March 2025 ForumWG Minutes

Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.

• Julian provided a brief summary of the state of conversational contexts
  • two-pronged approach: top down (feps), bottom up (implementors)
  • IceShrimp.NET (waiting and watching)
    • Already exposes context collections, integration testing pending
  • Mitra
    • Implemented (top-level only) context collections of objects, tested and working
• Julian said 7888 is object-based contexts, 171b is activity-based contexts and notes that activity-based context can be more comprehensive (incl. likes, reactions, updates)
• a (@trwnh@mastodon.social) notes that 7888 is more generic and doesn't specify object-vs-activity; notes there is also a missing link between an object and its Create activity.
• angus (@angusmcleod@mastodon.social) notes Discourse is essentially following 7888 but wants to know how to represent likes if implementors are predominately object-based
• a: use the likes collection, evan (@evan@cosocial.ca) +1'd
• Julian noted that the bottom-up approach (implementors) is mainly focused on backfill, and identifying other implementors.
• Julian also notes that 171b implementors have made some inroads to support backfill from 7888 implementors, both FEPs are cross-compatible and we should strive to have it remain so

Freeform brainstorming session

• Goal: identify and prioritise short-to-medium term goals for the ForumWG
• Medium: Jitsi whiteboard

Unfortunately there was no note-taking during the whiteboarding session, but readers are encouraged to ask questions about items identified in the image above (or attached).

• End goal is to be able to point to a set of FEPs if someone new to AP wanted to implement threaded discussions
• Evan suggested that this would be a good report, but also recommended that a W3C explainer be created instead
• Context ownership was identified as a foundational element that is worth exploring/fep creation, as it is what multiple future discussion items would be based upon.