@gcvsa there have been social network systems that have the one-big-replicated-data-structure model that NNTP does. I think ATProto and Scuttlebutt have similar but not identical topologies.

@gcvsa I think I'd also say that RSS was an extremely popular system when we started working on ActivityPub. The feed structure matched more to the social networks of the time, and even today, than NNTP.

@gcvsa ActivityPub is a protocol that depends on your social graph -- who you follow, who follows you.

NNTP is much more about a global data structure, the news feed, and how to replicate it efficiently to different servers.

It was designed for public content, and mostly for text in reply trees. It supports binary data now, too.

It's a pretty big data set now.

🔬 "Bookmark" vs "Save" research:

Sites using "Save": IG, Reddit, Threads, Bsky, FB, StackOverflow, Pinterest, TikTok
Sites using "Bookmark": Twitter, Mastodon

Readings:
- "Bookmarks have evolved into Saves" https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/382019/bookmarks-have-evolved-into-saves (2022)
- “Save” makes more sense worldwide https://newsroom-archive.pinterest.com/the-pinterest-save-button-goes-global (2016)
- "Save For Later" https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2012/10/save-for-later/ (2012)

@gcvsa ActivityPub's heritage is from RSS, not NNTP.

First, we evolved RSS to include information about reactions and changes to the social graph.

Then, we added push mechanisms, so that items are delivered when they're authored, in "real time".

Finally, we added privacy, so content is only sent to people you want to read it.

@gcvsa hi! I'm one of the people responsible for ActivityPub. Mine are some of the feelings you are asking about.

I still don't think I understand why it was felt necessary to invent #ActivityPub, when #NNTP already existed and is proven to scale.

Why couldn't we just have an updated HTTP to NNTP gateway front end? #Fediverse

@cheeaun since you are on it. How about bun for you? I have only been using bun (because originally it was really much faster to start up and memory efficient compare to Node.js) as a dev replacement for Node.js, but not in prod because of leaks.

@evan Pardon the necrobump since I'm more active over at the #Atmosphere, but given the horror stories of in-fighting between devs in the Open Social Web alongside community toxicity in some parts on both sides but I would like to ask if this can also apply there even though some might say "Bluesky Social is too big to fail" in the context of infra decentralization work?

@glyph

And we do not have to have the same goals or paths that some corporations have.

But what is your (our) vision for the world we want to live in, to create our own shit in?

Keep in mind that you will not get support from people and orgs on conventional paths. They'll think you're wrong or crazy. It has to matter to the people doing it.

Weirdos made personal computers from traffic light controller chips. I was personally told by an MIT trained engineer that 8 bit chips were not real computers (1978 or so) and hobbiest efforts would amount to nothing. I had no answer at that time. Who could have?

@darius @jalefkowit

@darius @jalefkowit so I think that as we try to find ways out of this, it’s important to remember that this is not a natural march towards technological progress, but a thing being done *to* us all by specific people who can be called to account for a lot of it

@darius

I feel the same way, but I exited the biz side a long time ago; these corporate douchebags have always been here (read CYBERSELFISH).

All code is social. But I'm not in the tech biz at all and glad for it. For me code remains social, at times an audience of one; feels like no peer community, for a very long time.

I still very broad intellectual pursuits, (more or less within the history of computing) but have literally one academic friend that cares enough to read or write about it. Few seem to have any sense or concern for where we are and how we got here.

I've said here a couple times, unrigorously, that we need to have vernacular technologies, separate concerns, from industry. Of course we can't be independent from the tech industry (though we may be forced out), since we're using or repurposing its artifacts.

In the past, our concerns were theirs; pushing the state of the art. Tech concerns are now financial, there's little art left.

We are not driving the bus any longer. Amateur radio has gone through this, twice: in the 1920s, 1930s, when they lost the airwaves after pioneering techniques and gear to utilize them; and in the 1970s, when amateurs could actually make things that met or exceeded state of the art; by 1990, you could buy more radio tech for cheap then nearly anyone could make at home.

But my computing needs no longer parallel those of industry; I don't want nor need a fucking router in my house. Stacking up tons of pricey gear has turned this into a cargo cult, aping what a data center/colo has. Why?

Very many Big Chunks of computing are now commodities. New gear and paradigms will happen, but in material technologies few of us have access to.

In the 1970s and 1980s, rank amateurs created, from naivete and skill, the first spreadsheets, on screen word wrap, novel solutions galore.

Coattailing industry for personal life's purpose has always been a losing prospect, it's being made abundantly obvious, very quickly, right now

Following online discussions, one of the number one complaints is about multiplexes not having parking. But —

If you have parking on your property, why do you care if they park on the street?

And if you don’t have parking on your property, how can you complain that they don’t either?

'We have to step in': Alberta ...