#indiewebcamp 2013-03-04

2013-03-04 UTC
friedcell, bnvk, tantek, tantek-ipod, zztr, jedahan, hadleybeeman, lmorchard, bnvk_, adactio, mxuribe, eschnou, heath and erinjo joined the channel
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Loqi
erinjo: barnabywalters left you a message on 3/3 at 10:39am: as someone who's done web action UI brainstorming, I'd be really grateful for feedback for this: https://github.com/barnabywalters/web-action-hero-toolbelt — the actual button UI is fairly awful but the structure is in place
eschnou, morrocco_mole, scor, zztr, erinjo, bnvk, friedcell, tantek, tilgovi, danbri, barnabywalters and jfranusic joined the channel
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+358) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ Added initial twitter verb research"
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eschnou joined the channel
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+425) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ Added G+ research with screenshot citations"
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+743) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ Added initial facebook research"
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+456) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ Added fb social plugin research"
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@ehafen
@SwissGator enjoy @rock_health event in SF #ownyourdata @DatenundGesundh
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waterpigs.co.uk
created /Flickr (+85) "Created page with "{{stub}} [http://flickr.com Flickr] is a [[silo]] for storing and organising photos.""
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waterpigs.co.uk
created /Pinterest (+139) "Created page with "{{stub}} [http://pinterest.com Pinterest] is a [[silo]] where users can 'pin' content to pinboards and follow pinboards created by others.""
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tommorris
tantek, barnabywalters: I've just added linked "interests" to my biography. tagging one's interests could be the starting point for people discovery
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barnabywalters
tommorris: oh cool! I’ve done similar visible-metadata tagging (with p-category of course) on my profile page
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barnabywalters
people discovery (and wider social graph querying) via XFN and p-category/rel-tag is a building block just waiting to be made
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tommorris
so, I used FOAF's foaf:interest to tag links. but I could probably use p-category too.
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tommorris
<a href="http://openstreetmap.org" rel="foaf:interest" title="OpenStreetMap" class="p-category">the best goddamn map of the planet</a>
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+443) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ linky linky, emboldening and added flickr research"
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barnabywalters
hah, too right :)
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barnabywalters
tommorris: could you do me a favour and document any interesting verbs you’ve noticed on services you use which I haven’t covered (e.g. getglue I think?) here http://indiewebcamp.com/webactions#Verbs_brainstorming
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+1) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ Fixed link"
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (-1) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ fixed link again (I always get there in the end)"
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tommorris
barnabywalters: GetGlue basically has checkin (i.e. "I am currently consuming this media [watching this TV show/listening to this album/thinking about this topic]" and like.
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tommorris
is going to BarCamp Bournemouth this weekend, wondering whether he should run an indiewebcamp session
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waterpigs.co.uk
edited /webactions (+569) "/* Verbs brainstorming */ Added my own usage of web actions"
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barnabywalters
tommorris: the more the merrier! have a good time either way
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barnabywalters
Right, well http://indiewebcamp.com/webactions#Verbs_brainstorming is pretty full of verbs and citations — that’s probably enough research for one evening
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barnabywalters
I’m wondering just how relevant "re[tweet/blog/post]" is in a non-silo context. At a technical level it’s just storing a reference to the original content (side note: possible shady implications if the OP can then edit that content?), on a UI level duplicating the content
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barnabywalters
out of a silo, the equivalent would be posting a link with a quote (or at least that’s how I currently do it on my notes)
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aaronpk
reposting is interesting, I've seen that usually as a blockquote with a small bit of added text
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barnabywalters
within silos it works *really* well, I’m not sure how it can be made to work so well outside them
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aaronpk
i've seen a bunch of blog posts which are basically one or two paragraphs copied from something else with maybe a line of original text at the bottom
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barnabywalters
without rethinking what the fundamental action is
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aaronpk
i've actually been hesitant to use the retweet button on twitter now because all RTs are copied back to my site
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barnabywalters
aaronpk – sure, so posting with quotes ('quote' verb?) is the equivalent
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barnabywalters
aaronpk: btw it would be awesome if you added some experimental <action> markup to your notes pages!
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barnabywalters
now that it can actually be used
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barnabywalters
I’ve rolled out post, reply and bookmark <action>s (with twitter intent fallbacks) to my note pages
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aaronpk
oh! neat
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aaronpk
is that the "Reply Tweet Favourite" buttons on your site?
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barnabywalters
it has a shiny(ish) config UI and support for multiple services per verb/button etc
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barnabywalters
that’s it
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aaronpk
since when does html have an <action> element?
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tommorris
is just working on fixing up his checkin UI so that it works even when he doesn't have GPS by allowing text input
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barnabywalters
aaronpk: since tantek suggested it :) (citation of presentation in the GH readme)
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aaronpk
oh lol
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barnabywalters
tommorris: using geocoding I assume?
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barnabywalters
I figured if people took <intent> seriously when there was only a barely functional demo, people might take <action> seriously as I’ve made an extension which is useful right away
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tommorris
yeah, using Nominatim
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barnabywalters
and that it is designed to be easy to add to existing markup
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barnabywalters
tommorris: cool, I should do that too so I can check in when wifi location doesn’t work on my laptop
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aaronpk
barnabywalters: that's awesmoe, yea I sohuld definteily add it
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aaronpk
can you post screenshots? I have little patience for videos
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aaronpk
it would be awesome to get that video in screenshot form
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aaronpk
possibly even as an article on your site!
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barnabywalters
aaronpk: yeah, the one I did ended up 10 mins long somehow! I’ll add screenshots now
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barnabywalters
I’m also going to start documenting URL APIs which can be used with it — probably in my notes with #uriapi or #webactions
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aaronpk
does your site have a database that lets you do this page? http://waterpigs.co.uk/tags/ui
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barnabywalters
aaronpk: yeah, but I’m actually planning on using good 'ol links on the /tags/x pages
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barnabywalters
and then pulling content in via js
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barnabywalters
otherwise duplication and lack of support for my conneg stuff and meh
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aaronpk
i'm finally building a "tags/xxx" page for my site. it's an interesting challence since I don't have a DB
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barnabywalters
so /tags/ui markup will just contain <a> elements linking to, e.g. /notes?tagged=ui
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barnabywalters
aaronpk: oh, cool, so how are you doing it?
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aaronpk
i have an "indexing" script that runs through all my .md files looking for tags and builds up an index. the result is a yaml file with a list of tags and each tag has a list of pages with that tag.
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aaronpk
then my "tag/indieweb" page just looks up the "indieweb" key in the yaml file and spits out its list of pages
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barnabywalters
aaronpk: oh great, so that hooks in well with the jeckyll workflow then
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aaronpk
i'm not using jekyll, but yea it's similar
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barnabywalters
oh I thought you were — are you rolling your own?
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aaronpk
yea, it's a php site that reads .md files
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aaronpk
so a weird static/dynamic hybrid
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aaronpk
but no database was my main criteria. everything comes off files on disk.
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barnabywalters
I still feel a bit stupid about using a DB, but it’s working out nicely and I’ve learnt how to use a load of new tools through it
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aaronpk
it's good to know how
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aaronpk
i may add a DB later, but it will be so I get the tools they provide like indexing or geospatial stuff. it will never have the master copy of my content, it will just be shadow copies
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tommorris
at a certain point I'm going to move my tags over from a taggings table to just using postgres arrays
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tommorris
simplification ftw
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barnabywalters
that’s a really good plan. I’m compensating by working the other way round, and providing ways of getting at my content in loads of different formats (soon: creating content from all the formats, simplifying PESOS and data migration) — so not as pure a flow but adequate
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barnabywalters
decided to do a transcript of the video with screenshots for accessibility and people who don’t want me wasting 10 mins of their day :)
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barnabywalters
goodnight all!
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Loqi
night night
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aaronpk
he always leaves before loqi can wish him good night :)
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tantek
scrolls up
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aaronpk
tantek: I finally caught up on barnaby's work on web actions! His post is super useful: http://waterpigs.co.uk/articles/web-action-toolbelt-guide/
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tantek
lots to comment on here
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tantek
tommorris - I don't believe in "interests" or "foaf:interest" because (like things in foaf) it's just made-up and has no substantiating research behind it.
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tantek
barnabywalters' approach of "just use p-category" is the right thing to do.
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tantek
if you want to add your own poshformat markup - sure
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tantek
or again, you know the drill, if you have real world examples of sites publishing "interests" for a person: microformats.org/wiki/interests-examples
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tantek
re: databases
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tantek
and caching etc.
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tantek
yes, databases are fine just for computationally caching things
friedcell joined the channel
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tantek
treat databases as things you can always throw away and regenerate
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aaronpk
yes exactly
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tantek
databases should NEVER be the primary store of your data
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tantek
because they're too vulnerable, too much maintenance, etc.
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tantek
this is worthy of writing up somewhere
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aaronpk
agreed
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tantek
this is pure gold: barnabywalters: "I figured if people took <intent> seriously when there was only a barely functional demo, people might take <action> seriously as I’ve made an extension which is useful right away"
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tantek
and wow: barnabywalters: "I’ve rolled out post, reply and bookmark <action>s (with twitter intent fallbacks) to my note pages"
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tantek
is behind on this
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tantek
at least sharing my thoughts openly on this is helping others make progress even if I haven't implemented it myself yet
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tantek
is convinced of the benefits of brainstorming open implementation thinking in public.
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tantek
re: barnabywalters: "wondering just how relevant "re[tweet/blog/post]" is in a non-silo context"
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tantek
it's not
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tantek
the re-* verbs are purely intra-silo actions
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tantek
anything extra-silo is a post with a quotation
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tantek
+ citation
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tantek
not a "repost"
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tantek
though Tumblr has a "quotation" post type
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tantek
where the quotation is the whole thing
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tantek
that might be interesting to analyze
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tantek
the re-* verbs are useful for users of your site that are silo users
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tantek
so when they retweet your content, they're really retweeting your syndication to twitter of your content.
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tantek
people seem to like to do that
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tantek
so it makes sense to include easy UI for them to do so, from your own site (instead of making them click on the "copy of this post on twitter" link first)
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tantek
hmm - maybe that would be a good FAQ about the re-* verbs
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tantek
a-ha, looks like I need to now split the "verbs research" from the "verbs brainstorming" on the webactions page. nicely done barnabywalters
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tommorris
tantek: so, sites publishing interests - Facebook. ;)
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tantek
tommorris - meh, they do "likes" too - is that what you mean? or are they different?
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tommorris
not right now. I am planning things.
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tommorris
plus I need my beauty sleep. I'm doing some Wikipedia media panel thing tomorrow. meeting jimbo which will be fun
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tantek
oh fun - haven't met him before?
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tommorris
no, always meant to at wikimania but never got around to it
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tantek
waits for tommorris to add "interests" as an interest to his profile.
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tommorris
well, adding the interests thing was just done because I had some things that were links, and felt "well, if I'm adding discrete interest blobs, that might be something useful someone may wish to aggregate for finding people later"
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tantek
categories are good enough for that use case
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tantek
of "someone may wish to aggregate for finding people later"
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tommorris
well, when you join twitter currently, it kind of nudges people into searching by interest
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tommorris
not from research, but just from pure hunch, I'd say an interest is something a little bit more sustained than just a like.
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tommorris
You attended an interesting panel at SXSW? "like". Watched a great episode of The Wire? "like".
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tantek
like seems more one-off / passive
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tantek
interest seems active / current
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tantek
just because I liked a movie doesn't mean I'm still interested in it
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tommorris
an interest is ongoing and useful to find people by
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aaronpk
i don't ever want to maintain a list of my interests
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tommorris
and there are plenty of sites that use the things you like to help you find other people
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aaronpk
i'll publish a list of hashtags I use, that's fine
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tantek
that makes more sense
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tommorris
whether that's dating sites like OKCupid or social networking sites like Twitter and FB
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tantek
implicit interests by hashtag usage histogram
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aaronpk
1) i hate writing lists of my interests. 2) my interests change over time and I invariably end up with an outdated list after a short time
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tantek
changes over time too
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tantek
aaronpk is right
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tantek
sites that use explicit lists of interests tend to be highly inaccurate especially over time
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tantek
so why come up with a markup convention for data that goes bad over time?
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tantek
sounds like something "meta" folks would do
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tantek
whereas a blog post / note with a (hash)tag clearly expresses an interest in that topic at that point in time - and that makes sense
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tantek
context
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tantek
aaronpk - both your criticisms apply to human relationships as well
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tantek
one of the problems we've seen over time with XFN
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tommorris
tantek: the bit on your site that says 'Hello'. you express some interests in there (web standards, coding, climing...)
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aaronpk
tantek: yes good point!
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aaronpk
also why facebook friend lists are not that useful after a few years
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tantek
explicit friends lists in general are not that useful as a result
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tantek
tommorris - or my twitter bio - but I find it annoying to update
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tantek
would be interesting to have a tool that automatically wrote up your twitter bio based on your most used hashtags
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tantek
damn. I'm really liking the evolution of barnabywalters's permalink pages
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tantek
content, UI etc.
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danbri
+1 re "sites that use explicit lists of interests tend to be highly inaccurate especially over time"
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danbri
(I tried generating TV recommendations based on my book collection (via isbns)
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danbri
bad idea! too many out of data computer books, or depressing books on world politics)
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tommorris
yeah, I need to put a bit of white box type framing around short content
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tantek
tommorris, though a list, that bit on my site that says "Hello" is also an intro summary / paragraph written in prose, and thus is more likely to be up to date / accurate than a big random list of crap.
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tantek
danbri - just because you have something doesn't mean you're interested in it
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tantek
just because you've experienced something doesn't mean you're interested in it
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tommorris
so, my use case for this kind of thing is to try and build a little site that aggregates the "indiesphere" (by which I mean bloggers/web publishers who are trying to push the medium forward)
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danbri
just because it's in your interests to be interested in something, doesn't mean you will be
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tommorris
basically, building a little mini personal Technorati type service for finding sites that are interesting. to hopefully ease the chicken-and-egg issues we face
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tantek
indiewebsearch!
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tommorris
and looking at what metadata we are currently all publishing in the form of microformats (and RDFa and whatever else)
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tantek
the LinkedIn approach is more interesting (heh) in that they have other folks vouch for your skills
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tantek
actually I wonder if that would work for interests
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danbri
I vouch that tommorris is interested in ranting with a skill level of 9
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tantek
social filtering of your explicit interests
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tommorris
I had a look at Aaron, Tantek, Adactio, Barnaby and myself, and we all seemed to have gotten name sorted, and broad location, and a few rel-me links
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tommorris
then I was looking at Facebook Graph Search and seeing the sort of things people use to sort people in their social network - http://imgur.com/d4LT6zB
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tommorris
gender, relationship, employer, current city, hometown, school and friendship (i.e. whether you are friends with them, friend of a friend etc.)
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tantek
tommorris - I *did* start to document research on some of that stuff
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aaronpk
tantek: sorry, that really should highlight the linked line.... second from the bottom.
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tommorris
decides to test his intuitions against relatively normal people (i.e. his facebook friends)
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tantek
so my suggestion that you add more research documentation was real, not facetious.
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tommorris
also, danbri, I worked out a magnificent way of trolling someone using LinkedIn endorsements. they have to approve every endorsement you give them... so you only endorse people you don't like with really shitty skills like "Microsoft Excel".
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tantek
aaronpk - in reply to your IRC citation: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2013-03-01#t1362167602
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aaronpk
ah yes haha
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tommorris
enough people do it and the top skill they have is Microsoft Excel rather than the thing they are actually good at.
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tantek
tommorris - wow, remind me to not piss you off.
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tommorris
tantek: it is a punishment reserved only for people who post utter bullshit on their LinkedIn. ;)
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tantek
tommorris - re: gender, relationship, employer, current city, hometown, school and friendship - my last blog post about exploring/expanding this from a format perspective: http://tantek.com/2010/336/b1/dating-preferences-public-profiles-formats-federating
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tantek
hey Loqi - where's the URL title love?
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tommorris
the other thing I'd love to publish in a structured way is dietary preferences. I'd love to be able to say "I'm inviting these 15 people out for dinner, what proportion are vegetarian or vegan or have some other funky dietary preference?"
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tommorris
has about three or four examples to add to looking-for already
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aaronpk
lol! that's a good one
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danbri
it's easier to describe menus than diets
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tantek
tommorris - here's a real world example if you're looking for examples of people publishing dietary preferences: http://tantek.com/w/FoodPreferences
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danbri
i mean, describing diet prefs of some person can leak health and ethnicity info, so the data needs a lot more care
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aaronpk
assuming that's something you want to protect
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tantek
danbri - "leaking info" doesn't appear to be stopping people from using sites to publish far more
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tantek
I don't think you need to worry about it in general
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tantek
frankly, just research/document what people are already publishing openly
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tommorris
danbri: so, in true linked data stylee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovo-lacto_vegetarianism - my dietary preferences have a URI. ;)
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tantek
the presumption being, if they're doing it, they're ok with it
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tantek
and then model that
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tantek
instead of modeling every dietary preference possible
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danbri
curious what backlash we'll see once FB graph search goes out fully
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danbri
... i.e. whether people made assumptions of privacy-by-obscurity, and if/when that goes away, if it changes sharing habits
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tantek
danbri - it's made me *add* things to my FB profile
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tantek
so that I'll show up in searches
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danbri
nods re documenting world as-is rather than as-might-be
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tommorris
OKCupid has a checkbox: "I don’t want to see or be seen by straight people."
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danbri
invisibility :)
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tantek
isn't that the default?
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tantek
people only see people like themselves?
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tommorris
tantek: nope.
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tantek
(I mean IRL, not online obv)
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tommorris
Well, depends. ;)
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tantek
(in the "in denial" sense)
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tommorris
I have a throwaway account on OKCupid mostly so I can copyedit other people's profiles.
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tommorris
is sad that horsepigcow.com no longer loads.
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tommorris
goes to read linked entry on archive.org
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tantek
that is sad