-10 years for Mastodon to (maybe) implement them (if Eugen agrees to it) isn't a viable answer.