💾 Archived View for rawtext.club › ~sloum › geminilist › 005546.gmi captured on 2023-11-14 at 10:01:35. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Sean Conner sean at conman.org
Tue Feb 23 22:49:19 GMT 2021
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was thus said that the Great nothien at uber.space once stated:
I'm going to split it into two groups: metadata affecting presentation,
and metadata about the document.
There is another group: metadata affecting navigation.
Years ago, there was an extention for Firefox (back when I think it wasjust known as Mozilla) that would use metadata in the <HEAD> section of aweb page to construct a navigation bar for the site. The metadata included:
next next "page" in the collection previous previous page in the collection first first page in the collection last last "page" in the collection up up one level of the collection tree top top level in the collection home the entry page (might not be the same as top) about about the collection archive page listing each page in the collection search search the collection glossary list of terms used in the collection copyright copyright status of page canonical canonical link to page
Yes, these can all be just links on a page. But the idea was not toclutter the page with these links, but construct a UI element with thenavigation items. This could include a navigation bar (what I experienced),but it could also be a menu item, a popup menu, or keyboard shortcuts foreach each one, depending upon the client.
The Gemini portal at <https://portal.mozz.us> only gives us two of these:up and top.
# Metadata for the Document
What's the /point/ of standardizing a format for providing metadata
about a document? Seriously, I don't understand. What's the benefit of
letting a client know who the author is? If you, an author, want users
to know that you wrote something, just write "I wrote this". These
kinds of proposals are unnecessary. If you want it to be read properly
by a screen reader, just write in full sentences ('this was written on
the 23rd of February'). Keep it open, prevent it from turning into a
matter of convention, and think about how to solve problems /without/
extending the specification in any way. Even if it's
"backward-compatible", you're creating a rift in Gemini - see "Problems
with Conventions" below.
Such metadata could include a summary of the page, keywords, copyrightstatus, location data (location here being the location the page is about,not the location of the author or reader), time (when the page in questionwas written, when it's about, etc.) in addition to the author, in a formatthat is easy for a machine to recognize. A good example is a search enginecould use this information instead of having to attempt to identify it fromthe text alone.
# "It's Just A Suggestion/Idea"
The problem with 'just' posting ideas and suggestions and proposals like
these is that they waste everyone's time (including yours). Instead of
trying to add new, unnecessary, and unwanted features to Gemini,
Unwanted by you, others might want it. I think there are better argumentsagainst this than just "don't do it." That does nothing to convince thosethat want it to stop working on it. They might just go ahead and do itanyway.
start
creating content within it! We (and I'm speaking for a lot of people
here) are tired of dealing with new ideas from eager new Geminiauts who
keep trying (consciously or unconsciously) to reinvent the Web.
Yes. And for the first year about the *only* topic being discussed wasthe format for text/gemini. It is *still* being talked about, only notquite so much.
# The Problem with Conventions
Conventions are naturally difficult because you're politely asking
people to do something. This separates the Gemini userbase into people
who have done that thing and people who haven't. If you want to create
a new convention, /please/ think about the effect this can have,
particularly with conventions involving presentation. As others have
pointed out, every new convention threatens to make a split in the user
base, and if anyone (user or site) can for any reason prefer one side
over the other, you've begun the process of separation. Don't do that,
because we're just going to have to shoot your shit down.
Having been on this list from the beginning, I can say that the majority(I would say nearly all) of the proposals have not gone anywhere. Why? Because it's easy to make a proposal, it's apparently impossible to getanyone to actually *implenent* the damn things, even as a"proof-of-concept". That people are lazy is an incredible filter.
There were two people who came into the mailing list (at different times),incredulous that TLS was used. "It's horrible!" they said. "You should usesomething better!" they said. A simple task of taking them at face valueand saying, "Okay. Show us! Implement a server and client so we can seehow much easier and better your ideas are," worked wonders. One simplydisappeared. The other actually did the work, and withdrew the idea(because implementing crypto is not easy).
Now we have a much strong case for "Why TLS?" Just "shooting your shitdown" only serves to piss people off.
# Conclusion
Please stop.
It won't. In six months we'll have a new crop of people asking.
-spc