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Message boards via e-mail, not Gemini

Jason McBrayer jmcbray at carcosa.net

Fri Jan 8 19:19:23 GMT 2021

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nothien at uber.space writes:

Instead of creating message board systems on Gemini, create servers /
libraries to view e-mail archives on Gemini. I argue that Gemini is
not designed to handle back-and-forth communication, but rather to
serve information in a single direction. We must only use protocols
for things they are well-suited to handle, otherwise we risk losing
their original purposes and leave behind a fog of unhelpful but
deep-rooted conventions.

I agree with the principle here, but there's another aspect to theback-and-forth.

Mailing lists and NNTP are, of course, the correct protocols for fora ormessage boards. But I think what people want here is different. Gemlogposts are standalone documents that you put out into the world to read.It's a wonderful part of community that people write gemlogs in responseto other gemlogs; it's very similar to the early blogging communitybefore it became focused on monetization, and then crowded out by socialmedia.

What people want in this case, I think, is not so much a direct analogueof a forum, but a way of collecting and following the set of gemlogposts responding to each other, but also get notification when your ownposts are replied to. Maybe this set of conventions for apps may looktoo forum-like, but it is a good suggestion for an approach to thequestion of doing that kind of notifications without trying to do aPOST-equivalent over Gemini.

-- Jason McBrayer | “Strange is the night where black stars rise,jmcbray at carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies, | but stranger still is lost Carcosa.” | ― Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow