Re: objections to webmention

On 8 June 2016 at 14:09, Ben <ben@thatmustbe.me> wrote:

> I suppose this goes back to the note vs rec description.  But I would say
> that a) you can have multiple recs in the same space and b) recs can be
> iterated on in the future.  The difference is whether we are broadcasting
> that a spec is something people are standardizing on and can implement or
> whether we are just laying groundwork for others.
>
> I don't see there is anything preventing people from being able to
> implement and use this real world, it's just missing since future feature
> young like to see.  It might be worth mentioning something in SWP to that
> effect, which I think is a better way to solve your issue
>
Right, thanks for putting your point across in a constructive way.  One
thing Id like to demonstrate next is how this problem can be solved using
existing w3c RECs, for those not already familiar.  Then compare that to
what is in webmention.

Ben, Im curious at this point.  If I were able to demonstrate linked data
being used by millions of sites and 100s of millions of profiles, and show
a relatively minor way to use *either* webmention as it is now with form
encoded variables, but *also* a relatively simple 3 object JSON structure
that could do the same with linked data, would you find this valuable?


> On Jun 8, 2016 7:54 AM, "Melvin Carvalho" <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 8 June 2016 at 13:12, Ben <ben@thatmustbe.me> wrote:
>>
>>> > My recommendation at this point, is for this work to be a Note, and
>>> leave the door open for further standardization.
>>>
>>> Isn't that effectively saying you want it resolved outside of the
>>> working group?
>>>
>> No no!
>>
>> I think it's good work, in general.  Im happy that it was done.  Ideal
>> way is to resolve issues here.  It's slightly awkward with tantek having
>> boycotted the mailing list, but I dont give up hope!
>>
>> Just not seeing why it should be REC, rather than Note, at this point.
>>
>> What I'd like to see is webmention having a mapping to linked data,
>> interoperate with that, and the millions of sites that use it (including
>> facebook and google), and also to have its form encoded version, seems to
>> be the best of all worlds.
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jun 8, 2016 6:59 AM, "Melvin Carvalho" <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 8 June 2016 at 11:28, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 4 June 2016 at 02:02, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 06/03/2016 07:15 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've attempted to communicate for the last year, on irc and in aarons
>>>>>> github area, but its sometimes been not an optimal use of time.  So I'd
>>>>>> like to formulate my objections to webmention here, for further review,
>>>>>> with hopefully some possible solutions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Melvin,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You've caught me at an excellent time to write a detailed reply --
>>>>>> I'm on the plane to the F2F meeting.  This is just the right kind of work
>>>>>> for this situation.  Hopefully this reply will make everything more clear.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It looks to me like your objections here are based on your design
>>>>>> sense, your general sense of what good designs look like, rather than on
>>>>>> specific concerns about use cases that can be addressed with one design
>>>>>> versus another.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the most recent previous discussion on this topic, at
>>>>>> https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention/issues/39, I repeatedly asked
>>>>>> you to provide specific use cases, to explain how developers/users would be
>>>>>> affected by some change you're proposing.    I haven't seen an answer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Perhaps you thought I was just doing that as way of dismissing you,
>>>>>> of giving you busy work?    That's not the case.    I was doing it because
>>>>>> by arguing from uses cases, a group has a reasonable chance of reaching
>>>>>> consensus.  Arguing from design sense pretty much never leads to
>>>>>> consensus.   It's a bit like the difference between science and religion.
>>>>>> With the scientific method, disagreements can usually be settled by
>>>>>> replicating experiments and developing new ones.   Not so much with
>>>>>> religion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, again, I'll say if you want to persuade the group of anything, I
>>>>>> think you're going to have to lay out a use case.    I suggest taking some
>>>>>> part of one of the agreed-upon users stories and show how the CR version of
>>>>>> Webmention doesn't work very well but some alternate version you're
>>>>>> proposing does.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Personally, I don't think you'll be able to do this.  I've been
>>>>>> thinking about this space, a lot, for years, and I don't see the issues
>>>>>> you're raising as the kind of issues that could lead to material use
>>>>>> cases.   But you're welcome to try.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A key question is what you're trying to do here.    If you want to
>>>>>> improve Webmention, that's probably the way to do it.   If you just want to
>>>>>> be a pain to the WG, you could raise a formal objection.   (I'm not going
>>>>>> to consider this "objection" a "formal objection" unless you specifically
>>>>>> use that phrase.)  But unless you can be more clear in the way I suggest
>>>>>> above, I don't think that'll do anyone any good.   Normally a Formal
>>>>>> Objection is used to make a Working Group spend some time seriously
>>>>>> reconsidering some decision it made.   But I don't see a decision the WG
>>>>>> has made around Webmention that it might change during a reconsideration,
>>>>>> unless some new information was presented.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for responding to my concerns.
>>>>>
>>>>> I was glad to learn that I am not the only person in the WG that has
>>>>> reservations on this work.
>>>>>
>>>>> I dont feel the concerns have been addressed, other than the hand
>>>>> waiving, "I dont find that compelling" argument, which can be said about
>>>>> anything.  I find this dismissive, and in this group, unfortunately I am
>>>>> left with the feeling of relatively little recourse.
>>>>>
>>>>> I will leave this thread open a while to gather feedback and I think
>>>>> the advice is to document exactly what the concerns are and put them in a
>>>>> document, so they can be understood.  Which I have begun to do.  Much will
>>>>> depend on how much time I have to do this.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, I think the issue here is that there are a number of people in
>>>>> this group.  Some are coding regularly in this space, and some are familiar
>>>>> with existing W3C standards that solve this problem, but few are both.  So
>>>>> perhaps that can also be documented.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> To clarify this is not a "formal" objection, because:
>>>>
>>>> 1 It would need to be clearly documented
>>>> 2 It would need to be worthy of the attention of a wider audience
>>>> (director + w3c member) -- that's not clear to me at this point
>>>> 3 It would need fail to be resolved in the WG (I think we still have
>>>> space to do that)
>>>>
>>>> I dont think 1/2/3 are currently met at this time.  So I will try and
>>>> build out (1) because I think there are legitimate concerns around interop
>>>>
>>>> My recommendation at this point, is for this work to be a Note, and
>>>> leave the door open for further standardization.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Another thing you could do is help move forward one of the
>>>>>> alternatives to Webmention.    Rhiaro mentioned in #39 how activitypub
>>>>>> might be just what you want, and I understand there are several other
>>>>>> possible directions one could go.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A few more comments below, but the important part of my reply here is
>>>>>> done.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Universality
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Axiom 0 of the webstates that we should use URIs to name things.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I assume you're referring to TimBL's DesignIssues/Axioms document?
>>>>>> That was written 20 years ago and reflects only one person's opinion.   The
>>>>>> W3C Recommendation in this space, a few years later, which resulted from
>>>>>> extensive discussion among TimBL, the appointed and elected members of TAG,
>>>>>> and many members of the public, was AWWW.     I think you'll find AWWW
>>>>>> includes a rather more restrictive and realistic version of this axiom:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2.1. Benefits of URIs
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The choice of syntax for global identifiers is somewhat arbitrary; it
>>>>>> is their global scope that is important. The Uniform Resource
>>>>>> Identifier, [URI <https://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#URI>], has been
>>>>>> successfully deployed since the creation of the Web. There are substantial
>>>>>> benefits to participating in the existing network of URIs, including
>>>>>> linking, bookmarking, caching, and indexing by search engines, and there
>>>>>> are substantial costs to creating a new identification system that has the
>>>>>> same properties as URIs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Good practice: Identify with URIs
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To benefit from and increase the value of the World Wide Web, agents
>>>>>> should provide URIs as identifiers for resources.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A resource should have an associated URI if another party might
>>>>>> reasonably want to create a hypertext link to it, make or refute assertions
>>>>>> about it, retrieve or cache a representation of it, include all or part of
>>>>>> it by reference into another representation, annotate it, or perform other
>>>>>> operations on it. Software developers should expect that sharing URIs
>>>>>> across applications will be useful, even if that utility is not initially
>>>>>> evident. The TAG finding "URIs, Addressability, and the use of HTTP
>>>>>> GET and POST <http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/whenToUseGet.html>" discusses
>>>>>> additional benefits and considerations of URI addressability.
>>>>>> From https://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/ <https://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think it's pretty hard to argue that the strings "source" and
>>>>>> "target" in Webmention posts should be URIs based on this advice.   For the
>>>>>> cases where one would want them to be URIs, a standard mapping is
>>>>>> provided.  You could view Webmention as using URIs for this, but during the
>>>>>> POST, the namespace is left implicit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Most standards I know at the W3C adhere to this,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does HTML?   Does CSS?   Do any of the HTML5 APIs?    Can you name a
>>>>>> non-RDF spec that does?      Probably best to stay away from XML specs,
>>>>>> since their use of URIs is highly contentious.   (As I understand it, XML
>>>>>> only uses URIs as web addresses and unique identifiers, not to name
>>>>>> things.   The difference is perhaps pedantic, but it's clear XML specs
>>>>>> don't align with the Linked Data Principles, which I think TimBL would
>>>>>> agree subsumes Axiom 0 in his own personal design sense.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Probably not worth the time to go through this, but if I had to
>>>>>> guess, I'd say by count 10% of W3C specs adhere to this (my groups like
>>>>>> RDF, OWL, and RIF tended to produce a dozen specs at a time) and by user
>>>>>> base, 0.001% of the W3C specs adhere to this.   The weight of success is
>>>>>> not on the side of this axiom, so it's not going to convince anyone.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> webmention does not use URIs for the source and target parameters.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> URIs can be derived out of band by reading the spec and using a
>>>>>> prefix, but this is not ideal.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here's where, if you want to convince anyone, you have to tell a
>>>>>> story about something that's important and significantly easier with source
>>>>>> and target being URIs on the wire.   I just don't see it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2. Using form encoded messaging for the social web
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Views on this differ, but IMHO it's very clear that messaging over
>>>>>> the social web according to our charter should be in JSON.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The chairs and I have addressed the charter issue elsewhere.  Please
>>>>>> keep charter discussions in separate threads, since they involve different
>>>>>> people and are reviewed differently.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Webmention doesnt do this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To the extent that it's "just a signaling protocol" I suppose you
>>>>>> could "get away with it".  But I dont think webmention is by any means just
>>>>>> a signaling protocol.  It's an attempt to standardize messaging on the
>>>>>> social web.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> How can you claim Webmention is "an attempt to standardize
>>>>>> messaging"?   I don't see that in the spec.  I haven't heard that from the
>>>>>> WG.   I haven't heard that from the implementors.   I haven't heard that
>>>>>> from the users.   Where are you getting that?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I do, however, see how it could be *used* as part of a general
>>>>>> messaging protocol:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. System "Alice" wants to send system "Bob" some message M1
>>>>>> 2. Alice puts M1 on the web at URL U1, being sure to include some
>>>>>> metadata the links to Bob.    At a minimum, something like "To: Bob" (where
>>>>>> Bob is a URL)
>>>>>> 3. Alice does the Webmention thing, "mentioning" U1 to Bob
>>>>>> 4. Bob gets the mention, dereferences U1, reads M1
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, in this sense, Webmention could be a key part of a web messaging
>>>>>> protocol.   It's has one advantage over the much simpler approach of "Alice
>>>>>> POSTS M1 to Bob", namely that Alice is confirmed as the sender.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But:
>>>>>> - This isn't what Webmention was designed for; it's not clear anyone
>>>>>> actually wants to use it for this.
>>>>>> - If you do this, the actual message can be JSON or whatever Alice
>>>>>> wants.   The *message* is M1, published at U1, *not* the form-encoded
>>>>>> Webmention that was posted to Bob.
>>>>>> - If you want to do this, consider instead just POSTing M1 to Bob
>>>>>> using some kind of authentication for Alice (eg OpenID Connect or WebID-TLS)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, I see no argument here against the current design of  Webmention.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Possible Solutions
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Support JSON messaging -- the W3C has innovated in this area with
>>>>>> some success
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2. If we want to pass around messages using forms we should make the
>>>>>> general case robust, scalable, extensible, interoperable and universal, and
>>>>>> have webmention be an instance of such a system.  That's possibly outside
>>>>>> the scope and timing of this WG, I dont know.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm not sure what those are solutions to, but they're probably not
>>>>>> the problems Webmention is intended to solve.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Im still being guided as to the difference between the REC and Note
>>>>>> tracks, but I'll put the suggestion out there to move webmention to a note,
>>>>>> or move it back from CR.  I'm not an expert on this aspect of W3C process,
>>>>>> but I'd like to raise these concerns to a wider audience, in particular, to
>>>>>> folks outside the indieweb community.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you want people to pay attention to these concerns, either inside
>>>>>> or outside the WG, I think you're going to have to develop a simple story
>>>>>> about a problem that's solved with your modified Webmention and not solved
>>>>>> with Webmention.   Or a story about how Webmention being adopted would do
>>>>>> real harm to someone.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Frankly, I think you can find much better uses for your time if you
>>>>>> want to work in this space, eg helping with activitypub.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>         -- Sandro
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>