Message boards via e-mail, not Gemini

[nothien at uber.space]

Jason McBrayer <jmcbray at carcosa.net> wrote:
> Mailing lists and NNTP are, of course, the correct protocols for fora
> or message boards. But I think what people want here is different.
> Gemlog posts are standalone documents that you put out into the world
> to read.  It's a wonderful part of community that people write gemlogs
> in response to other gemlogs; it's very similar to the early blogging
> community before it became focused on monetization, and then crowded
> out by social media.
> 
> What people want in this case, I think, is not so much a direct
> analogue of a forum, but a way of collecting and following the set of
> gemlog posts responding to each other, but also get notification when
> your own posts are replied to. Maybe this set of conventions for apps
> may look too forum-like, but it is a good suggestion for an approach
> to the question of doing that kind of notifications without trying to
> do a POST-equivalent over Gemini.

I understand what you mean, but to be honest, I don't have a solution to
that.  I can't think of a way of bringing that feeling that you've
described to a system that properly manages replies, because I think a
fundamental part of that feeling is that the posts-in-reply are actually
disconnected, and on another person's site.  A system that notifies you
(e.g. via e-mail) that you've got replies seems to destroy that feeling,
partly I think because it's too similar to the social media that have
taken over the world.  Maybe it's different for you.

On the other hand, I have another idea for the mailing list / forum
system I talked about: introduce self-hosted mail servers where only you
can introduce new (i.e. not in reply to anything) mails.  Publishing a
new post is equivalent to sending it to the server, from where anyone
subscribed will get it.  And on top of that mail server would be a
Gemini interface.  One could introduce someone else's post (and the
entire associated reply set) into their own mailing list to "boost" it
like in Mastodon, or to just include their replies to it in their own
list.  It sounds like fun to write - I'll get to it (the Gemini side;
there are already enough mail servers) when I can, but (anyone) feel
free to have a go.

~aravk | ~nothien