@drq@mastodon.ml
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drq

@drq@mastodon.ml

Sysadmin, Unix punk, Technolojesus, and Free Software freak
Pronoun: he/his/him;
Tillie code: 0b00111001
Bit of an SJW. Militant atheist and battle skeptic. Former Devil's advocate. Devout Saganist.
If you are a Nazi, we can't be friends.
Admin of mastodon.ml

Доброхотъ. Социальный граф с поместьем.
Все еще босс этой качалки.
Главврач этой больнички.

GET ON MY HORSE, I'LL TAKE YOU 'ROUND THE FEDIVERSE!

#fedi22 #fediverse_meta #opensource #linux #unix #lifeblog #russia #music #sysadmin #nerd

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drq, to random
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Alright, I've been thinking. As we know, the default model of conversation on the Fediverse is a tree. Threads are directed graphs, each node is allowed multiple children and only one parent. Kinda like a filesystem. There are also (hash-)tags, but they are a bit meta and work across all conversations.

What if we upgrade it a little bit? What if we allow multiple parents to each node? What if you can reply to multiple posts? I miss this feature because sometimes, when I post something, I get similar replies from different people, and I'm forced to either answer both of them (which sucks, because duplication of effort) or reply to only one and leave all others unanswered, which spawns an offshoot conversation that is basically already over. This way, conversation may feel more like putting out little fires at times. So, instead I can just add all of those in one reply, and add more as they appear.

And it's not that hard to do. Just make in-reply-to a list, not a string.

drq,
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@BigFoxBoss Easy: don't fetch the post if you already have it.

@mittorn @skobkin

drq,
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@mittorn It becomes too cumbersome then, and breaks semantics.

I got 3 near-identical or adjacent replies, goddamnit.

I need to reply to all of them.

Not "post a link to some message". Not "link to thread of subthreads of subthreads".

Reply. Much like I would reply to three humans standing right next to me

@skobkin

drq,
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Even right fucking now... @BigFoxBoss and @mittorn are asking the same things from me, and I have to answer separately, and they don't see each other's messages while posting them, and I make mistakes, and I am getting angry and GAAAHHH

This sucks!!!

drq,
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@BigFoxBoss Mention mentions people. It's all it does.

In-reply-to marks a message as a thing-that-this-message-is-a-reply-to-in-this-particular-conversation. Which is what I want.

@mittorn @skobkin

drq,
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@mo You're not listening.

The idea is not to mention people. We already got mentions for that. The idea is to link messages as parents and a child.

@BigFoxBoss @mittorn

drq,
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@mittorn

> and we filter loops, only one of messages will get reply

No. Why?

@BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo How does it break the AP protocol?

@BigFoxBoss @mittorn

drq,
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@mo Ermmm. Yes... The idea is to upgrade things to expect that.

Or upgrade = break in your vocab?

@BigFoxBoss @mittorn

drq,
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@BigFoxBoss Errrmm... no?

What you're describing is making an offshoot thread. Which is what I'm trying to avoid.

@mittorn @skobkin

drq,
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@mittorn An array can still hold one element. I don't see a problem here.

@mo @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo @BigFoxBoss @mittorn

Fucking shit...

https://mastodon.ml/@drq/112524871168633711

drq,
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@mo Such hard, much break.

@mittorn @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@wonderfox Yeah, but still:

https://mastodon.ml/@drq/112524699758629819

drq,
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@mo If Mastodon does this, everybody else follows suit.

@mittorn @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo https://mastodon.ml/@drq/112524699758629819

@mittorn @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo I don't want to. It makes me angry that there's no proper tooling around this.

@mittorn @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mittorn What is a "secondary link"? What does it describe? What is its semantics?

Is it a reply? Is it an in-reply-to? If it's either, then either field becomes a duplicate and oh shit, here we go again.

@mo @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mittorn Multireply IS proper tooling. That post I linked to is a reply to both your message and @mo's. So it needs to be listed as such.

@BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@BigFoxBoss I don't want "hopefully", I want proper, parsable semantics.

@mittorn @skobkin

drq,
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@mittorn

  1. Polytrees (which is basically what I propose here) are still directed and acyclic, so looping is completely irrelevant here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytree

  1. I don't care about technicalities at this point.

  2. Some don't but may be some do. I do. But yes, the UI will need to accomodate, somewhat, but I'm sure we can figure something out

  3. This is actually a way to avoid hellthreads, and avoid parroting the same points all the time.

@mo @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo Nothing stops, but they aren't.

Some messages are not replies to some other messages, you know.

@mittorn @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo There could, or could not be. It's up to the people involved.

@mittorn @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mo No idea how to render this one-dimensionally (maybe someone more clever than I am can), but we probably could use time and do something akin to what @mittorn proposes, and show an "also a reply to:" field in such message.

@BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mittorn

  1. Don't understand. Elaborate.
  2. You heard me right, no need to be an ape, by "technicalities" I meant the Fedi's technical status quo, which can change.
  3. Shit, that I do. You have a reply button on each post. This button adds a post into the list, not replaces it.
  4. I see more, whole squabbles and dramas could have been avoided, in fact.

@mo @BigFoxBoss

drq,
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@mittorn Basically, joining two adjacent threads into one down the line. Yes, that's what I want.

@mo @BigFoxBoss

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