#indiewebcamp 2011-10-10

2011-10-10 UTC
josephboyle1, brennannovak, DawnFoster, peck_lx_, abki|home, abki_, tantek, danbri, spinnerin and adam_w joined the channel
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adam_w Hi, all
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adam_w came across your website full of great ideas
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adam_w and can't post cos there's some crazy openid requirement
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tantek adam_w - yes, that's the bar for independence to join the wiki - so far it's been extremely effective in preventing spam.
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adam_w captcha isn't good enough?
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tantek no
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adam_w I think that's an unacceptable requirement
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tantek and frankly, to independents, captcha is worse
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tantek adam_w do you have your own domain?
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adam_w takes tech knowledge and control of a net box
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adam_w I could probably pass the muster
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adam_w but that's not the point!
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adam_w or at least an explanation of this position?
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tantek it's far easier than that with delegation
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tantek http://indiewebcamp.com/How_to_set_up_OpenID_on_your_own_domain
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tantek but yes, that's a big part of the point
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adam_w sorry, what i'm saying is that a lot of smart people just don't have the tech background to do this
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tantek you must be *this* independent in order to contribute
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adam_w can you state that on the site somewhere?
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tantek it's right there on the login screen
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tantek that link
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tantek http://indiewebcamp.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:OpenIDLogin&returnto=Main_Page
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adam_w I see now
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adam_w but there's no explanation??
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adam_w I'm not trying to be a jerk, just pointing out that this should be a problematic decision for you
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tantek what should be problematic?
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adam_w for example, it's dangerous for some people to reveal their identity
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tantek why?
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adam_w repressive governments for example
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adam_w places where people really need a "smallest federated wiki"
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adam_w IMO you're marginalizing yourselves
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adam_w probably eliminating 90% of contributors
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adam_w openid is a fad...
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tantek openid is *what works today*
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tantek even a "smallest federated wiki" needs a notion of identity to combat spam etc.
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adam_w OID is cool. but to make my point, have you gotten any contributions from people you didn't already know?
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tantek adam_w - unfortunately experience has shown that 90% of contributors are mostly talk - very little create.
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tantek adam_w - plenty
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adam_w okay so you have decreased your odds of finding that 10% down to 1%
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adam_w unless you assume that people with openid == creators
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tantek having setup your own domain with openid of some sort increases the likelihood that you actually get things done rather than just talk
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tantek it's been a very good filter
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adam_w a filter to find coders...
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tantek in comparison to say, the attendees of IIW
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adam_w sorry, IIW?
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tantek a filter to find coders who are living and breathing an independent existence on the web, dogfooding their own code
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tantek that's far more valuable
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tantek than just random coders
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adam_w You know
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tantek who may make up features just to code them for coding's sake
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adam_w there's something to what you're saying
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tantek when it's your own site, you prioritize
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adam_w as someone who has helped start orgs
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adam_w you want the best first...
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tantek you code/build/ship only what's necessary first
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adam_w all i'm asking right now is that you open this discussion
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adam_w i think it's critical
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tantek people that scratch their own iteches
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tantek why?
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adam_w you're missing a whole crowd of potential collaborators with for example privacy concerns
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tantek opening a discussion to a certain point just introduces more noise
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tantek have such potential collaborators with for example privacy concerns built anything?
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adam_w this is elitism, no?
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tantek no, it's create-ism
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tantek it's build-ism
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tantek anti-talkism
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adam_w you may have nailed it with that last one
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tantek my experience has been that typical potential collaborators with for example privacy concerns are nearly all talk, very little code/build
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tantek having wasted plenty of hours with plenty of smart people in rooms discussing such things
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tantek they just go in circles
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tantek so yeah, we are deliberately filtering out unproductive potential collaborators
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tantek if they're productive, they'll be productive enough to setup a domain with openID
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tantek edited /How_to_set_up_OpenID_on_your_own_domain (+304) "put reasoning at top, provide intro, explanation of options, put easier/simpler option first." (view diff)
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tantek adam_w, thanks for the feedback / request for more explanation via the login page - I've made a bunch of changes accordingly.
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adam_w I don't know what i can say re: build-ism / anti-talkism
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adam_w you just don't feed the trolls
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adam_w is how everybody else handles this
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adam_w you also exclude the thinkers
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adam_w you want only people who agree with everything you are doing?
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adam_w I agree with about 75%
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tantek right, we are deliberately excluding people who only think and don't build
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tantek there are plenty of other forums for them
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tantek first result google for IIW = http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com/
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adam_w OID requirement is an arbitrary way to "filter"
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tantek no - we want builders. not talk-only-ers.
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adam_w how about filter people on their real merits
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tantek plenty of disagreement among builders
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adam_w anyway, pleased to meet you
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tantek as we had at the first IndieWebCamp - check out the session notes. http://indiewebcamp.com/2011/Schedule (click on each session for notes from that session)
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adam_w sorry we started on that foot
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tantek building is *real merit*
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tantek that's where we disagree
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adam_w I have closely aligned projects i want to share
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tantek talking only is insufficient
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tantek and is mostly noise
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tantek you just don't like how high we've set the bar
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adam_w I don't care what you do with the web site but true champions of openness first and before "open" want to make "accessible"
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tantek and frankly, we want people with an *indie* focus
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tantek accessible also means filtering out noise
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tantek noise = inaccesible
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adam_w Frankly I don't think you're gonna have a problem with a flood of well-meaning idiots
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tantek actually, past efforts have
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tantek 100%
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adam_w the site is really marginal, if I hadn't met Ward Cunningham this week i never would have heard about
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tantek or rather
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tantek well-meaning talkers who don't build anything
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tantek they overwhelm such things as IIW
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adam_w okay i got your point
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tantek and even the invite-only 2010 Federated Social Web Summit in Portland
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tantek *all* discussion related to privacy were 99.99% talk
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tantek and very little coding/building by any of the participants
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adam_w I agree with you: it's all about building the correct structure
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adam_w so have a Privacy chat room for the nuts
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tantek so no - the overwhelming experience is that yes, when you "open it up" as you say, you get a flood of well-meaning talkers who don't build
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tantek IIW serves that purpose
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tantek no need to reinvent it
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tantek (Privacy chat room for the nuts)
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tantek enough of us who do actually code/build wanted to see what happened when we got those people in a room to the exclusion of the noisy talkers
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tantek and the results were quite awesome
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tantek e.g. Ward's smallest federated wiki
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tantek productivity has more to do with focus and exclusion of noise/distraction than it has to do with maxing out number of participants in a discussion.
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adam_w I totally disagree with your approach. That's fine, I do sympathize with your perceived fears.
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adam_w The name for the function openid serves is "security through obscurity"
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tantek they're not just perceived - I've seen it happen over and over
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tantek please mischaracterizing things as theoretical
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tantek they're not fears, they're facts
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tantek historical experience
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adam_w I apologize
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tantek believe me, I've tried and participated in far more "open" as you say approaches for years
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tantek indiewebcamp.com was an experiment in what happens when we raise the bar and make it more exclusive based on the merit of being a creator/builder, on your own domain
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adam_w (i said "accessible" actually)
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tantek and the results have been quite good so far
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tantek security through obscurity has to do with secrecy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
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tantek nothing secret about how indiewebcamp.com works
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adam_w You want only coders with their own domain. fine, they can figure it out,
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adam_w but for say a journalist you have invoked magic and secrets they will not understand
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tantek yes, I used "coders" as a shorthand for all creators
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tantek design, ux, and programming
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tantek why should journalists get special consideration to editing indiewebcamp.com?
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tantek and yes, often what designers, uxers, coders do is called "magic" - especially when done well
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adam_w I would much rather have an open discussion about this.
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adam_w For one, I _as a developer_ have a problem with what I perceive to be an elitist and arbitrary decision
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adam_w honestly it inhibited me from contributing already, the spirit struck, but I got bogged down with some technical task of installing an "open" id server which annoyed me
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adam_w And inhibited me from a social perspective, cos I disagree with you about the hortus conclusus
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adam_w I think you have made a walled garden
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tantek nope - plenty of non-developers have successfully figured out openid-delegation
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tantek and yes, you're right to be frustrated with installing an OpenID server
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tantek that was the fault of that page for listing that first, and that's been corrected
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tantek OpenID delegation should take you mere minutes
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tantek and is useful far beyond indiewebcamp.com
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tantek you can then use your domain even on sites like blogger, oreilly.com etc.
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adam_w no i have written code to interface with that crap, transparent multi-server login
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adam_w and i disagree with it
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tantek you just don't like openid?
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tantek I agree it's far from ideal
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tantek it's just the most well deployed distributed identity system so far
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tantek I agree we can do better
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tantek but we have to bootstrap from something
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adam_w once again, A) it's hard for luddites to deal with, and B) real identies are not for everyone
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adam_w great idea though
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tantek once again, no, it's not hard for non-coders to deal with (plenty have succeeded)
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tantek and b ) - don't confuse a domain and "real names/identities" - they're not the same thing
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adam_w but aren't you suspicious that it fits into government push for trusted online identity??
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tantek sorry - you're going to need to provide some URL documentation of an assertion like that
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tantek and btw - note that this IRC channel doesn't require openid
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adam_w (and on a tangent, my real name is attached to an hour of chat during paid working hours. sucks for me.)
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tantek :)
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tantek and is publicly/openly logged
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tantek so there is that, for folks that just want to chat
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adam_w https://openid.net/tag/government/
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adam_w I am indie! We agree to disagree! Can you please open your system to other people who disagree but might have something valuable to contribute? Can you really make an a priori assumption about who is talking and who is doing?
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tantek do you have an alternative objective criteria for "indie"? perhaps you could blog it.
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adam_w I am saying, here is one example of a case where your criteria fail.
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tantek not at all - any filter will likely have some number of false positives
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tantek doesn't mean the filter isn't helping
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adam_w US National Strategy on Trusted Identity in Cyberspace
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tantek interesting re: openid and potential government adoption thereof
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adam_w doesn't that make your indie skins crawl??
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adam_w ok sorry crossed your message
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tantek yes - we need to improve on openid
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adam_w trusted platform module will deprecate openid, i'm sure
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tantek there's been many claims about what will do what in the future of identity
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tantek in my experience, such claims tend to be about 99% wrong
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tantek and perhaps 1% lucky
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adam_w anyway you need geeks
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adam_w you also need political thinkers
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tantek we have geeks
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adam_w politics = talk
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tantek not when it becomes noise
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tantek then we don't want it
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tantek we don't need noise
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tantek most talk = noise
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adam_w OK I'm about to start my first blog and paste this convo, these are really wild assertions
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tantek no need to paste - link: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2011-10-10
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adam_w aren't you making software to enable people to talk more? in private and public?
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tantek look at any web standards list - most of the talk is noise
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adam_w you are on a wiki platform
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tantek no, not wild assertions
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adam_w it feels really weird that wikipedia is open to anonymous posters and you are closed
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adam_w just a gut feeling
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tantek wikipedia has more admins
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tantek thus can have a lower barrier to spamming
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adam_w correct
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tantek experience has shown (e.g.microformats.org) that without that critical mass, spammers / talkers can waste too much time
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tantek indiewebcamp.com has been refreshingly light on the admin load
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adam_w you are really muddying your argument by saying talkers == smappers
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adam_w spammers
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tantek it's a spectrum
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adam_w so we look too crazy here for anyone else to jump in but would you like to open this discussion or is the issue closed in your mind...
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tantek indiewebcamp.com is all in the public domain, you're welcome to fork it, apply your own rules and try to do a better job
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tantek the IRC channel is open = open discussion
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adam_w It would be sad to fork
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adam_w I want to align my projects with IWC developers own work.
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adam_w for example, hybrid online/offline mediawiki
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adam_w and a distributed wiki like Ward's
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tantek I believe github.com enables you to do that
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tantek and then you can ask Ward (or anyone here in IRC) to add a link for you
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adam_w no i need to coordinate basic aspects of the apps
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adam_w need communication
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tantek you are communicating, here in IRC
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adam_w I want these projects to be interoperable
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tantek interoperability is a good goal
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adam_w so am looking for a forum (not instantaneous medium) to discuss what direction we are heading in
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adam_w you have a community of great people
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adam_w and an elitist method of keeping community small
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adam_w artificial
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adam_w imposed by some unexplained process
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tantek not elitist - merit based on ability/willingness to build/create in the open, on your own domain, and dogfood
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adam_w I feel like we're both copy n pasting lines from above. Do you have a suggestion for continuing this with a broader group of people?
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tantek but I've already explained that, and you're repeating the same arguments. so I'm going to drop off.
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tantek you're assuming a broader group of people is a good thing.
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tantek you've demonstrated quite a bit of my point about talkers actually - can you point to anything useful you've provided in the above IRC log towards building the indieweb? http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2011-10-10
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adam_w really?
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adam_w To summarize, "open your doors to people who might surprise you with their thoughts and work"
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adam_w the answer was a very clear, "other people are stupid and loud"
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tantek never said stupid - that's a strawman argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
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tantek never said loud either also a strawman
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tantek if you want to summarize/quote an answer - please use the logs rather than engaging in fallacious arguments. http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2011-10-10
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adam_w I don't want to quote you just to say something nasty. I want you to reconsider your "filter" as you call it
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abki|home interesting discussion
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catsup tantek: what does it mean, 'dogfooding their own code'?
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abki|home using their own app
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tantek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
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abki|home anyone intersested in IWC can setup a domain name + openid this is false barrier
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abki|home it looks more like a psycological barrier than anything else
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catsup oh, having own domain
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catsup is the filter
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abki|home I mean own domain
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catsup i didn't do it
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catsup for a silly reason
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catsup i mean, set up openid
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catsup if you want to hear about one coder who was filtered out
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abki|home filtered like evicted ?
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abki|home "filtered out" means evicted ?
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catsup i tried to use 'apt-get install gracie' on my dreamhost VPS but it used up all the memory and killed the machine... dreamhost is so messed up now, when it runs out of memory, that it is a disaster... so i didn't go through with openid
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abki|home you can delegate
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tantek a simple hCard index.html file with OpenID delegation works just fine.
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tantek always wonders how developers make things so much harder for themselves than they need to. "apt-get install gracie" - for reals?!?
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catsup why is that hard?
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catsup i don't want to 'delegate' anything anyway
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catsup i thought that was the point!
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tantek sure, the more indie the better. but start pragmatic and simple, get that working, then try advancing.
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catsup that does not make much sense to me, it's just more work
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catsup the real problem is that i delegated to a VPS in the first place!
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catsup now look, this reminded me, and i got gracied running
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tantek odd - editing / uploading a single HTML file is pretty minimal work. plenty of non-developers get it. curious that so many developers want to dive into admin things, config things, command line things. etc. etc. all the while pretending that *those* things aren't more work.
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catsup but that is different from what you said
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catsup what you said was, "do A. then, replace A with B" which strikes me as more work than "do B"
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abki|home it can work for someone like me that would like to contribute but is not ready to release yet
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abki|home that said, I don't know what to contribute except bugs
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abki|home s/bugs/code ;)
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Loqi abki|home meant to say: that said, I don't know what to contribute except code ;)
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abki|home I have a problem I'd like to solve
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abki|home it's related to "+1", "I read it", "share it (with)" etc... I don't know the right term to describe them, but let's call them actions
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tantek catsup - "do A. then, replace A with B" is often less work than "do B" because sometimes after doing A you find you don't need B, or doing A teaches you something that saves you more time doing B subsequently than you spent doing A in the first place. it's a common pattern in education, user interfaces typically refer to this as progressive disclosure, etc.
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tantek abki - indeed - "web actions" even - blog post on this very subject (might be old news to you) http://tantek.com/2011/220/b1/web-actions-a-new-building-block
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abki|home I read this again
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abki|home it's not a question actually
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abki|home web actions need an endpoint to be exectuted on, and me as an user, I don't want to login with openid in each website I want to interact with so it would be best if the browser could provide that information
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tantek abki - indeed
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abki|home s/I don't want to login/I don't want to login or enter the url of my website/
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Loqi abki|home meant to say: web actions need an endpoint to be exectuted on, and me as an user, I don't want to login or enter the url of my website with openid in each website I want to interact with so it would be best if the browser could provide that information
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tantek BrowserID https://browserid.org/ is an emerging effort to do what it sounds like you want - "browser could provide that information"
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catsup i'd rather use an ssl client certificate
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catsup which the browser can already send automatically
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catsup but for some reason nobody uses those
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tantek catsup - that approach is being explored as well
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tantek abki - see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity for more on BrowserID
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tantek catsup - see http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/charter for the "browser automatically send an SSL client certificate" approach
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catsup i don't understand. isn't it already implemented and working and just not adopted?
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tantek catsup - depends on who you ask
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catsup well i use it to authenticate to smartcom.org
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catsup that's the only site i ever saw use it
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tantek oh interesting
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tantek perhaps add that URL that uses it to http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/wiki/Implementations
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tantek or just http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/wiki/Main_Page
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catsup i think webid is something different
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catsup An error occured during verification of the OpenID URL.
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catsup sigh
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catsup i'm probably doing something wrong
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tantek catsup - what's the domain?
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tantek catsup - pretty sure webid uses automatic sending of client SSL via the browser
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catsup what domain?
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catsup i don't really understand what these link rel= attributes mean
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catsup openid.server and openid.delegate
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tantek what's your URL?
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tantek catsup - indeed, the rel values that OpenID chose leave something to be desired for usability.
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catsup i can't find it explained on google either
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catsup guess i have to read the spec or something, lol
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catsup lol, there are 5 different specs
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catsup i guess 'authentication' is the relevant one
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tantek catsup - was just asking for your URL so I could take a look at your <link rel> tags to see if I could help.
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