Related to the ForumWG topic of resolvable context collections, there are four FEPs that are currently in consideration:

  1. FEP-7888: Demystifying the context property
  2. FEP-400e: Publicly-appendable ActivityPub collections
  3. Draft FEP-171b: Conversation Containers, an evolution of Conversation Containers
  4. FEP-76ea: Conversation Threads

@[email protected] made a suggestion last month to hopefully reduce the number of moving parts:

  • Both FEP-400e and FEP-1b12 implementations: support FEP-7888 (context collection)
  • FEP-400e implementations: upgrade to Conversation Containers
  • FEP-1b12 implementations: add target property to Announce activity that points to context collection.

This takes FEP 400e out of the running (potentially). But the day after that last meeting, @[email protected] put together FEP 76ea, and now we’re back to three.

My concern is that all three FEPs (7888, 171b, and 76ea) all share these distinct qualities:

  • They establish a conversational context for a given object
  • They federate out an Add on collection addition. (76ea also sends Remove)
  • They contain some concept of a context owner (attributedTo)

They differ on the following qualities:

  • 7888/171b use context whereas 76ea uses a new property thr:thread
  • 171b specifies a new object type Context
  • Collection items:
    • 7888 sends objects in chronological order
    • 171b sends activities in chronological order
    • 76ea sends objects in reverse chronological order

In the lead up to the November WG meeting I’d like to address those differences. All three FEPs are in pre-draft or draft stages, and so I am hoping we can find some common ground and compromise.

Pinging interested parties (who were not already mentioned above) for comment:

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

  • Scott M. Stolz@authorship.studio
    1·
    20 days ago

    @julian If that is how you want to do it, I respect that. But I do find it odd that the FEP actually has a field for thread and nobody plans on using it. But, most platforms either have 1 context or 0 contexts, so it makes sense.

    I still haven’t decided how I will do things with my fediverse-enabled project management system. At some point, there will probably be multiple contexts. If that is the case, I probably will put the thread as the first context and then also declare what the thread is using FEP 76ea or something similar.

    That way, at least with my project, you won’t have to guess which one is the thread. And since your platform only has one context, then I won’t have to guess either.