Hi all, In service of some recent discussion about replies in Geminispace [0] [1] [2], I wanted to share a bit about a new feature on GUS. Specifically, backlinks. It's live, you can go try it out right now if you want [a], and I think it provides one possible solution to finding replies to posts in Geminispace. First, what are backlinks? Take, for example, page A. Now let's say there are three pages B, C, and D, all of which link to page A. In this situation we define B, C, and D as A's backlinks. I think this could be interesting information in a general sense, if you as a content author simply want to know what pages link to you. But since most (I think?) reply-type posts link to the original post they're replying to, that means they will get surfaced by this functionality too. So, if you want to see replies to post "foo", simply look at the backlinks for that page on GUS. I have some ideas for functionality that could be built on top of this feature, if it sticks around. For example, maybe there's finally a use for certificate auth on GUS, so folks could create "accounts," specify URLs and domains that they care about, and get some sort of notification when new backlinks are discovered for those URLs or domains. There are some definite pros and cons to this solution to the "replies in Geminispace" problem, but in the spirit of experimentation, I've built a quick version of it and put it out there for some experimentation. Please let me your thoughts! [0] gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~solderpunk/cornedbeef/replies-in-geminispace.gmi [1] gemini://carcosa.net/journal/20200529-some-replies.gmi [2] gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~shufei/phlog/20200529-Reply-Prosthet icConscience.gmi [a] documentation for the feature is at gemini://gus.guru/about - but the TLDR is: perform a GUS search, click the link to enter verbose mode, and now you should see links to backlinks pages for each result that has backlinks.
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