Re: CfC: ActivityPub errata on inconsistencies in the side effects of receiving a Follow activity

I'm actually sitting here typing some concerns, so I want to hit send since
Evan's on the thread and to raise the concern to the chair that this CfC
removes a requirement for actors to consent to being added to a followers
collection, which we should all object to both as a design choice and
because of how it affects conformance. This change should not be made
lightly.

It's extremely hard to determine the impact of these amendments to spec
text without an explanation of the error that is attempted to be corrected.

I will object to any erratum that does not include a description of the
error in plain language to help contextualize any proposed candidate
correction.
If you don't label candidate corrections in your erratum, it should be
assumed that your proposed spec changes are recommendations and not agreed
upon candidate corrections.

That applies here too: We do not have consensus on this proposed erratum
because this proposed erratum does not explain the error it is attempting
to correct.

Since it appears you are asking for agreement on changing normative text
(in this and several other cases), assuming your erratum do indeed contain
candidate corrections, what class of changes
<https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#correction-classes> you are proposing.

This appears to be class 3 since your are either recommending or fully
proposing to remove a requirement in the spec, specifically the requirement
(and an additional recommendation) in section 7.5.

I object to removing the requirement " In the case of a Reject, the
server *MUST
NOT* add the actor to the object actor's Followers Collection
<https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#followers>." in section 7.5.
It is important that an actor has a chance to consent to being added to
another actor's followers collection.


On Fri, May 30, 2025 at 9:48 AM Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name> wrote:

> Issue #320 in the ActivityPub repository points out a discrepancy between
> sections 5.3 and section 7.5 of the document:
>
> https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/320
>
> Roughly, the problem is that one section describes the `followers`
> collection as every actor that has sent a Follow activity; the other
> section describes the approval process for being added to `followers`.
>
> To correct this problem, during issue triage, I've added two proposed
> errata:
>
> https://www.w3.org/wiki/ActivityPub_errata/Proposed
>
> The first is:
>
>    - Section 5.3 "Followers Collection" should begin, *Every actor SHOULD
>    have a followers collection. This is where one would find a list of all the
>    actors that are following the actor.*
>
> The second:
>
>    - In section 7.5 "Follow Activity", the second paragraph is incorrect,
>    and should be removed.
>
> This is a call for consensus for adding these two errata to our errata
> page for ActivityPub:
>
> https://www.w3.org/wiki/ActivityPub_errata
>
> If, in 14 days, we have no objections on the list, the errata will be
> added. I'll also apply the changes described to the "editor's draft" of the
> document.
>
> Evan
>
>
>