Gatewaying some Usenet newsgroups with ActivityPub

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi all,

Following an idea recently proposed by Gérald Niel (a contributor in
fr.*) and the comparison to the Fediverse made by Rayner Lucas and
Tristan Miller in a recent video, couldn't we work out a way to gateway
Usenet newsgroups with the Fediverse, using the ActivityPub protocol?

https://activitypub.rocks/

The Actor could be a newsgroup. Usenet articles posted to gatewayed
newsgroups could be turned into a Note in ActivityPub, and received
responses turned into an article into the newsgroup.

Maybe we would need the presence of a dedicated header field to consider
an individual as an Actor, as its username needs being unique and may
not be derived from only Injection-Info data (as a server name can
change and a user can migrate to another server). The messages would
then need being signed to prevent forgeries.
It is more complex to do, so an Actor could only be a newsgroup to begin
with.


Just for opening the discussion about a possible usefulness of such a
gateway. Seems like it will grow in importance these next years!

[rek2 hispagatos]

This will be great, I am the admin of a mastodon server hispagatos.space
and I use nntp/usenet on a daily basics, I think lemmy(also part of the
fediverse ) that is focus on groups like reddit, will be easier to
gateway <=> both ways.

search for "lemmy fediverse"

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi all,
Following an idea recently proposed by Gérald Niel (a contributor in
fr.*) and the comparison to the Fediverse made by Rayner Lucas and
Tristan Miller in a recent video, couldn't we work out a way to gateway
Usenet newsgroups with the Fediverse, using the ActivityPub protocol?
https://activitypub.rocks/
The Actor could be a newsgroup. Usenet articles posted to gatewayed
newsgroups could be turned into a Note in ActivityPub, and received
responses turned into an article into the newsgroup.
Maybe we would need the presence of a dedicated header field to consider
an individual as an Actor, as its username needs being unique and may
not be derived from only Injection-Info data (as a server name can
change and a user can migrate to another server). The messages would
then need being signed to prevent forgeries.
It is more complex to do, so an Actor could only be a newsgroup to begin
with.
Just for opening the discussion about a possible usefulness of such a
gateway. Seems like it will grow in importance these next years!

[Doc O'Leary ,]

For your reference, records indicate that

Post by Julien ÉLIE
couldn't we work out a way to gateway
Usenet newsgroups with the Fediverse, using the ActivityPub protocol?

Why? What does it benefit either side? What makes ActivityPub superior
to NNTP? Why must everything be web-ified?

I’ve written a Usenet client. It’s not hard. I’ve thought of using it to
transform messages for use in other apps, but I haven’t found any
compelling reason to do so.

Honestly, the abstract task of transporting data/messages between computers
is an over-solved problem. Same is true for message formats. As a result,
the main issue that needs to be solved is organizing the vast amounts of
data that we have access to.

Social networks do *not* help with that in my experience, because they’re
all about a “cult of personality” that is devoid of any sense of
netiquette. They have served to disprove

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade#%22Greater_Internet_Fuckwad_Theory%22>

For as much trolling and off-topic ranting Usenet has seen, it cannot
compare to the damage done to society by modern social networks. I’m
good with putting in zero effort to keep a barrier between those two
worlds in place.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Seems like it will grow in importance these next years!

As seemingly do all new technologies, until reality sets in and people
somehow convince themselves some even *newer* technology is the thing that
will solve all the world’s human problems.

[n***@zzo38computer.org.invalid]

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
Why? What does it benefit either side? What makes ActivityPub superior
to NNTP? Why must everything be web-ified?

In my opinion, NNTP is much better. ActivityPub is complicated and messy
and just is not very good (this is true of a lot of W3C specifications).
I dislike this "everything web-ified" modern idea too, which is why I am
still using NNTP.

(I also don't like Discord and Matrix; I use IRC.)

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
I've written a Usenet client. It's not hard. I've thought of using it to
transform messages for use in other apps, but I haven't found any
compelling reason to do so.

So have I (it is the one I use, as can be seen by the User-Agent header
of this message).

I have written an extension to send/receive messages on mailing lists
from sourcehut. It may also be possible to write extensions for dealing
with other stuff too, although I have not done so at this time.

[Michael Bäuerle]

Post by Doc O'Leary ,

Post by Julien ÉLIE
couldn't we work out a way to gateway
Usenet newsgroups with the Fediverse, using the ActivityPub protocol?

Why? What does it benefit either side? What makes ActivityPub superior
to NNTP? Why must everything be web-ified?

Even if ActivityPub seems to be a protocol defined by W3C, it looks
like a transport system. It should be possible to use it like Usenet
(with dedicated software / without a Web-Browser).

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
I’ve written a Usenet client. It’s not hard.

As somebody who also wrote a Usenet client, I disagree:
Processing and creation of RFC 5536 conformant articles was hard
(mostly because of MIME).

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
I’ve thought of using it to
transform messages for use in other apps, but I haven’t found any
compelling reason to do so.

Likely this job is better done on the server side.

Merging things in a way that allow Fediverse to access existing Usenet
groups (at least for posting) would be dangerous. The small number of
remaining Usenet users could be overrun by a much larger number of
Fediverse users.

Let's assume such a gateway would work with a new hierarchy in Usenet,
"fediverse.*" or something like that, I think the risk is low that
something would be damaged. Usenet server operators can even completely
ignore it, similar to existing hierachies with binaries.

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
Honestly, the abstract task of transporting data/messages between computers
is an over-solved problem. Same is true for message formats. As a result,
the main issue that needs to be solved is organizing the vast amounts of
data that we have access to.

The biggest problem is how to handle off-topic and illegal content.
Most social networks have some kind of moderation. Usenet does not
provide that (any more) in most cases.

Currently Usenet flies under the radar of government regulation, most
people are not even aware that it exists. This will change, maybe very
quickly, if the number of users would increase too far.

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
Social networks do *not* help with that in my experience, because they’re
all about a “cult of personality” that is devoid of any sense of
netiquette. They have served to disprove
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade#%22Greater_Internet_Fuckwad_Theory%22>

The anonymous users of "open" Usenet servers already behave exactly as
outlined in the link.

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
For as much trolling and off-topic ranting Usenet has seen, it cannot
compare to the damage done to society by modern social networks. I’m
good with putting in zero effort to keep a barrier between those two
worlds in place.

I fully agree for the commercial social networks.
Their focus on self-expression and emotions (hate in many cases) is part
of the business model and harmful for the general public.

But Fediverse is noncommercial, if I understand it correctly.
Maybe things are different there (or at least not worse compared to
Usenet).


[Xpost reduced, I think the real problems have nothing to do with NNTP]

[Bozo User]

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
For your reference, records indicate that

Post by Julien ÉLIE
couldn't we work out a way to gateway
Usenet newsgroups with the Fediverse, using the ActivityPub protocol?

Why? What does it benefit either side? What makes ActivityPub superior
to NNTP? Why must everything be web-ified?
I’ve written a Usenet client. It’s not hard. I’ve thought of using it to
transform messages for use in other apps, but I haven’t found any
compelling reason to do so.
Honestly, the abstract task of transporting data/messages between computers
is an over-solved problem. Same is true for message formats. As a result,
the main issue that needs to be solved is organizing the vast amounts of
data that we have access to.
Social networks do *not* help with that in my experience, because they’re
all about a “cult of personality” that is devoid of any sense of
netiquette. They have served to disprove
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade#%22Greater_Internet_Fuckwad_Theory%22>
For as much trolling and off-topic ranting Usenet has seen, it cannot
compare to the damage done to society by modern social networks. I’m
good with putting in zero effort to keep a barrier between those two
worlds in place.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Seems like it will grow in importance these next years!

As seemingly do all new technologies, until reality sets in and people
somehow convince themselves some even *newer* technology is the thing that
will solve all the world’s human problems.

I would like the reverse. Mastodon->NNTP, so I could see the threaded
conversations in NNTP, and maybe with images being uuencoded.

Also, all the content would be stored in my HD as slrnpull would
work as always.

There was something like that for Reddit with NNTPit.

[rek2 hispagatos]

Post by Bozo User

Post by Doc O'Leary ,
For as much trolling and off-topic ranting Usenet has seen, it cannot
compare to the damage done to society by modern social networks. I’m
good with putting in zero effort to keep a barrier between those two
worlds in place.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Seems like it will grow in importance these next years!

As seemingly do all new technologies, until reality sets in and people
somehow convince themselves some even *newer* technology is the thing that
will solve all the world’s human problems.

I would like the reverse. Mastodon->NNTP, so I could see the threaded
conversations in NNTP, and maybe with images being uuencoded.
Also, all the content would be stored in my HD as slrnpull would
work as always.
There was something like that for Reddit with NNTPit.

I will really be interested in this, one way, two ways or the best
solution will be to choose in the config how we want posts to flow.

I think the best fediverse service to run with usenet is LEMMY is
threaded, group, and posts.

Let me know if I can help,
My languages are C, GO and RUST.

Happy Hacking
ReK2