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Backlinks

This is a collective page of posts of various days on the topic of backlinks or replies in Gemini space. A date is at the end of each section.

Backlinks via CGI considered not very Geminic

Collecting thoughts on backlinks via (manual) CGI pingbacks.

There are some interesting posts in Geminispace as the topic of "replies" via backlinks/pingbacks currently is being discussed in Gemlogs referenced and compiled in the aggregators Antenna and Cosmos, Station, Pub, … as well as in news:comp.infosystems.gemini.

Interesting take-aways (for me) so far:

Relying on CGI is a no go, most capsules served "read-only"
Social aspect of why would I like to be notified of reactions
... in such a timely manner
... in maybe large number (considering popular Gemini presences)

I have to agree with being CGI a no go for general use. It's just not »The Gemini Way«.

About "mentions" being pushy I must say that the approach of simply adding a reply URL to a list page would not be pushy at all. With adding a ## Date Header over each received URL it would actually be »Geminic« to subscribe to this page in one's own capsule!

Collection of related posts in Cosmos

Skyjake is right about suggesting email instead, although I like the idea of staying inside the Gemini medium for simple notifications that say:

Hey, I posted something that might be a reaction to one of your posts. Just letting you know, no re-reaction expected. Cheers

So email sound a tiny bit like demanding a further reacting. (Reminds me of a hopefully long gone joke of calling someone on the landline to ask if they got the email that was just sent ;)

Still, overall a contact link sounds right to me:

Using Gemini for (static) textual content
Rely on established protocols for interaction (IRC, Mail, News, twtxt, ...)
Let the recipient of such a "mention" decide on whether to react (using either medium)

-- @ 2022-02-27 Collection

-- @ 2022-02-28 Conclusion

Addendum

solderpunk (2020-05-31) Replies in Geminispace

Actually, I quite like this approach.

Backlinks Script

Got a basic proof of concept (Bash) script working for others to submit (pingback) their reply (URL). It checks the submitted URL (fixed port for now) for Gemini link(s) back to my capsule.

Pingback Input

Exemplary Code

-- @ 2022-02-26

Backlinks on Gemini via Pingbacks

When getting to know Gemini end of 2020 I wanted backlinks, i. e. two-way linking, and thought that referers (which Gemini does not have) could have been an option to achieve backlinks -- basically Refbacks?

Since then more Gemini space search engines were established, also allowing to search/list sites linking to a given site.

Also aggregators became quite popular, i. e. well known sites listing current discussions taking place in Gemini space, for instance Antenna and Cosmos.

So instead of decentral mechanism it seems we rely pretty hard on a few hubs.

Should capsules offer a kind of pingback endpoint?

Bob writes a post (bob/bobspost) linking a post by Alice (alice/post-by-alice.gmi).
Bob wants Alice's capsule to be notified of the "reply" post.
Bob opens Alice's pingback URL at alice/.well-known/pingback and enters the URL of his post (bob/bobspost) in the INPUT.
Alice's capsule has code to check, if Bob's post really exists and whether the post links to her post (maybe even checking for a "Re: {title of Alice's post title}" as a kind of sanity check).
Alice's capsule has code to add such received URLs to the end of the article and/or a special page in her capsule.

What are issues? Too simple? Too clumsy?

Too decentral? As in: how to find new content, new capsules even ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingback

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refback

-- @ 2022-02-20

2020-12-02 Gemini backlinks

I found the idea compelling that Gemini clients would show the user, which external Gemini pages link to the current one. How should the client or the server know this? The idea was that clients send a referer when visiting a page via link, the server collects these and delivers the list of referers when requested by the client for the current page. Let's be glad for privacy reasons we do not send referers. Alternatively, a large central database like the gus.guru search engine provides the ability to search for these so-called backlinks.

Is there maybe something like webmentions?

-- @ 2020-12-02

Tags: #backlinks #pingbacks #refbacks #backlink #pingback #refback