📓 distributed press 2021-05-19.md by @flancian ☆

an instance of [[distributed press]]
- [[2021 05 19]]
[[benedict lau]]
- [[hypha]]
  - interested in building a tool that publishes through many different protocols
    - sharing social messages seamlessly
  - [[flancian]]
  - [[paul frazee]]
    - [[secure scuttlebut]]
    - [[beaker browser]]
    - [[hypercore protocol]]
      - [[ctzn]]
  - [[guo]]
    - matters.news
    - serving mostly chinese communities
    - looking at [[ipfs]], [[hypercore]]
    - working on a protocol similar to [[unwalled garden]], but also thinking of integrating [[rss]]
      - also interested on [[webmentions]]
  - [[vera]]
    - working on [[agora]]
    - background in distributed social systems, worked on (sp?) status, before mastodon
  - [[fauno]]
    - (mic incoming) :)
[[paul frazee]]
- [[distributed vs federated]]
  - a bit stuck here currently
  - the way to conceptualize
  - [[federated]] ~ [[mastodon]]
  - [[distributed]] ~ [[ipfs]] mesh
    - completely open system, if you’re in the mesh you’re in
    - technologically, user experience wise is great
    - trying to figure out how to deal with the [[cost]] structure
    - in the case of social media, you’re making your own twitter
    - how do you get economies of scale worked in there?
      - [[filecoin]]?
      - [[gateway model]]
        
        ipfs gateway: there is more than one of them
      - if your mesh contains social data, you get a social network
    - [[ben]] what are the costs involved?
      - [[paul]] unsure but they all seem associated to a side business so far
    - advantages
      - ?
      - serverless clients are possible
    - [[ben]]
      - less well maintained gateways become issues for user experience
      - censorship
      - [[guo]] yes, gateways become a centralized point
        
        gateway should be a backup after serverless client
      - [[paul frazee]]
        
        spent 6-8 months working on a social network back in [[beaker]]
        
        some stuff that stops you:
        
        links that are a new protocol are an issue
        
        ux killer on stuff like twitter
        
        didn’t have a push messaging system back then
        
        didn’t want to have to deal with spam
        
        ux killer: no notifications unless mutual follow
        
        [[aggregator]]
        
        try to bring in positive properties of the system
      - [[flancian]]
        
        [[metcalfe’s law]]
      - [[ben]]
        
        [[web mentions]]
[[guo]]
- content feed + social graph as a distributed publication and social network
- people can store their content feed and social graph anywhere
- user control their data
- search
- separating storage and aggregation
[[paul frazee]]
- database vs datamesh
- federation puts application logic in the wire protocol
[[flancian]]
- [[datamesh]] should probably be treated as a commons
[[guo]]
- we could avoid many governance issues at the [[database]] layer
- [[ben]] this sounds like the [[scuttlebutt]] and [[hypercore model]]?
  - [[paul]] when last involved there was no global entrypoint, it was [[gossip protocol]]
  - [[pubs]] were [[store and forward relays]]
  - information would flow 100% on the basis of the social graph
  - led to complexities; people could give you keys and still be unreachable
[[flancian]]
- [[paul]]
  - how do you end up in a situation in which governance is required?
- [[guo]]
  - datamesh seems like it does not require governance, but the aggregator does
  - (interlay vs overlay?)
  - [[ben]] aether (sp?)
    - distributed reddit
    - distributed moderation
    - liquid democracy-like
  - [[ben]]
    - we need to agree on:
      - schemas
      - distribution protocol
      - aggregator censorship
    - what happens when your computer ends up hosting hate speech?
      - you can stop the flow in the mesh and that applies negative evolutionary pressure
    - [[paul]] aether does [[default allow]], I do [[default deny]]
  - [[flancian]]
    - minimum exchange format
  - [[guo]]
    - choice of markdown vs html
    - chose html over markdown, it supports arbitrary media
    - [[encryption]]
      - exclusive content
      - hard to define protocol-level encryption standard
      - bake the encryption message into the html
        
        [[mdx]]
  - [[ben]] decided to first publish/store things as html
    - most people want to have something ready-to-publish
    - but a consumption pattern arises: you copy/paste whole articles
    - on the dweb there is an opportunity for this as we can publish different formats of the same concept
    - get content in more than one format
  - [[paul]]
    - [[schemas]] in general
    - I would describe what you were discussing as "rich text format"
    - orthogonal to schemas
      - fighting with schemas since [[secure scuttlebutt]]
      - pissed off [[rdf]] people
      - reached https://ctzn.network/comment
      - scuttlebutt: did not impose any schema obligations; disastrous approach
      - [[unwalled gardens]]: enforced types
      - [[ctzn network]]: urls identifying the schemas with a machine readable format
        
        rejects messages that don’t comply with the schema
        
        believe in this approach
        
        if you don’t, you end up in the tragedy of the commons or failure in collective action (scuttlebutt)
        
        compatibility with the schema dictates everything you can do
        
        you have a feature, you add a dependency
        
        had a post type
        
        would be nice if you have a topic
        
        if you are not subscribed to [[cats]], you won’t see it
        
        but you can’t rely on it as many clients won’t support it
        
        you might end up spamming old clients
        
        [[fatal ambiguity]]
        
        once you see this, schemas start seeming risky to change
        
        you can do extension points, but would suggest against
        
        current approach:
        
        well defined schemas
        
        people can determine their own schemas
        
        control the [[ctzn network]] schemas
        
        can have extension tables
        
        [[ben]]
        
        feel like [[scuttlebutt]] has a schema, otherwise you couldn’t have more than one client
        
        what it lacked, it seems, is versioning?
        
        how do you manage upgrades?
        
        [[paul]] the problem is multiple clients controlled by different devs
        
        [[flancian]] what do you really need for features — usually you’d want to have the minimum minimum schema requirements?
        
        [[paul frazee]]
        
        [[web mentions]]: exploring now
        
        [[unwalled garden]]
        
        difference between it and [[ctzn network]]
        
        suppose you want to have the ability to have mentions in your comments
        
        you have to keep parsing for entities if you store text or text-like
        
        using [[hyperbee]] in [[ctzn]]
        
        it can list directories or keyspaces in order
        
        more like a database technology
        
        for distributed press/unwalled garden: file oriented approach can work over http
        
        [[guo]] in the comments problem, who owns the post data?
        
        the post it’s on could ‘own’ it
        
        the [[comment]] writer could own it
        
        this seems safer?
        
        [[fauno]]
        
        if we allow for comments, who is responsible for keeping them? hateful comments/censorship/etc
        
        [[webmentions]]: fascist websites pinging you
        
        people don’t have time to moderate
        
        [[ben]] same thing is seen in wordpress
        
        [[fauno]] web mentions and how to keep bad parties out
        
        [[flancian]] how will moderation work in [[ctzn network]]?
        
        [[paul]] would like to have a great answer :)
        
        [[reputation systems]]
        
        no one size fits all
        
        this lets you scale the work
        
        reputational graph approach
        
        [[subjective moderation]]
        
        elected moderators