#indiewebcamp 2013-11-16

2013-11-16 UTC
paulcp, caseorganic, andreypopp, paulcp_, bnvk, ryana, thatryana and squeakytoy2 joined the channel
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tantek
just happened across this article which seems quite relevant on the topic of silos indieweb and just publishing/posting on the web at all (regardless of destination) http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/google-alert-for-the-soul/
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tantek
two links removed from adactio's Build post
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tantek
speaking of maps, aaronpk, I believe you and I need to make an indieweb map - perhaps for 2013
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tantek
let's see what else we can get built by then to raise the bar ;)
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tantek
we should question dopamine-micro-attention-based features like "likes", "reposts", and similar.
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Loqi
fo sho
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tantek
juxtaposition: touching tweet - vs. disappointing @-replies (some basically spam, some worse than YouTube comments) https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/401427096276201474 - how would we address this with webmentions?
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bret
!tell tantek +1 on the outlook on micro-attention features. They tend to have all sorts of details ripe for argument and dont offer much in terms of significant meaning
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Loqi
Ok, I'll tell him that when I see him next
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Loqi
tantek: bret left you a message 40 minutes ago: +1 on the outlook on micro-attention features. They tend to have all sorts of details ripe for argument and dont offer much in terms of significant meaning
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tantek
bret - how should we capture this?
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tantek
(e.g. where would this make senses on the wiki)
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bret
I'm not sure
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bret
prioritising focus importaint post types like notes and articles video pics comics
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bret
maybe?
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bret
Not get too distracted on the 'right' way to repost/like things
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KevinMarks_
focus on their utility for the person liking/reposting over showing that to the one whose post was liked?
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bret
It seems to me that those kinds of things tend to skew things in weird ways. People start seeing numbers rather than focusing on how to express themselves or figuring out how to really get to know other people better
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KevinMarks_
right - the most toxic thing on twitter was exposing follower counts
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KevinMarks_
whereas they eschewed unread counts
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bret
You might get the rush by getting a like or a fav, but nobody is better for it
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KevinMarks_
showing faces rather then numbers?
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KevinMarks_
or is that more dopamine driving
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bret
I'm not sure its a value judgement... Sure its encouraging, but it also sets the tone of a conversation
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bret
yes/no
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KevinMarks_
hm, I should have put the indieweb hashtag on that adactio quote, talking of retweets ;)
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bret
How can we encorage people to really think and communicate?
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bret
or how can we separate out topic streams from discussion :)
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bret
half of reddit posts are about karma now
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bret
Part of me wish a simple like/dislike was private info between the poster and judge...
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bret
but then the other part of me just wants to tell that person by writing them something short
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bret
anyway, mini scattered braindump. I dont have a very clear picture of what would be best
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KevinMarks_
well, the key is to think about making it phatic, not quantified: http://epeus.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-twitter-works-in-theory.html
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KevinMarks_
but as that piece tantek liked to points out, that can be problematic in the long run too
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bret
I get reposting, as a function of feeds and syndication and conversation or topic context... canned emotions like likes though rub me the wrong way
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bret
they seem like a nice tool if you wanted to sell 'like' data to an avertiser
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bret
KevinMarks_: reading
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bret
advertiser*
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bret
Maybe there is some kind of relationship between the magic number of participants in a community before it starts to suck as it gets bigger and micro attention features
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bret
I forget the name of that number
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bret
maybe
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bret
just thinking too though that there is value in some kind of 'hey i dont know you and I dont want to distract you, but what you are doing is great' type currency
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bret
@fat talked about github stars on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDb6VBO9os
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bret
KevinMarks_: exactly, like Dunbar's number but for an online community, not sure if there is another name for that
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bret
ok i'm out for tonight...i'll try to revisit at some point soon
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XgF
bret: The way I see it, a "like button" should be a way for me to say "This amused/interested me" without overloading the user's inbox with "++"/"like"/etc notifications
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snarfed
hey tantek, falcon on tantek.com accepts webmention replies, right?
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tantek
snarfed - I have it setup through aaronpk's proxy webmention.io
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snarfed
very low priority, obviously
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snarfed
aha, so not quite realtime
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snarfed
sounds good, disregard
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tantek
not at all realtime, at best, moderated once I figure out a way / method to display them
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snarfed
:P i know how that is
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tantek
thank you for the thoughtful reply :)
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tantek
I feel it's in this kind of thoughtful dialog that there is hope for escaping from the empty dopamine-like-cycle
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snarfed
maybe!
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snarfed
at least for those of us who care enough
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tantek
I have such mixed feelings about likes/reposts
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snarfed
it's a big wide world w/a huge range of personalities, and human nature doesn't really change
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snarfed
but we can at least enable different patterns for people who want them
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snarfed
in any case, thanks for nudging the link
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tantek
on the one hand, clearly they're silo behavior/speech that it would be good to move to own on our own domains. on the other hand, is decentralizing and distributing the dopamine-like-cycle a good thing? neutral? or possibly *worse* in that we may end up building an even stronger more persistent empty dopamine-like-cycle.
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tantek
why did that get underlined.
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snarfed
(i don't see anything underlined)
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snarfed
yup, fair enough. fighting this culture is kinda orthogonal to indieweb
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snarfed
somewhat at least
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snarfed
which is fine
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tantek
it is both orthogonal and an opportunity
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tantek
as pioneers in the indieweb, everything we build sets a tone and a direction, individually and in aggregate
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snarfed
definitely!
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snarfed
we're also only so many people, with so much bandwidth, so we have to pick our battles
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snarfed
to a degree
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bret
Kicking it at unhosted PDX. Let me know if you want me to ask anyone questions on your behalf
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tantek
yes, the picking our battles constraint helps force us to be deliberate about our priorities
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snarfed
yup. damn prioritization. so important, so hard!
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snarfed
thanks bret!
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tantek
bret - ask the first question - who works on unhosted and is self-dogfooding it own their own domain?
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bret
He (name? i came late) hosts his site by pointing his web server to the data store
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tantek
does anyone here, in #indiewebcamp, use unhosted on their own domain?
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bret
unfortunately its all webfinger.... does not allow for just a host name, only email like user@host patterns :(
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bret
but its not even email
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bret
talk about a confusing wolrd
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tantek
bret - right, which is why it's been largely ignored by the indiewebcamp community.
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bret
just what mere mortals need, emails that dont actually function as email
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tantek
note that "unhosted" isn't even mentioned on http://indiewebcamp.com/projects
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XgF
Webfinger != x@y addresses
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tantek
because we have gone beyond email addresses
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tantek
so if unhosted is dependent on email for identity, then it is broken
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bret
its webfinger
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bret
so not email, webfinger
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tantek
webfinger is unnecessary for the indieweb, so it's not clear why unhosted would or should be dependent on it
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bret
XgF: maybe the speaker is mistaken, can you use a plain domain as a webfinger id?
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XgF
Webfinger works just as well for ftp://site.com/blah as it does for https://me.com or acct:me@example.com
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tantek
XgF - that's not my understanding
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bret
XgF: per the spec? I wonder if he is refereing to the specific implementation
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XgF
You do a WebFinger lookup simply by https://host/.well-known/webfinger?resource=(url)
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tantek
it's all based on u@x
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XgF
tantek: Thats the acct: URI scheme, which is optional and orthogonal
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tantek
and a bunch of unnecessary invisible indirection -
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tantek
like you just stated - all the well-known crap
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tantek
yet another FOAF-like mechanism to hide profile information in an invisible file
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bret
It seems like it would make sense that webfinger is key value on any address
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XgF
WebFinger is good. Keeps all the discovery crap out of the HTML :-)
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tantek
XgF - puts it places where it rots
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XgF
Of course if what you're discovering is (in) the HTML its useless
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tantek
XgF - better to use link headers
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XgF
tantek: That still bloats the HTTP response
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tantek
if you're trying to avoid <link rel>
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tantek
XgF - citation needed
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XgF
"Citation needed"? How is it not true that putting data in a file makes it bigger?
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tantek
so instead, there is unnecessary complication and fragility introduced in the form of webfinger, .well-known, invisible files etc.
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tantek
sounds like the old school XML/RDF make it all invisible approach
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tantek
which has already failed
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bret
I like the unhosted model
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tantek
so history is just repeating itself with another generation
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tantek
who don't realize they are merely repeating the mistakes of the past
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tantek
XgF - citation needed as in prove it. prove that it makes *any* difference to network traffic to add a link header (e.g. packet sizes etc.)
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tantek
as opposed to the trivial provable problem of multiple additional HTTP requests etc. due to webfinger
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tantek
known inefficiency (more HTTP requests) is much worse than hypothetical problem (supposed "bloat" - with that impact? in HTTP headers)
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XgF
tantek: What if I don't care about the HTML?
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tantek
XgF - then you don't care about the web
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tantek
bret - what do you like about the unhosted model?
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tantek
XgF - have you added yourself to irc-people yet?
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XgF
Yes
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bret
You can host a generic app for people to use, and they can use their own data store
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XgF
I very much care about the web. I very much lament how much everything is getting ossified behind HTTP
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bret
A static html + mvc app which can be bult for yoursle but used by all
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tantek
bret - nice theoretical model - but I don't buy it until I see the creators of unhosted selfdogfooding it on their own domains.
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bret
tantek: i think the speaker does selfdogfood
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bret
let me find his site
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bret
tantek: its more of the back end of how you actully work with data
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bret
rather than how one would host a site
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bret
but you are using locally running webapps with offline support which is a neat idea
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XgF
tantek: Anyway, let us not forget that the "Your ID is your URL" attempt failed because, well, for the 99% who don't own their own domains, its' cumbersome
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tantek
when you find out the name/URL of the developer who actually selfdogfoods unhosted
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tantek
and some way to verify it - or is it all self-claimed since it is purely backend?
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tantek
XgF - sorry that's a misconception, and one failure (OpenID) does not a proof make.
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XgF
tantek - (re "hiding data") - sorry that's a misconception, and one failure (XML/RDF) does not a proof make ;)
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tantek
XgF your reference to "99% who…" is an appeal to mass adoption, which is a known anti-pattern for getting things done: http://indiewebcamp.com/antipatterns#mass_adoption
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tantek
XgF - it's every failure
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tantek
every use of meta tags, XML/RDF sidefiles, etc. has failed
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tantek
with perhaps *one* exception (in the long term), Google support for meta description
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XgF
OpenGraphProtocol?
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tantek
there's plenty of overwhelming data on invisible data failures
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tantek
XgF - yes, the silos themselves spam the OGP tags of FB
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bret
tantek: the speaker was Michiel de Jong i belive
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tantek
so you see summaries like "Twitter is the best site for posting short updates"
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tantek
in OGP
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tantek
OGP has already been spammed
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XgF
EVERYTHING gets spammed. Deal with :-)
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tantek
XgF - sounds like an email apologist
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XgF
Do you have proof othewise?
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tantek
visible data tends not to get spammed as much
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tantek
that's the evidence, and subsequently the design principle
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XgF
You can only distinguish "Visible data" if you parse the CSS, ignore stuff display: none
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XgF
ignore stuff width/height: 0
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XgF
ignore stuff color == background-color...
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tantek
bret I get a bad cert
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tantek
XgF - nope, HTML alone is just fine
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XgF
Really? Have you never seen the spammy shit which is all over HTML?
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tantek
XgF - e.g. and beyond spam, invisible data just breaks, rots, etc. through neglect
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bret
tantek: me too, but i ignored it :p
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XgF
tantek: Demonstrating that said data was actually unimportant
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XgF
If the data is important, people notice it. If people notice it, people fix it
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tantek
e.g. when we were parsing both blog RSS and the HTML of blogs, we found that 30-40% of feeds were broken, out of date, spammed, or otherwise completely wrong
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tantek
because of lack of maintenance
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tantek
XgF - it's not just importance. greater visibility causes more feedback loops
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tantek
= more accuracy
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bret
tantek: rob lord was talking about using remotestorage/unhosted ideas for indieweb stuffs
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bret
a few days ago in irc I belive
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tantek
bret - go ahead and add unhosted and michiel to the end of http://indiewebcamp.com/projects#Other_Experimental_Projects
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tantek
since it's not actually a primary content hosting project
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tantek
but another potentially useful tool
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bret.io
edited /projects (+346) "/* Other Experimental Projects */"
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bret.io
edited /projects (+4) "/* Unhosted */"
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bret.io
created /Unhosted (+152) "Stubbed out unhosted"
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bret.io
edited /Unhosted (+1) "capitalization error"
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bret.io
created /remotestorage.io (+30) "Redirected page to [[remoteStorage.io]]"
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bret.io
created /remoteStorage.io (+199) "Created page with "Remote storage is a javascript library and data storage spec that enables static webapps to work offline and store data on arbitrary data hosts. * http://remotestorage.io/inte...""
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tantek
bret - could you summarize Michiel's role in the project and add a "(selfdogfooding) " suffix to his entry ? http://indiewebcamp.com/projects#Unhosted
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tantek
like is he a founder of unhosted, a core developer, an occasional contributor?
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tantek
so here's a question, is snapchat a silo? It's sure being compared to silos: https://twitter.com/Hadley/status/401103084014673920
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@Hadley
This is why Facebook made such a crazy offer for Snapchat https://twitter.com/Hadley/status/401103084014673920/photo/1
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hadleybeeman
Oh wow... That's going to keep my IRC alerts busy for the duration of this conversation… :)
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aaronpk
why would it not be considered a silo?
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hadleybeeman
But given that you've got my attention, Tantek, I'll respond to your question. I wouldn't call it a silo because it doesn't act as a repository. Its data is transient.
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hadleybeeman
(But it's not an interoperable service.)
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tantek
hadleybeeman - that's my conclusion too. silo implies storage, containment. snapchat doesn't store anything.
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aaronpk
good distinction
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tantek
nor is there any social interaction other than replying
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tantek
snapchat is like transient bcc mms.
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@brianloveswords
Oh man, nice! I didn't know you could get your twitter archive from your accounts page https://i.cloudup.com/3l6ktHCy6S.png #IndieWeb
(twitter.com/_/status/401793713506381824)
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hadleybeeman
"Transient bcc mms." I like that.
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tantek
brianloveswords - there are plenty of gems like that on our Twitter page: http://indiewebcamp.com/Twitter#Download_all_your_tweets
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brianloveswords
tantek: oh nice!!
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hadleybeeman
I wondered, when I first saw that pie chart, what the data sources were. And what the parallel numbers are for iMessage and whatsapp.
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KevinMarks
just powerwashed my ChromeBook, as developer mode was making audio playback stutter
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bret
tantek: yes i will
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tantek
thanks
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bret
Michiel works for 5apps the company that is doing html5 app hosting for firefox phone etc
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bret
ill git it into the wiki asap
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bret
get*
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tantek
snarfed - just checked my webmentions queue and I didn't see http://snarfed.org/replies/discomfort-with-a-culture-of-performing in it
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tantek
you sure you discovered my webmention endpoint and sent one?
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snarfed
huh, odd. not sure. i use pfefferle's wordpress replies plugin, and it's sent replies to a number of other sites, but iirc not yet falcon
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snarfed
i'll look
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snarfed
aha, it's still on webmention 0.1, so it looks for rel=http://webmention.org//, not rel=webmention
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snarfed
i'll take a todo to fix that and send this one manually for now
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tantek
might need to check to see if the plugin's discovery code handles rel="webmention" links
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tantek
ah ok
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snarfed
heh, great minds
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XgF
Is rel=webmention registered?
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tantek
yes. since 2013-08-12
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tantek
XgF - that registry is obsolete. For a couple of years now HTML (both W3C HTMLWG and WHATWG) switched to using http://microformats.org/wiki/existing-rel-values for the rel registry
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XgF
Meanwhile IETF still use the above (for HTTP, for example)
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XgF
Note that the last registration went into the IETF registry on the 1st of this month
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tantek
XgF - well if a rel value actually becomes relevant to implementations and real world content, we can add it to the official rel registry.
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tantek
if you have a specific one you'd like to propose, feel free to bring it up in #microformats.
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XgF
"Official rel registry"? As I see it, we have two registries pupporting to be official
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tantek
well for HTML there is one, as linked to from the HTML spec and the HTML5 spec.
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tantek
and since we're specifically talking about <link rel=webmention>, it's the only one that matters, officially, since that's HTML.
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tantek
anyway - that's not really indieweb specific so if you'd like to discuss it further, we can take it to #microformats
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XgF
Actually, while on the subject I was thinking it would be nice to see Webmention submitted to the IETF as a potential RFC
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tantek
nah, it's not mature enough for RFC shenanigans
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tantek
essentially specs have to be fairly finished before dealing with IETF mailing list crap and being overwhelmed by talkers
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XgF
Is there much more it needs besides "Hey, this page is in reply to this page"?
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tantek
XgF - yes - see the wiki page
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tantek
plenty of details and clarifications
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tantek
and I'd say until we have working automatic spam blocking figured out, webmention is not ready for an RFC
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XgF
The same way it works for Pingback/etc? (i.e. bayaesian filters e.g. akismet)
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tantek
it doesn't work for Pingback. Wordpress is about to drop support for it.
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tantek
I feel like I'm explaining a lot of history here.
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XgF
Ooh, is there a link to them removing it?
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XgF
You could always go for a hashcash type approach (e.g. you must submit hash=sha-256(reply_url || replying_to_url || nonce) where hash has X zero bits at the end
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tantek
XgF - you're welcome to try building that and seeing how it works
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tantek.com
edited /pingback (+228) "/* Spam */ note right at the top that Wordpress/Akismet is going to shut off pingback due to spam"
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tantek.com
edited /pingback (+11) "/* See Also */ spam"
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XgF
Hashcash has the nice property of asymetric cost - the pinger needs to do 2^(n-1) attempts for n zero bits at the end
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tantek
XgF - perhaps you could write up a blog post showing how it would work step by step.
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XgF
tantek: Simple option: require that the hash of the post body evaluate to an SHA-256 where X bits at the end are zero. The sender needs to brute force this (On average 2^(n-1) attempts)
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XgF
the reciever can just hash and check the end
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tantek
xgf - sorry don't have time to evaluate your ideas on this right now - hence suggesting you write up a flow in a blog post. Others have written up their ideas on the wiki.
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XgF
Doing so
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tantek
and if it's simple - go ahead and build it. ;)
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XgF
tantek: Of course with the problem that my blog would then be returning 403 erros for any webmentions, of course :-)
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tantek
it's a start :)
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tantek
when aaronpk first implemented receiving webmentions, there wasn't anyone to send them to him. (I think he was the first to implement)
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XgF
Need to setup a PHP development environment locally so I can hack up idno's webmention endpoint/sender...
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tantek
snarfed - did you send the webmention manually from your post? I see it now in my queue.
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tantek
!tell snarfed did you send the webmention manually from your post? I see it now in my queue. Also: did your site just go down? http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www.snarfed.org (looked down for me)
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Loqi
Ok, I'll tell them that when I see them next
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tantek
!tell snarfed and it's back - guess you were rebooting it? ;)
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Loqi
Ok, I'll tell them that when I see them next
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aaronparecki.com
edited /p3k (+1108) "/* Itching */ photos and checkins"
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aaronparecki.com
edited /p3k (+639) "/* Photos and Checkins */"
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Loqi
snarfed: tantek left you a message 57 minutes ago: did you send the webmention manually from your post? I see it now in my queue. Also: did your site just go down? http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www.snarfed.org (looked down for me)
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Loqi
snarfed: tantek left you a message 48 minutes ago: and it's back - guess you were rebooting it? ;)
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snarfed
!tell tantek yeah, i sent a manual webmention, and yeah, i nudged the site. shouldn't have been all the way down, but meh. thanks for checking!
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Loqi
Ok, I'll tell him that when I see him next
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KevinMarks2
Proof of work seems an odd thing fit the Indie Web "make sure you can only be spammed by Google, Amazon the nsa and major botnets"
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XgF
KevinMarks2: Eh. Making the person sending you a message/spamming you do some work to do so seems sensible
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