@julian@community.nodebb.org
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

julian

@julian@community.nodebb.org

Hi! I'm Julian, one of the co-founders of NodeBB, the forum software you are using right now. I started this company with two colleagues, Baris and Andrew, in 2013, and have been doing the startup thing since (although I think at some point along the way we stopped being a startup and just became a boring ol' small business). In my free time I rock climb, cycle, and lift weights. I live just outside Toronto, Canada, with my wife and three children.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

pfefferle, to wordpress
@pfefferle@mastodon.social avatar

Oh nice! Following a blog using is working like a charm!

Good job @julian

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

Thanks @pfefferle! All I did was implement the protocol as many others have done. Half the credit would go to you as well for the other end of the integration!

It is really cool to be able to follow a blog from a forum. Are comments from the fediverse integrated?

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@pfefferle I think there's a bit of a push to provide a full fediverse client (that includes two-way interaction between users). That's what the NodeBB integration is trying to do — to be that all-in-one fediverse client.

But the reality is there's no reason you have to do that. Simply federating content out and maybe ingesting responses back as comments would be a feature complete integration as far as I'm concerned! Anything else is gravy.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@pfefferle categories in NodeBB are exposed via ActivityPub just like users, so they can be followed by remote users (just like how local users can "watch" a category, I suppose).

We follow FEP-1b12 at the moment, which means all posts are Announced by the category actor to any followers.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@pfefferle what was the issue, are you not able to follow the blog-wide user?

May I have the handle so I can take a look?

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

Hey @pfefferle, I looked into it, and NodeBB can successfully resolve your instance actor via webfinger, but cannot make an S2S GET call to https://notiz.blog/@notiz.blog

I receive the following error:

{
"error":"This method requires an authenticated user"
}
julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@pfefferle said:

Can you maybe give me a level where I can post more often?

Done! Your local account just needed a couple upvotes I think, so I did that now.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@pfefferle any chance you could let me know the json you're sending during the Accept phase?

julian, to random
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

Does anyone know what the most broadly implemented standard is for signalling that a web page has an alternative ActivityPub endpoint?

What I found online (and with @evan and @silverpill's input) was to deliver a Link header and set a <link> tag, but it doesn't seem to work (at least with Megalodon)...

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@mauve thanks for the response. While I implemented the link tag for all user, post, topic, and category routes (basically, anything that had a corresponding AP endpoint), I only checked a link to a post, which should have returned a Note object.

I didn't check a link to a user profile, so maybe that's it.

AIUI, webfinger wouldn't apply for other object types.

@evan @silverpill

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@mauve Yeah, sure thing! This is the source code for one of them, it adds the link header when loading a topic.

You can try viewing the source of https://community.nodebb.org/post/99307 or making a HEAD call against it to see the meta tag and Link header, respectively.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@mauve Also tested a user link, and that also didn't work — shrug maybe it'll work in yours?

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

Thanks @silverpill, in my case while making the call is definitely an option, I was hoping for something I could do pre-flight (e.g. an opportunistic HEAD call).

This issue provides some good guidance (with comments from @mauve and @snarfed.org@snarfed.org too!), so I'll have to see.

Perhaps it's just the app I'm using and it'll work fine via the web app for Mastodon.

NodeBB will implement a pre-flight HEAD call I think, although we don't yet.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

Thanks @evan — that'd be appreciated!

@nightpool, this would be helpful in NodeBB's case where we have a web app, so rendering a link to something is just an anchor.

I could theoretically override the anchor click handler to do a backend round-trip to check whether we could load the content in-app, otherwise fall back to a regular browser behaviour (a page navigation).

For example, let's say I link out to Evan's profile here. If NodeBB knew that this link had an alternative AP endpoint, then we could redirect the user instead to the local representation of his profile

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@evan @blaine indeed, four different implementations is not ideal. We're at the point where they're all vying for attention.

Would need to weigh pros and cons of each and see whether there is one winner we can all agree on.

julian, to random
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

To refresh your memory, you can read the minutes of last week's meeting.

Please see @angus's note below regarding agenda preparation for the May WG meeting

Follow up

  1. The Social Web Community Group approved our application to turn this into a Task Force.
  2. Async work will happen across any federated platform followed by either (or both) of these categories

Next Meeting
We're going to have our next meeting in the first week of May.

Time
Please vote in our meeting poll. Whatever time we decide for this one, we'll aim to keep as our regular monthly slot.

Agenda
Please see this google doc. Everyone has comment permission. Julian will incorporate comments into the agenda.

Looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting!

My apologies for the delay. Angus and I have been working these past few weeks to hammer out some federation issues between our respective forum categories (the ones mentioned above re: async work.)

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@rimu You proposed an agenda item titled "What is up with Groups in Mastodon?"? Love it! Can you provide a bit of context behind that, and whether you're asking the question or looking to provide an answer?

omega, to random

This might be useful for the user - what do people think?

A dedicated Activitypub filter in categories view

0 - All posts mixed in topic listing view (current default)
1 - removes activity pubs post from listing view
2 - display only Activitypub post in listing view

Right now (I never knew this till I checked), you can alt-click (Mac) whatever grouping of categories you want listed, but when you want to just take out the non-native ActivityPub stuff, I can't see how to do this.

As I type I'm wondering maybe then perhaps a grouping feature, where a user can make their own filter groups for viewing listings might be the cool solution. However I don't want to overcomplicate anything. There is similar in Discourse and I never use it.

I do think for the UX clear differentiation actions and points need to be available to the user, espcially if blending in ActivityPub content in with native forum content.

For a fast solution this perhaps this could be handled and tucked into the "All Topic" filter button, with at leat two new options:

  • exclude activitypub posts
  • show activitypub post only

Maybe allowing that then be the users default until they change it.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@omega Right now in pages where there is a list of topics (e.g. /recent, /popular, etc.) there's a filter for "Uncategorized", which would essentially exclude everything else.

It's not as clear cut as excluding or only showing local topics, but that sort of achieves what you want. If you only want to see categorized topics, then you needn't select anything at all. By default, uncategorized topics are not shown.

What I think you're advocating for is a button to filter out ActivityPub topics even if they're categorized. That's where I think I might draw the line, because if a topic is categorized, then it is by that action it is considered (at least by the topic mover) to be related to the overall forum topic.

julian, to random
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

I have a clarification question for @nutomic regarding 1b12. There are instances where a group actor may have occasion to announce multiple notes all at once. For example:

  1. New notes discovered while traversing upwards to root — may want to announce all parent notes
  2. An existing topic/thread (containing a variable number of notes) is assumed by this group actor (e.g. it was moved to the category/forum).

What would be the expected behaviour from an implementor in that scenario? A single Announce(Collection)? Multiple Announce(Note) in chronological order?

During our testing, @angus
did warn me that a collection was announced, and that caused issues because NodeBB's implementation didn't (and still doesn't) account for that. I believe he changed up the behaviour now.

@trwnh, Angus did mention offline that you warned him about this in the past!

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

Ah it looks like this was covered by Angus' post over on SocialHub

nhl-pl, to random

After reading some of the ActivityPub and HTTP Signatures draft I have found forum software being mentioned here - ActivityPub Based Forums and Threaded Discussions.

They use GitHub Issues to get dev users feedback.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@nhl.pl That's correct! That would be the GitHub repo for the new Social Web Incubator Community Group Forums and Threaded Discussions Task Force (what a mouthful!)

We're still figuring out governance and how to conduct discussions, but that's potential way.

trwnh, to random
@trwnh@mastodon.social avatar

i will not rest until fedi devs start using as:context properly. this is my single-issue. /hj

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@trwnh there's nothing specific in these two Notes that set them apart from any other note that was properly processed. I also don't have logs from that far back (because I was travelling last two days, sadly!)

If it happens again, please let me know and I'll take a closer look.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@trwnh something @angus and I were discussing was that some implementations include OP in the Page/context (iirc Lemmy does this @nutomic), and subsequent replies are Notes, whereas NodeBB, Discourse, and later Flarum, treat the context as merely a container.

It seems the latter fits better with the vision of 7888 but I'm not sure whether concessions need to be made for those other types.

eeeee, to random
@eeeee@community.nodebb.org avatar

Maybe a basic question, but Im not sure, until theres a pre-release of Nodebb v4 (which I cant wait for!)
But will my forum fediverse account be enough for an all in one solution, so I wont necessarily need my Mastodon account too?
The reason Im asking is because, at times, ideal Mastodon hosts can be hard to find. I ran my own instance for a while, and many signed up - it was bursting at capacity before long 🙂
So will a Nodebb v4 forum account be complete enough to be a full fediverse solution for those who use Mastodon etc.
Can I log into the fediverse mobile apps etc?
I tried logging into a couple I have on my android phone but it didnt work.
Not sure what my nodebb fed password is, (is it mirrored from my main account) or how to reset it?
1000016862.jpg

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@nhl.pl not sure how far we'd go but a sensible and safer option would be to allow you to log in via a different instance's username/password, but then you'd maintain your own local identity.

Just like how existing SSO systems work.

julian, to random
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

I may regret creating this topic but here goes.

If you experience a bug or other unexpected behavior while using NodeBB and its related ActivityPub integration, please post it here so it can be tracked and resolved.

No formal process as of yet, and we're still at pre-alpha so expect many things to be broken or unavailable 😅

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@nhl.pl That's a weird one, are you still seeing that issue when replying to that topic? I wonder if it was a transient error.

julian,
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

@the@community.nodebb.org said in Pre-Alpha ActivityPub-related bug reports:

When you click on the world/all icon, the world/curated icon also highlights

Thanks, given that I'm going to remove the /world/all route altogether, this should no longer be an issue 😄

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