@pfefferle @julian @bengo @csarven @raucao @oblomov

i think the context is this github issue: https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/320

was put to the swicg mailing list as a cfc by evan: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swicg/2025Jun/0038.html

bengo requested a clear "error description" and "candidate correction": https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swicg/2025Jun/0039.html

to clarify, no requirements are being removed: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swicg/2025Jun/0043.html

i agree that cfc emails should include an "error description" and "candidate correction". perhaps https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/320#issuecomment-2971191447 suffices?

@julian are you sending accept application/json or accept application/jrd+json instead of accept application/activity+json?

@silverpill @julian i was going to say that yes, to/cc/audience are more specific versions of target, specifically audience targeting. not sure Announce.target is needed here... what would be ideal is if multiple Announces existed, one for each category. an AP Announce represents a "share" and not necessarily a "reshare", so it's not like one of them has to be the "original"; they can all exist at the same tier.

@julian example using foaf and sioc...

```
id = f1
type = [as:Service, sioc:Forum]
as:summary = "Forum TF category"

id = g1
type = [as:Group, foaf:Group, foaf:Agent, sioc:User]
as:name = "AP Forum Task Force"
foaf:member = [Julian, a]

id = t1
type = [as:Collection, sioc:Thread]
as:summary = "Some thread"
sioc:has_container = f1

id = p1
type = [as:Event, sioc:Post]
as:name = "Meeting on April 2025"
sioc:has_container = t1
sioc:has_creator = g1
as:attributedTo = g1
```

@julian i think ideally this would be explicitly signalled which objects represented a Feed or Category or Forum or Account or User or whatnot. but the question is how to get from here to there...

@julian posting into a forum could be done with Create, and sharing something to your profile could be done with an Announce of your own object. you can't really tease the two apart. imagine a world where *every* actor published Announce Object. they are in some sense "sharing" the object into multiple contexts and each individual "share" can be tracked in the Object.shares collection

@julian in common usage maybe not, but more generally then yes absolutely

i think the "category vs user" split can be rethought wrt actors, because as stated earlier the difference between a blog (category) and a forum (category) is basically nothing. you could just as easily treat every AP actor as both a category and a user; they are a user when they post and they are a category when you consider their posts. the thing is, right now, some actors primarily use only Announce, some use Create...

@kichae i mean they're all actors as far as activitypub is concerned. what is a blog, if not a category by a different name?

@julian or, rather, if you stretch the concept a little bit, every outbox could represent a "category", just with unknown rules

@julian one thing to watch out for is that not every Group represents something that can be mapped to a category

@julian @andrew_s @nutomic btw there's a reason that section of as2-vocab is called "context and audience"... they are sister properties. one scopes by purpose of when it should be seen, the other by intent of who should see it. (this is also why the rationale for fep-7888 uses the phrase "purpose and intent" when talking about why not use a tag)

@julian @andrew_s @nutomic being part of multiple audiences has always been possible, it's just rejected by overly strict implementers or unhandled by naive ones

@deadsuperhero @kichae i think we can have healthy sustainable growth but it cannot be as rapid as the strongest proponents want it to be. millions joining overnight is not sustainable. the current protocols are also a major detriment. social infrastructure cannot handle it. things like that

@deadsuperhero @kichae so in the same vein, the negativity is against the erosion or destruction of the future where those ends are achieved. what is desired is a paradigm shift away from “view everything from one website” and a return to that multitude of diverse communities.

i was telling julian the other day that going to other websites isn’t the problem. the problem is that you can’t interact on other websites. imagine if you could!

@deadsuperhero @kichae sure, i broadly agree re: multitudes, though i think the solution is “more explicit contexts” rather than attempting to put everyone and everything in the same space.

put another way, the desire is not “mainstreaming”, it’s the other things — sustainability, communication, and so on. everything else is a means to those ends.

@kichae this all comes to a head when you have talks at SXSW of all places.

@kichae ultimately, it's a simple matter of constituencies. is the protocol going to evolve toward networks of trust, consent, etc... or is it more about reach, publicity, audience? who gets a seat at the table -- the people, or the corporations? well, the corporations are certainly getting their seats at the table, it looks like... and suddenly, there's no room left for anyone else to sit down.

@kichae things like the anti-viral nature of mastodon, which was seen as a major reason for people to use mastodon in the first place, are being rolled back or compromised on by people who have no such qualms with virality. as a consequence, mastodon is going the way of twitter in 2012.

but people are stuck using mastodon because they cannot migrate easily or cleanly. the mastodon protocol is too fragile to allow much more than asking your followers to refollow you elsewhere. your posts gone.

@kichae i don't know how you define "open" but it seems to be missing the point. the point is that people are walking into homes as if they were public parks. i am talking at the level of *people*, not at the level of protocols or platforms. these aren't just "gripes", they're existential questions for these communities. and as those communities are eroded away, as people *leave*, something is lost. those people may reorganize and regroup elsewhere, but needs are no longer considered by devs...

@kichae so we find ourself in a situation where diversity and community are lost, buried underneath new communities that scarcely resemble what used to be.

"you do not fit in here" https://webcomicname.com/post/185588404109

that's really what this feels like sometimes -- some of us quit twitter in 2016 or 2017, way before elon musk. some of us can't ever go back. our fundamental concerns are not simply "egotistical billionaire ruins fun". it's way more than "no ads" or "chronological timeline", nice as those are