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Exploring Federation and Public Communication On Gemini

Re: On Bubble, centralization and federation

I recently read this very nice post by JeanG3nie, and I share their viewpoints and believe that the Gemini community should establish a federation specification. I believe simplicity should be our guiding principle, and attempting to replicate ActivityPub would be both unproductive and unpopular. I've formulated a concept that is basically a public mailing list with some additional elements.

Here's an outline of the idea:

Misfin

As @skyjake pointed out, misfin is not finalized and at present this couldn't be implemented using misfin - I'm thinking ahead here, and I believe misfin would be more appropriate than email.

Now, let's envision how this system could unfold in practice. Suppose I write a post on my capsule, inviting discussion rather than addressing anyone in particular. I push it to Antenna and fill the "recipients" field with some public, receive-only addresses of a few servers where people frequently check for new posts. Consequently, my post appears on their "All Posts" page.

Let's say people decide to respond. If their server is among the ones I included, then maybe they can click on a "reply" link (while logged in with a client certificate), which generates a pre-populated reply page akin to Bubble's post composer. This page references my post's ID and includes my address in the "recipients" field. For those not on the orginal servers, copying and pasting the post ID and address is easy enough.

This proposal intentionally excludes personalized feeds, likes, and follows to maintain simplicity and focus on public communication as opposed to gamified social media dynamics.

While this concept is very incomplete and not without flaws, it could serve as a starting point. I can't wait to hear your thoughts, whether they build on my ideas or tear them down.

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