Re: Gemini is no social network

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From: Cyrus Valkonen <cyrus.valkonen@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Gemini is no social network

Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 01:27:30 +0200

Message-ID: <55c65249-27db-1b30-b166-f15bfb20cda5@gmail.com>

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On 11/30/21 16:17, Stephane Tougard wrote:

On 2021-11-28, rtr <rtr@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>

> I do agree that gemini should be a "read-only" protocol with

>

I don't.

...

>

We need the ability to receive and send information, build forms and

dynamic software to answer those forms.

I think what will happen with time is simply that people will answer

those shortcomings by methods and protocols on top of Gemini that are

not defined in the standard.

For example, links to images could be automatically expanded, sound

files will show a mini-player, the browser will auto-fetch all links and

show a mini-preview if you hover them, it could show a slideshow gallery

if it finds mostly images in a folder structure and so forth.

Also if no other way exists for people to write comments on pages,

someone will eventually write a decentralized Dissenter-alike "plugin"

and put it inside the popular Gemini browsers. This plugin then simply

operates a database (e.g. GunDB) outside of the Gemini network and

allows comments to any arbitrary URL on it.

The same could be true for polls or any sort of user feedback.

I think this is a much more preferable way to have user interactions,

and one that is much safer from a democratic perspective, than if all

the housekeeping, form building and authority was left to the website

operator.

However if we are talking about non-standard tags becoming popular to

display inline content, like tables, images sound files and maybe even

stuff like webassembly and Javascript-ed webapps, then it gets kind of

messy and shady.

I think it cannot be ignored that there is a critical need for people to

be able to interact with a website, e.g. in the form of giving feedback

or submitting forms (for example a poll, advanced searches with multiple

variables and parameters, inputting data like addresses and statements).

Also there is a critical need to eliminate click-mazes, hence a need to

be able to auto-load and display inline content.

If those needs are not met by the protocol, eventually people will

basically just ignore sticking with it and find ways around it.

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