# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
#
# Usage:
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users View list of users and latest twt date.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt View all twts.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri View all mentions for uri.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash View all twts for a conversation subject.
#
# Options:
# uri Filter to show a specific users twts.
# offset Start index for quey.
# limit Count of items to return (going back in time).
#
# twt range = 1 400
# self = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://twtxt.net/user/marado/twtxt.txt&offset=100
# next = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://twtxt.net/user/marado/twtxt.txt&offset=200
There are many interesting things to observe in this recent Twitter exodus (and the boost it is giving to Mastodon's adoption). One of them is that I haven't read even once yet about someone who's "leaving Twitter for Facebook" or something like that: officially, Facebook is no longer a "social media alternative" to Twitter users.
@eaplmx Yes, the regardless part is what scares me... In Portugal the major parties want it for general elections, *despite* what I said above applying to us. There have been talks about a constitutional revision to allow it, but they're purposefully ignoring that no amount of national legislation is going to make it GDPR-compliant...
@eaplmx To add to those challenges, there is yet another legal requirement in many electroral systems: it needs to be understandable and scrutinizeable by "random people". There is an understanding that, in the EU, this requirement exists independently on any specific requirement for it, due to nr. 1 of art. 5 of the GDPR (the "transparent manner" bit).
Sometimes I get terrified for some moments with the naïvity of the greedy. As an example, when people advocate AI-generated stuff can/should be copyrightable, under the expectation that they'll be making some money from that, without realizing about the impact of the repercussions of what they propose, also to themselves...
@prologic @movq I lived the first ten years of my life in an apartment, the upstairs neighbors had a piano, the only music played there, at least once a day every day, was Für Elise. She didn't master the song before I moved, but I think of this every time I hear the song.
Worms 2 was released a quarter of century ago. A game I've played countless hours, many of them with a Moonspell CD on the drive, which would make the game play songs from it (specially "Opium").
@prologic @movq :
Thanks!, reading that was useful.
It seems to me that the choice of 'relative' was meant to consider users' use cases (multi-protocol, moving the feeds from one place to another, etc.), without any added convenience to the clients, specifically. Thus, I'd argue that there is nothing against extending the spec to also allow full paths: current users are unnafected, and we'd be catering for new/other use cases.
Yes, I do realize that would mean this would have to go into a new version of the spec, and clients would have to implement it in order to comply with the new version of the spec.
@prologic @movq I'll need to re isit the old thread to be sure if there isn't more to it than that, but if multiprotocol is the only reason, then we can allow "relative or full", so both scenarios are catered for, right?
@prologic oh, yes, they'll remain the same (tilde's being a backup).
@hacker-news Uh-oh. Will we finally start focusing on RISC-V?
@lyse @tkanos An interesting setting for an alternative reality fiction novel!
Oops, this was the picture I wanted to send ;-)
At least we can try and try again! ;-)
Mappy screenshot
Mappy is a game from 1983, but it was 30 years ago that I've seen it for the first time, in a neighbor's NES.
Three decades later, but at least now I get to play it for as long as I want 😇
As in standards, it would actually be healthy for the twtxt network if it became heterogeneous, with pods running competing implementations (yarn and something else) of the protocol. Perhaps we're not there yet, but I suppose we should design taking that into account...
@prologic assuming the pod is running a recent version of yarn, unmodified. But we can assume that...
@prologic well, this is embarrassing, I manage to reach the result on the web interface, but not to find an URL that will point to them...
@movq @prologic Redirects will work for on feed removals, *if* the poderator is interested in providing them - it depends on its benevolence and good will. In any case, removals must be implemented somehow (at least in pods operating under EU law), so there's no downside in implementing it with a redirect option.
Regarding # prev, maybe it is best to recover the old thread (which I think was (#opev6mq)).
@abucci @prologic we had a conversation about this a few months ago... While the redirect option is nice to have, I still feel it might not be enough, specially since it depends on the support of the poderator. Having the possibility to point a new feed to a specific old one would help (ie, prev allowing full URIs instead of relative paths, and pods letting users define their feeds prev).
Sorry I'm pulling this topic into an already complex thread ;-), specially when I was supposed to write a proposal for this change, and never did (yet?)...
@prologic not a priority for me right now, but that's useful, thanks for the tip!
@prologic I'm listening... what does that provide beyond what I can get with a cron'd wget?
For those that might be a little bit lost regarding my twtxt presence:
* I host my own twtxt feed here so I can remain independent of 3rd party providers, and "owner of my own feed". However;
* Currently my feed is being generated and managed at twtxt.net, which allows me, amongst other things, to use goryon, a nice mobile app, to manage my feed (even if twtxt.net's web interface works pretty well on mobile);
* On a geeky sidenote, I haven't still set aside the idea of running my own single-user yarn pod instead of relying on twtxt.net, but I didn't want to postpone this movement any longer, now that there's a new twitter exodus;
* For historic purposes, you can still find my old twtxts on the old feed, now rotated into a new address;
* Finally, there's still a twtxt feed of my tweets.*
Hi @prologic, question regarding responsible use of twtxt.net's services. How much is "too intensive" an use of its endpoints? For eg, an "every minute" fetch of a twt feed is considered OK? (I honestly have no idea about the default frequency of communication between pods and all that...)
@prologic yes, both point to the same "no credible pathway in place", which is to say that... finally approving a watered-down measure is not something we should applaud, as, in order to still manage 1.5C, we need more, stronger measures.
@slashdot Too bad the article doesn't remind us that the original target date (when we still didn't know how bad things really are) was 2030... But sure, let's pretend the EU is doing something brave, just a couple of days after being warned they're far from planning to do enough (#mlqubkq)...
@prologic tbh, as a maintainer participation only makes sense if your projects are already hosted either in github or gitlab - or if you are starting a new project. In any case, there is still plenty of time to participate!
#Hacktoberfest
@prologic interesting. I don't really know anything about accessibility needs, but what does the screen zoom on Mac OS do that others, Ubuntu's for instance, does not?
@slashdot The whole idea that FRAND is good enough for standard essential patents, instead of the patent-free nature of open standards, is an invitation to this sort of mess. When we accept something as vague as FRAND, /of course/ there is going to be dispute. No matter who wins, the common citizen always loses.
@slashdot Full context here. Just another step in the long and slow process of documenting the obvious... I wonder how much more damage will we have to take until conclusions - and corrective actions - exist.
@retrocrash I plan to return to it soon(ish), have some ideas I want to use libgnunetchat on: I sort of wrote "about it" in 2006, but the text probably didn't agree too well (here). In any case, I'm quite excited with how Messenger (with a flatpack and everything!) is progressing... I'm certainly planning to become a user of that, at the very least.
@movq I have thought of different approaches, each have strengths and weaknesses. Mostly, I'd like to know what others think :-) In any case, I suppose I'd like to "extend" the hashtag generation API, so each blog post can have its own thread hash tag (like twts do). Then, "listing" the comments could be via querying a registry, and the "leave a comment" link could link to https://preconfigured-yarn.pod/?newtwt=@blogowner%20(#hashtag) or whatever link that would open that pod ready to create that new post if you're logged in. Bonus points if you can configure more than one pod and it displays a dropdown; more bonus if we decide to implement twt:// uris letting twt clients listen to those (including a browser plug-in letting you say 'open twt:// uris on https://my.pod').
Yes, I might be overengineering.
Estou de regresso à escrita, e à Ficção Científica.
Desta vez, participo com um pequeno conto para o livro "Lamego 2022 - o antes e o depois", uma colectânia de textos nos mais variados formatos e estilos, que olha para a cidade onde nasci - não só como ela é hoje, mas na sua História passada e história futura.
O lançamento deste livro vai ser já no próximo dia 5 de Junho, enquadrado no festival "Lamego Cidade Poema".
I'm not the only twtxt'er that has an bashblog blog... How cool would it be to be able to integrate twtxt comments in it, in replacement to the current twitter comments implementations? With the way threads work in yarn instances, twtxt could even provide way more than just a replacement to twitter...
@slashdot 15 years? Posts like these are what makes me feel old.
@slashdot OMG, I just want to stab my eyes now. When did the /. crowd become so dumb?
@prologic Who knew 2022 was able to bring good news too...
how it looks like on Goryon (and also my first twted image!)
I've just realized Diablo has made 25 years (a quarter of a century!) in January. I didn't see any... special release, events or a flurry of articles about it, and that surprises me: Diablo introduced and popularized battle.net in a way that created a new (and different) generation of internet users and enthusiasts - way beyond gamers and gaming.
@prologic @mckinley I suppose people can write in whatever format (html included), and it is up to the clients to decide how to interpret it... Goryon shows it as text!
@hacker-news @ullarah Correct: CUDA remains closed source, so these new open source kernel modules remain useless if you want to use only free software. The good part of it is that it will "serve as a reference to help improve the Nouveau driver."
@prologic I see reasons for allowing absolute URIs, and see no reason not to.
I suppose I should condense this thread into a write-up proposing the change, explaining why, and proposing client behaviors ("how to deal with a prev pointing to an absolute URI"). But that takes time, and I don't know when will I reserve some to sit down and actually do the proposal :-)
@prologic I think so, yes. More generically, places were you have no control over the webserver (hosting services via ssh/ftp without htaccess support is another example).
@movq That would be a scenario, yes.
@slashdot Just one more (high profile) case.
Mandating a return to the office, instead of not letting workers decide what works best for them is, at the very least, shortsighted.
@kevin is it just me, or BBS access via telnet oh.mg (port 23) isn't working?
@movq That's the scenario, yes. Importing twtxt feeds seems like a good functionality, but it doesn't totally replace (or exaust) the scenarios in which one could want to have their "prev, static twtxt file" on a different path/subdomain/etc...
@prologic It's a hint: it nudges my feed's followers "hey read this twtxt in another feed". We can probably find a better way to implement these hints or nudges, but if there's nothing in place, I wonder if we won't end up with a bunch of twtxts just saying "agree" or "+1"...
@prologic Apparently, nitter "Uses Twitter's unofficial API (no rate limits or developer account required)", so I suppose you could run your own instance and not depend on a 3rd party, or even just see on nitter's code (it's free software!) thev relevant parts of that 'unofficial API'...
@prologic Spoofing is always possible, and always a concern (don't we "deal" with it already for the url field?).
For the side-question, the feature is nice but depends on availability, and trust, I'm more interested in adversarial interoperability. What if I'm moving from a pod because I dislike their new policies, or new terms of service, their monetization model, etc.? And what guarantees do we have that every pod (or even yarn implementation) will have the redirect option available to its users?
@prologic ReTweet... Two common things I miss here from twitter: RTs and <3's.
@prologic Nitter's RSS solves the issue! I'd probably advocate for replacing the current (not working) Twitter import option with it! Sure, you get dependent on a 3rd party, but it avoids all the "hypocrisy" questions! ;-)
@marado Now I just need to know what does the twtxt community do in lieu of RT...
@prologic @movq Imagine I want to stop updating my feed on my domain.com by starting a new feed at coolerdomain.net, but point to the previous one in its previous address, for history purposes.
Or maybe I want to stop using this pod because I think I like yours best, or I host my own now... so I want to *continue* there, pointing to this as my previous one.
@anx @prologic O-o, you are? That would be great, really. I have been pondering about replacing my locally hosted feed by this one by cron'ing a wget or something like that...
@prologic 😥 It might be worth doing it via twitter's API... but since I'm not volunteering to implement it, I'll just remain sad :-P
I'm uncertain I'm looking at the right place, but from how I read it, absolute URLs not only aren't mandated, they aren't even a possibility. I'll open a PR soon(TM)
@prologic DSA is Digital Services Act, the "legislation" /.'s article is all about.
@slashdot @adi Nice take, but it is wishful thinking… the tech literacy levels (ie, the user base) is quite distinct, people wouldn't flock away from twitter if Musk goes through with this…
@lyse @mckinley damn, now I'm sad that the way they do it doesn't really follow the twtxt format…
@prologic yes, functionally an yarnd with --single-user is all/exactly what I'm seeking.
Technically I'd then probably still want a port/clone of it into a lighter-weight, easilly hostable alternative (so you can file-drop into any tilde host, or even those FTP-only hostings…), but that's a bridge to cross when I get there…
@lyse @darch @fastidious @thecanine @prologic Seems to me that the sync is only useful if it allows a lot more editing (eventually even a complete rewrite). Which I am all for, but then the edit/deletion restriction on the UI becomes sort of an hassle, as someone more tech-savvy will be able to do things that less tech-savvy users will not…
@darch Great stuff, thanks! That does solve my "publishing" part of the equation, even if it still doesn't work as a client (either web or mobile)…
@prologic So, there is an API! This is offtopic for the thread (sorry) but can you link me to its documentation? I'm thinking about creating a single-user barebones "pod", compatible with the mobile app but that manages a single twtxt file.
Goryon - the twtxt mobile app - is making me think about hosting a yarn pod - just so I can use it while keeping my (real, self-hosted) twtxt "account". I wonder if there's an easy way to host a lightweight, single-user version of the endpoint… or if there's documentation about how to write one.
@prologic Cool! I haven't followed what has been going on in twtland for a while. Can you please share links to jenny and tt?
