Derek Powazek 🐐
“When you respond to comments from the fediverse on your blog, they will now be federated. This allows you to finally engage in (threaded) communication back and forth directly from the comment section of your blog!”
So, we’re doing context collapse as a service, then.
Fuck this is such a bad idea. Blog comments have a context. You remove comments from that context, you harm your commenters and your sanity.
https://fediversereport.com/wordpress-activitypub-plugin-updates-to-v2-0/
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying they are not out of context, because only comments that have context will be federated!
I understand that this is not perfect, but we are working hard to have the best possible solution in the end!
If you have some ideas how to improve the implementation, please let us know! We are always open for discussions and improvements!
Matthias Pfefferle
@jwz @fraying I think that’s fair! It’s not easy to find a good way to support modern and decentralized communication protocols that work nicely together with a 15+ year old commenting system. And I think it’s better to start small and improve over time, than to keep it as it is for the next 15+ years! It’s important that independent and self bistable platforms will join the fediverse!
jwz
@fraying "Poorly implemented" might be a little harsh. If the goal is to seamlessly integrate comments from both sides, they did the first 51% of that, which is relatively straightforward, but that other 49% is basically composed entirely of sticky edge cases. And by sticky I mean a box of razorblades.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@jwz Well as long as it’s both a bad idea AND poorly implemented, I’m in.
jwz
@fraying Not to refute your point at all, but the actual behavior is even goofier than it sounds. Replies from ActivityPub show up on the blog, but replies on the blog only show up on ActivityPub if the commenter was *logged in* to the WordPress site, as in, had a real account on it. Essentially zero WordPress blogs have more than one account (the blog owner). Random "I typed my email and commented" comments won't be mirrored, the justification being that there is no user name for them.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying it was not my intention to provoke an argument 😳
@informapirata already answered some of the questions, but I will also do:
> Sincerely, why is that important? Every mastodon install is already an “independent hostable platform,” right?
Yes, even mastodon is self-hostable, but it is not really build to do that (except if you know what you are doing). But I said that mainly because federated platforms might bring similar issues like closed ones when it comes to shut downs or bans.
Derek Powazek 🐐
1. I wasn’t asking you.
2. Anyone can already have their own self-hosted instance outside of Wordpress. I’m asking why this is important in Wordpress.
3. My emotional state is none of your business.
4. I’m an expert in designing online community spaces (see my book, Design for Community) and was the designer of Blogger, so I’ve earned the right to speak with authority on this subject.
5. My question was what problem is this solving and who has that problem.
Informa Pirata
Because it opens up anyone who has a blog to turn it into their own self-hosting instance
> Every mastodon install is already an “independent hostable platform,” right? So when you say that, you must mean Wordpress. So I’m sincerely asking, why is it important that Wordpress federate comments? What problem is that solving? And who has that problem?Think about the fact that you are potentially opening up your blog discussion to a community of millions of users, whose comments remain on your site
But I would like to ask you why you get so angry? If the activitypub plugin were mandatory, I would also express my doubts, but the adoption of the plugin is free and no one forces you to install it. Personally I find that Matthias' plugin is the perfect evolution of the Wordpress comment system, a system that barely survived the blog era and which now showed obvious interoperability limits.
Today, however, with this plugin, beautiful perspectives open up. Indeed, the integration between link aggregators like Lemmy and the most widespread open source software for blog creation is about to create the real evolutionary leap of the Fediverse: the #bloggingverse
If you want though, you can continue to use it as it was before, you are totally free to do so
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle “It’s important that independent and self hostable platforms will join the fediverse!”
Sincerely, why is that important? Every mastodon install is already an “independent hostable platform,” right? So when you say that, you must mean Wordpress. So I’m sincerely asking, why is it important that Wordpress federate comments? What problem is that solving? And who has that problem?
Matthias Pfefferle
> So when you say that, you must mean Wordpress.
Not generally, but in my case yes, I mean WordPress.
> So I’m sincerely asking, why is it important that Wordpress federate comments?
Because WordPress is build for blogging and blogging lives from interactions and discussions and I do no longer have them without the the ideas from the IndieWeb and Fediverse Communities.
Matthias Pfefferle
> And who has that problem?
First of all: me 😊
But I thought it might be nice to build it in the open, so maybe it also fixes the issues of others!
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @mcg but how is that different to Mastodon? What is the context there? What is the difference between subscribing to a Blogs Feed via RSS and to do it via Mastodon?
It's still kind of the same audience that reacts to my blog, but it's easier for them.
It's no longer: Reading it in the reader, go to the blog and fill in forms, subscribe to replies via eMail, come back to the blog after receiving a notification about a new comment and fill out forms again.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@mcg everything gets atomized when it enters the fedeverse. Context gets lost. It’s not something WP can control.
mcg
@fraying Not disagreeing with this, but as I understand this feature in WP, it’s not different than making a normal post here and having comments flow attached to that original posting. Perhaps that’s not how it works.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@mcg I post threads here all the time and people routinely pick one to argue with without reading the whole thing.
mcg
@fraying As I understand this, the blog post will be federated and the comments threaded to the post. Not just comments without context.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying no, the problem is: comments are dead, there are no more comments there is no more interaction without ActivityPub, Webmentions or brid.gy.
> In fact, most regular people would be very disturbed to find out that a comment they posted to a blog was reposted into a network they had no knowledge of or control over.
The plugin does not post comments from your visitors to the fediverse because of that reason. It only posts your answers.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle who ELSE has the problem? And what exactly is the problem?
If the problem is “when I comment on a blog that comment is not also published to the fediverse,” I would say that almost nobody has that problem. In fact, most regular people would be very disturbed to find out that a comment they posted to a blog was reposted into a network they had no knowledge of or control over.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying but I do not want to convince you to use it.
it's fine that you disagree with me!
that's why everyone can choose to install it or not.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix but why is that an "imorting out of context"? you can read the whole post on mastodon, you can see all other posts... it's like a feed reader with commenting functionality.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@bix @pfefferle That’s the first actual valid use case I’ve heard - and yeah, I also don’t think importing comments from out of context is a good solution.
Bix 🫥
@fraying @pfefferle My sense of that was the idea that blog comments have basically died since social media happened, so without bringing these things in you have no discussion on your blog at all. I agree this has happened, but (obviously) disagree on the answer.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle what does “I do no longer have them without the ideas from the IndieWeb and Fediverse Communities” mean?
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying but I do not „import“ them from anywhere. I simply use ActivityPub and that is how it works and if someone comments on my post on the fediverse he should be aware that it will be shared with that instance (in that case the blog).
And yes, there might be other ways and I also hope that others will step in to implement them.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle If comments are dead, maybe that’s because of the way they’re implemented in Wordpress. And if that is the problem, great, good problem to work on! Is importing them from the fediverse the only solution? And could it cause its own set of problems? Shouldn’t people be warned that their comments will appear elsewhere? Shouldn’t they have control over that?
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix sure, but that is a mastodon issue, I do not have to split the WordPress posts into threads, they will be shown as a whole, even if they have more than 500 chars.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @bix That is a wildly optimistic view. I routinely post threads here and people pick one post to reply to without having read the context. It’s a fediverse-wide problem because of the way the different implementations distribute posts.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix but why is that different than with what mastodon does? You comment on xoxo.zone, I am on mastodon.social, so mastodon.social has to also „import“ your comment. That’s how ActivityPub works. That’s what you have to expect when you comment on the fediverse. That’s not special to WordPress!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@bix @pfefferle Yeah! It’s both!
Bix 🫥
@fraying @pfefferle Oh I only just now understood something you’ve been saying. Not that blog comments would appear on fedi without them knowing but that comments *from* fedi appear on the blog without them knowing. I don’t know why my brain wasn’t picking this up, or even noticing this is a problem. But, oh, yeah.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying why is this „wash my hands of the effects of my code“?
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle way to wash your hands of the effects of your code. No bad precedent there at all.
Matthias Pfefferle
@bix @fraying it’s not „republished“ it’s how ActivityPub works! Mastodon also „copies“ the reply, so do misskey, firefish, pleroma, …
Bix 🫥
@pfefferle @fraying But that’s expected. Who outside of indiewebheads is going to understand that their Mastodon reply to something they saw on Mastodon is going to be republished on a blog?
Matthias Pfefferle
Derek Powazek 🐐
@bix @pfefferle Yes, exactly what Bix said. All this is expected in mastodon. It is NOT expected in Wordpress or from blogs in general based on 20 years of lived experience. Most people will be very surprised! What are you doing to account for that and give people control over their comments?
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying yes, and I am also working together with the Akismet team to see what we can do to improve their service to help dealing with spam and abuse.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle your plugin changes the behavior of blog comments in a fundamental way that users will not expect that opens them up to potentially negative experiences. Saying “that’s just how the tech works” is avoiding addressing the problem. Have you sat down and talked this stuff over with anyone who works in abuse and harassment online?
Matthias Pfefferle
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @bix Delete it where? How? Will ordinary users know?
Matthias Pfefferle
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @bix but what if I want to leave a comment on a blog, I just don’t want it posted elsewhere?
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix as I said earlier, blog comments won’t be shared at all! Because of the reason you already mentioned. It’s simply: if someone on the fediverse comments on your blogpost your answer (as a blog owner or author or editor) to that comment will be federated back.
Comments that where initially made on the blog will be kept untouched and behave as they do since 20 years.
Matthias Pfefferle
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @bix and if the blog is using your plugin, and I’m signed in to it…
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix maybe we are not talking about the same thing 😳
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix if you visit my blog, you can use the form to write a comment. You do not have to login, you do not have to register, simply write a comment and it will only be posted to the comment section. No federation, nothing.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix if you see one of my posts on the fediverse and write a comment, this will be federate with the blog. If someone answers this comment on my blogs comment section, it will only be there and not be federated. Only my comments to that comment will be federated back!
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix ok, now it becomes very theoretical!
There is a feature request to deactivate the comment feature completely and I am happy to implement that!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @bix but some blogs DO use WP accounts for commenters to create community. So they have to be logged in to comment.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @bix we can agree on that! And I thought about that a lot, but maybe I have not thought about everything and that’s why we talk 🙂
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @bix this is not theoretical. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make with you. As the creator of the software it is up to you to foresee the negative experiences that can come about from its use and work to protect people *before* the problems arise.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @danieldekay @bix but that can‘t be an argument to keep it as is!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@danieldekay @bix @pfefferle Wordpress blogs have 20 years of existing user experience already in place. That’s the difference
Daniel de Kay
But isn’t this #thefediverseisnotjustmastodon all over again? If someone writes a big fat blog post on Hubzilla, and someone from fediverse comments, what happens?
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @danieldekay @bix but I would call that a bug, that I have to fix asap!
Please do not use that as argument against the idea in general!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@danieldekay @bix @pfefferle sure. I suggest you talk to some actual users and ask them where they expect their words will go when they post to a blog
Daniel de Kay
There is precedence of comments on blogs that don’t keep the comments only there. RSS feeds including comments, disqus and related comment replacements, … It wasn’t like there’s 20 years of comments and nothing else.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @danieldekay @bix I am only talking about your community point! A lot of users that may not be aware of that feature and I call that a bug because I have not thought about that!
The general: blog owners want to comment back from the blog was a requested feature, not my personal idea. And that is not a „washing my hands“ thing, it’s just to let you know that I am talking with the plugin users a lot, to fix their issues.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @danieldekay @bix user expectations are not a bug, they’re a fact. Your job is to work with them if you expect them to change their expectations. That’s work you have to do, not them.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @danieldekay @bix I agree on the context thing: if there is a local reply to a federated comment that is abusive and the initial commenter is not notified! I will work on that and disable local comments on federated threads! That is a good point!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@danieldekay @bix @pfefferle My concerns run far deeper. The software in question (apparently) only federates comments from signed in members (if I understand what’s been said here correctly).
My concern is about context collapse and safety when copying content from one site to another when the user is neither notified nor in control of that copying.
Daniel de Kay
@fraying @bix @pfefferle So essentially only the logged in commenter case is of your concern?
Maybe add a checkbox to the comment form to allow or disallow federation of the comment? This will create a ux nudge that something might happen that is unexpected
Derek Powazek 🐐
@danieldekay @bix @pfefferle RSS feeds were clearly a copy of the web version, so they were different. And Disqus was clearly a 3rd party service users had an account with, so they knew what it was. These are very different!
Matthias Pfefferle
@bix @fraying @danieldekay the requirement is the ability to „publish posts“ atm.
Bix 🫥
@fraying @danieldekay @pfefferle If I have it right, only blog *author* comments will be federated, because commenters, even if registered, are considered Viewers not Authors. I think.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @danieldekay @bix I totally agree on the blog-comment thing! They should not be federated because no one would expect a blog comment to be federated! And I will fix the issue that there might be a mixture of both if there is a local comment to a federated one! Thanks for pointing me to that.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @danieldekay @bix I am glad you’re talking with plugin users. I suggest you also talk with some frequent commenters, especially ones that don’t already know what the fediverse is, about what their expectations are when they comment on a blog.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying @danieldekay @bix I think I had a bit of a hard time to understand your exact point and was a bit triggered by things like „bad idea“ and „poorly implemented“ earlier in this thread 🙂
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle @danieldekay @bix Hooray! Thank you for hearing me out on this. I appreciate your time and open mindedness.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying yes! I have no idea how to present them to the user that is addressed so the plugin only supports public posts for now! Also not perfect because there might be misconceptions because messages will not be received, but I am also working on bridging them simply to an eMail as quick fix!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle if I may ask one other question: on masto, I can set a reply to be unlisted or private. I assume fedi replies like that would not be posted on the blog comments, right?
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying 👍
this is btw. already possible, because you can fully customize what will be sent to the fediverse and I have already seen folks adding such a disclaimer.
but maybe having it as default or at least providing a pre defined text snippet, that can be used by blog owners, is a good idea!
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle That’s great to hear.
Maybe the initial blog post, when it’s federated, should include a warning that says: “Note: public replies to this post will also appear on BLOGURL.” That way at least people will have a shot at knowing before they reply.
Matthias Pfefferle
@fraying we also discussed just earlier today, to switch to the Article post type, instead of using Note, now that it is better supported by mastodon. It is designed to show the link to the main resource and should make it even more clear that it was not posted on Mastodon initially.
Derek Powazek 🐐
@pfefferle Yeah I would definitely add that as a default.
Bix 🫥
@pfefferle @fraying Is there a screenshot of this in action somewhere?
Matthias Pfefferle
@bix @fraying switching post types? not yet, but we will document it as GitHub issue, to have a public discussion on the idea.
jwz
@pfefferle @fraying
Wow, this thread went deep! A few points (split into a few parts because some jackass decided that the artificial scacity of a 500 character limit makes conversations better) --
• In this corner we have @fraying is saying "community collapse of federating comments is unexpected, needs great care and is probably bad". That argument has weight.
1/3
Matthias Pfefferle
@jwz @fraying you can simply disable the local comments system and you have an easy to understand, only fully federated comment system for your blog! No context breaks, no mix of federated and local comments, …
The problem only comes with the mix and because WordPress has such a history of local comments I do not want to force users to deactivate them.
To your point share everything, hash usernames: I think THAT is problematic because users do not expect THESE comments to be federated!
jwz
@pfefferle @fraying
• In the other corner @pfefferle is saying, "It's not so bad because we're only really federating one way". But this is terrible! If you're going to do a community collapse, do it right. Bidirectional or GTFO, in for a penny in for a pound. Anything less is *more* confusing. Federate them all. Hashed user names or something.
2/3
Matthias Pfefferle
@jwz @fraying I will work on separating them better, so that it’s clear what threads are only local and what are federated, and help users that visit the blog to understand how they can answer to federated threads using their fediverse tool of choice!
jwz
@pfefferle @fraying
It is bonkers to claim that mirroring A->B is unexpected but that mirroring B->A is not. Both are unexpected, unless you expect it! The most unexpected thing is doing one and not doing the other. Are you mirroring or not? Pick a lane. The reason that you have done A->B and not B->A because it is technically simpler. That's fair! But don't talk yourself into believing that because something is hard or even impossible that it is not also correct.
Matthias Pfefferle
@jwz @fraying please don't make assumptions about why i do things!
having a fully federated blog and do not have to think about privacy concerns and local comments vs federated would be the way easier way from a technical perspective, not the way we tried to implement it!
I am thinking a lot about how to do that properly and to be honest, in the end it doesn't matter how I implement it, there is always someone complaining and that's ok, we can work on a solution.
Matthias Pfefferle
@jwz @fraying and it is not bonkers! only because you have a different preference, the other opinion is not wrong!
if I comment on a federated network, I have to assume that this comment will be federated. If I visit a blog and write something into a comment field I can't!
Matthias Pfefferle
@jwz @fraying and as I said, you can simply disable the „local“ comments and have a fully federated only blogging experience!
Maybe it is also a good idea to let the WordPress admin know that it might be a good idea to disable comments and why so.
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