Re: Federated/Distributed @mentions

Theoretically I'd implement plain-text, HTML and JSON-LD versions, and
these suggestions seem reasonable. (In practice, I'd also add mf2 markup,
but of course, this is perfectly compatible with that.)

I guess the thing I'm still concerned about is denoting mentions with an
@-sign. Is that a convention we're happy to accept across all platforms? Is
there a way for other platforms to say "I actually use a + or a ~ instead"?


On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 4:53 PM, James M Snell <jasnell@gmail.com> wrote:

> While I'm sympathetic to the HTML-markup approach being "the most
> flexible" option, I definitely question whether it's the right answer
> in all cases. For instance, if I'm sending a JSON-formatted push
> notification to a native mobile application, why would I force the
> application to use an HTML parser to extract the necessary metadata
> from a short snippet of text when a regex would do just fine? Second,
> it can become extremely verbose. Yes, I'll grant that when the
> @mention is actually rendered to the user in HTML it ought to be
> converted to a microdata/microformat type structure, but it should be
> possible to do in "plain text" also.
>
> Perhaps, then, we define things so that they can be represented both
> ways, with a simple translation between them:
>
> Mentions:
>
> In plain-text:
>   @[http://www.twitter.com/jasnell|jasnell]
>
> In HTML:
>   <span itemscope itemtype="http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Mention">
>     <a itemprop="href" href="http://www.twitter.com/jasnell">
>       <span itemprop="displayName">jasnell</span>
>     </a>
>   </span>
>
>   (or)
>
>   <span vocab="http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#" typeof="Mention">
>     <a property="href" href="http://www.twitter.com/jasnell">
>       <span property="displayName">jasnell</span>
>     </a>
>   </span>
>
> In JSON-LD:
>
> {
>   "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
>   "@type": "Mention",
>   "href": "http://www.twitter.com/jasnell",
>   "displayName": "jasnell"
> }
>
> Hashtags:
>
> In plain-text:
>   #[http://www.twitter.com/hashtags/socialwg|socialwg]
>
> In HTML:
>   <span itemscope itemtype="http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Tag">
>     <a itemprop="href" href="http://www.twitter.com/hashtags/socialwg">
>       <span itemprop="displayName">socialwg</span>
>     </a>
>   </span>
>
>   (or)
>
>   <span vocab="http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#" typeof="Tag">
>     <a property="href" href="http://www.twitter.com/hashtags/socialwg">
>       <span property="displayName">socialwg</span>
>     </a>
>   </span>
>
> In JSON-LD:
>
> {
>   "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
>   "@type": "Tag",
>   "href": "http://www.twitter.com/hashtags/socialwg",
>   "displayName": "socialwg"
> }
>
> - James
>
> On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 4:21 AM, Ben Werdmüller <ben@withknown.com> wrote:
> >
> > We've been considering various options for this in Known. I strongly
> > disagree with using Markdown or similar syntax for human-readable
> content,
> > because that creates a burden to support a wholly different notation in
> > applications that are almost certainly web-based at some level. I do
> think
> > HTML with embedded microformats / microdata is the most flexible option
> for
> > this scenario. (It also doesn't tie applications into Twitter-style
> @-syntax
> > - there's no need to let them dictate the convention.)
> >
> > Dave's approach for structured data also makes sense to me. You include
> the
> > bare content, and then metadata that allows you to apply your own markup,
> > rather than including some other microsyntax in bare text. That again
> gives
> > application developers the most flexibility, although I would go so far
> as
> > to change "username" to "@foo" in his example, to also allow different
> > notations. It then becomes a simple search and replace, with a strong
> > suggestion that usernames are prefixed with some notation to prevent
> > accidents with greedy searches.
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 7:36 PM, Dave Wilkinson <wilkie@xomb.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> How does this work when people put HTML as the content? Does this get
> >> parsed before or after entities are parsed? What happens when agents
> that
> >> see this as html don't parse them out?
> >>
> >> You'd have to really lock down how to parse the content field and what
> >> is/isn't acceptable there and what to do to remove ambiguity when you
> >> actually want some of that syntax to be untouched.
> >>
> >> I'd assume this isn't about routing. We have solutions for that. You
> just
> >> tag the object with who is mentioned, who it is going to, what it is in
> >> reply to, etc.
> >>
> >> This is just about marking up the content, which can currently be in any
> >> form? Right now, you'd just have "@foo" in your content, and the object
> >> would have an array of mentions which you would use to map the username
> to a
> >> domain and you would just mark it up as you need to. The convention is
> to
> >> look for an @ sign, although we don't (nobody does) specify the valid
> >> characters for a handle.
> >>
> >> The only better way I can think of is not to enforce some new markup
> >> language semantics within already arbitrary markup, but rather to just
> >> simply place in that mentions array the position and length of the
> substring
> >> in the content that represents the handle. Then I'd just replace that
> >> substring with my markup, whatever that is for my purpose, or if I don't
> >> care, I just display the content with whatever the publisher cared to
> use
> >> ("<a></a>" tag, @foo, +foo, etc) and it would already be presentable.
> Sooooo
> >> simple.
> >>
> >> My basic thesis: it's not content, it's metadata. while the html
> >> microformat folks can get away with it, it seems very out of place here.
> >>
> >> (I admit I am not able to write AS2 just from memory)
> >>
> >> {
> >>   "content": "Hello @foo",
> >>   "mentions": [{
> >>     "type": "person",
> >>     "url": "http://example.com/foo
> >>     "displayName": "Foo Bar"
> >>     "username": "foo",
> >>     "mentionedAt": [6, 4]
> >>   }]
> >> }
> >>
> >> I can then turn that into "Hello <a href='http://example.com/foo'>Foo
> >> Bar</a>" or "Hello @<a href='http://example.com/foo'>foo</a>" or
> "Hello +<a
> >> href='http://example.com/foo'>foo</a>" or whatever. Conversely, if it
> is
> >> html in the content, the substring would be the entire anchor tag,
> maybe. It
> >> would be very obvious that it would always indicate the position in the
> >> content before any processing is done.
> >>
> >> On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 2:14 PM, Matthew Marum <
> vp-projects@opensocial.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The use of @[id|label].
> >>>
> >>> Matt
> >>>
> >>> On 12/3/14, 12:48 PM, "James M Snell" <jasnell@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> >On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 9:25 AM, Matthew Marum
> >>> ><vp-projects@opensocial.org> wrote:
> >>> >[snip]
> >>> >>
> >>> >> "@[Users:seed_paul_id:Paul] can you please help with this
> >>> >> opportunity?"
> >>> >>
> >>> >>
> >>> >> The first two parts form a unique identifier within a Sugar instance
> >>> >> and
> >>> >> the final part is the display label.  Frankly, I’m not sure why we
> >>> >> wouldn’t use the precedent that Twitter API has established here in
> >>> >>terms
> >>> >> of syntax.  I’ll leave any potential legal concerns to the lawyers.
> >>> >>
> >>> >
> >>> >Which syntax specifically from the Twitter API?
> >>> >
> >>> >- James
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ben Werdmuller
> > CEO & co-founder, Known
> > withknown.com | werd.io
> > +1 (312) 488-9373
> >
> > Known, Inc | 421 Bryant St | San Francisco, CA 94107
>



-- 
*Ben Werdmuller*
CEO & co-founder, Known
withknown.com | werd.io
<http://goog_1933028737>
+1 (312) 488-9373

Known, Inc | 421 Bryant St | San Francisco, CA 94107