Re: Remixing and Aggregating Task Force

Evan,

Thank you again for the massive triage process I set in sway by my
observation of unclosed issues and you embarked on handling we are now
probably more than two years down the line.

On Thu, 5 Jun 2025 at 19:43, Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name> wrote:

> We have a few projects in the Fediverse that are doing remixing and
> aggregating content and other activities from other Actors. Two good
> examples are Surf and Channel.org.
>
This is a very interesting area that I have thought about a lot over the
years. And think it really needs to be more generalized to handle and
encompass all possible use cases.

Basically theres a pipeline of four processes, that of selecting posts from
a number of feeds to a number of feeds, that of optionally filtering those
posts based on criteria, that of ordering or sorting of collected posts in
some form of automated or manual process in those feeds, and that of
posting the resulting posts to one or a number of output feeds.


> I think this is an interesting enough pattern that we should open up a
> Task Force at the SocialCG to investigate standardizing some of these
> features. Important questions to ask are:
>
>    - How should an aggregated feed appear on the Fediverse? Is it just
>    another Actor that Announces activities and content that meet its
>    requirements? Or is there another structure?
>
> Similar to, in and out boxes for continuity with the existing ActivityPub
model.


>
>    - How do we handle ordering of feeds? Some feeds might not be reverse
>    chronologically ordered, but use some other algorithmic ordering.
>
> Ideally there is full control over this. And should allow for both
automated and manual ordering.

>
>    - How can feeds be transparent about what the sources are? Actors,
>    search terms, hashtags, etc. What is coming into this feed? Can consumers
>    inspect the sources?
>
> There should be full control over visibility.

>
>    - Is the feed replicable elsewhere?
>
> This brings up the idea of relays too, yes we should allow for duplication
for both redundancy and handling workloads.

>
>
> Chairs, I'd like to propose an agenda item to discuss this possibility at
> the next CG meeting.
>
A meeting I would like to attend. Sorry I am not one for dealing with the
pragmatic after mouth of prematurely set in stone standards, hence my
absence from the process once I realized the reality of the protocol and
its implications.

> Evan
>
Aaron


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