That's an awfully long troll. Some people have a lot of time on their hands. And it's not yet April Fool's day, even in New Zealand.
On 31 March 2016 at 12:40, <cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org> wrote: > Greetings, 9fans! > > We all know that Plan 9 started as a retrospective "re-take" on UNIX, > occasionally referred to as "UNIX done right". This has led to > differences between "the Plan 9 way" of doing something vs. "the UNIX > way" of doing it, such as those highlighted by the infamous "Unix to > Plan 9 command translation" page on the Plan 9 wiki. More generally, > this can be viewed as the difference between the "right" way to do > something versus the "popular" way to do it. > > So, my question is, what would be the Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook? > Stated differently, if social networking were to be re-imagined and > re-done "right" this time, how would it be done? > > > E-Mail > ====== > > The obvious answer that comes to mind is e-mail. It worked well for > decades. Although 9fans appear to continue this tradition in grand > style, using e-mail for social networking poses a number of problems: > > 1. _Spam. The fact that SMTP doesn't authenticate senders of e-mail > messages has led to a proliferation of spam which has greatly > burdened the medium, requiring complex workarounds that usually put > legitimate mail at risk of misclassification as "junk". > > 2. _`Subject lines`. Few people seem to know how to choose an > appropriate "Subject:" line, anymore. People will use subjects like > "tonight's meeting", without specifying what group is meeting, when > the meeting is, or what it is about. When the topic of a thread > drifts from its original topic, few people remember (or even think) > to update the Subject: line. Often, when one person wants to send a > second person an e-mail, the first person will simply reply to the > last message they received from the second person, even if it was on > a completely different subject. (This, of course, creates false > relationships between the Subject: and References: fields used to > define threads.) > > Despite the fact that most MUAs (including Webmail_) offer the > ability to automatically sort e-mail into different categories, many > people don't know how to sort incoming mail. When they get too much > e-mail in their "Inbox", the become annoyed and confused. > > These problems were addressed, somewhat, by the advent of the Web > forums which were popular in the 2000's. On a Web forum, moderators > could reclassify posts and reorganize threads to better reflect their > content. > > 3. Listservs. For people familiar with mailing lists, sending commands > to list servers is not difficult. Unfortunately, many people don't > understand listservs, and want some way to subscribe to and/or > unsubscribe from mailing lists using a Web page. While some > listservs provide a Web interface in addition to an SMTP interface, > it is becoming more and more common for mailing lists to append > footers containing "unsubscribe" links. This information (which > usually duplicates information found in message headers and should be > obvious to anyone who knows how to use the listserv, anyway) pollutes > the content of the messages. Furthermore, if a message containing > such links is forwarded to someone else, the final recipient could > unsubscribe the forwarding party from the list without his or her > consent. > > 4. _`HTML mail`. Nowadays, people will write things in e-mail messages > like, "I've highlighted the changes in red". On my display, plain > text is rendered in black-on-white! Or they'll write something like > "here's the link," without specifying any URL. You have to dig into > the text/html part to find it. Forwarding an HTML message to other > recipients can also pose security risks, if _hyperlinks in the > message offer access to personal information. HTML mail also makes > e-mail messages five times the size they need to be. > > 5. MIME. It's great to be able to attach small files to e-mail > messages, but there are WAY too many people who will just blindly > attach Word Perfect, Microsuck Word, or ZIP files to their messages. > I've even seen otherwise "well-educated" lawyers do this. > > 6. Large attachments. MIME permits relatively small files to be > attached to messages, but it is not really meant for distribution of > large _files such as large images, audio files, movie files, ISO > images, or tarballs. For people like us, that's not a problem; we > just upload the file to a server and post its location, along with a > brief description of the file. People who do not know how to do this > will typically end up jumping through hoops to upload their file to > some dreaded third-party service like Flickr or YouTub, and then post > a link to that. > > 7. _Quoting. Very few people use Usenet-style quoting, anymore. Often, > people will quote the entire message to which they're replying, and > use vague English phrases (or even in-line "quotes") to indicate to > what points they're replying. When top-posting became the default > quoting style for Outlook, e-mail became all but undecipherable. > Have you ever seen an e-mail containting five "Original Message" > lines? There can only be ONE "original" message! Have you ever > tried to respond to a top-posted message using Usenet style quoting? > Have you ever tried to read a thread using a mixture of different > quoting styles? It's just a CF. > > 8. Paragraphs. There is this thing, called a "paragraph", which people > used to learn about in school. The _paragraph is a great tool for > structuring content, enabling an author to group related information > together, and to separate it from content of a different sort. > Nowadays, many e-mail messages are written on a single line (often > even without word wrapping), without regard for any logical division > or organization. When paragaphs are used, they are often used to > repetitiously reiterate the content of preceeding paragraphs. > > 9. Text messaging. Because text messaging and e-mail are both > accessible from modern phones, people have begun to treat them as if > they were the same medium. They are not! People are now reading > e-mail messages using cultural conventions from the "texting" world, > rather than understood e-mail conventions, and mis-interpreting what > e-mails say. People are also writing e-mail messages as if they were > texts: have you noticed how "A.M." and "P.M." have now almost > universally become "am" and "pm"? > > People are also beginning to expect that their e-mail messages will > be delivered to their recipients in the space of just a few seconds, > like text messages are. Oblivious to the fact that people don't > necessarily even check e-mail every day, they seem to assume that > anything they send is going to be received more or less instantly. > > Text messaging has also conditioned people to expect all their > messages to be short. This conditioning has gotten to the point, > now, that people will consider an e-mail message longer than a single > paragraph_ to be "long"! (Certainly, the present post to 9fans would > be considered epic-length, by that standard!) > > 10. Censorship. Many groups _want some way to censor messages sent to > other members of the group. While mailing lists can be moderated, it > generally requires one or more moderators to _`proactively screen` > and approve each message before it is relayed to other subscribers. > Once a message is delivered, it can't be un-sent. This limitation > was also addressed, to some extent, by Web forums. On a Web forum, > users are often able to _`flag posts` which are spam_ or violate some > specified "_`acceptable usage`" policy, and moderators are able to > edit or remove other users' posts. Because Web forums store posts on > the server, and don't offer means to _`cryptographically sign` posts, > a user's words can be changed without them (or anybody else) even > realizing it. Most Web forums also allow a user to edit or remove > their own posts, complicating historical perspectives on who really > said what. (Think of forum posts quoting other forum posts.) For > some people, the ability to alter or censor published content is a > _feature. For others, it is a _defect. > > 11. IMAP quotas. Many people leave their mail on their mail server and > just access it using IMAP. When their mailbox quota gets consumed, > messages sent to them will bounce, or cannot be filed correctly by > the recipient. I remember seeing a local city councilor who was so > popular that her mailbox filled up, at which point she could no > longer use it to communicate effectively. > > 12. _Webmail. For starters, many people simply don't know the > difference between e-mail and Webmail. When using Webmail, mail is > kept in the possession of a third party. It makes it much more > difficult to employ e-mail encryption, such as OpenPGP. Webmail also > encourages use of `HTML mail`_. Have you ever received an e-mail > message containing just a URL which you are expected to "click", > without any further explanation? By promoting the assumption that > e-mail is always accessed on the World Wide Web, Webmail promotes > this kind of Web-snobbishness. > > 13. E-mail is not stupid-compatible. Participating effectively in a > community using e-mail requires a certain level of education. Each > September, when a new crop of college students first gained access to > e-mail, there would be an observable decline in the quality of > e-mail. Gradually, the situation would improve, as these students > began to learn proper netiquette. When AOL began offering Internet > mail to its subscribers in September of 1993, however, there was a > decline in the quality of e-mail from which the Internet never > recovered. This has been known as "The September that never ended". > With the rising popularity of text messaging and mobile e-mail, this > situation has grown progressively worse. Now, droves of children and > grandmas are getting access to e-mail without any of the requisite > education. This present state of affairs could, in a sense, be > called "The September that never ended, that never ended." > > > Web Forums > ========== > > Many of the problems associated with e-mail were, at least partially, > addressed by the the Web forums which were popular in the 2000's. (The > classic example is the Simple Machines forum software.) > > A. As described under `subject lines`_, above, Web forums allowed > moderators to reclassify posts by subject into organized threads. > > B. Users could `flag posts`_ as spam_ or as violations of `acceptable > usage`_ policies, avoiding the need for moderators to `proactively > screen`_ messages. > > C. Users (and moderators) could edit or delete posts (which could be > considered a feature_ or a defect_, as noted above). > > D. Users could upload or post references to multimedia files_, such as > videos, with their posts. > > E. Forums offered sensible quoting_ mechanisms, as well as the ability > to include hyperlinks_ and to specify font colors, sizes, and styles. > > F. Web forums were also fully stupid-compatible. They offered graphical > editing capabilities, so knowing the syntax of a particular forum's > mark-up language wasn't necessary in order to make a post. > > Forums, however, also had their share of shortcomings: > > a. Web forums were stupid-compatible, but smart-incompatible. > > b. Data was kept centrally, on a server. > > c. Each forum was on a separate Web site, with separate accounts. > > d. Using them required a Web browser with access to the World Wide Web. > > e. Posts could be sensored (a feature_ or a defect_, as noted above). > > f. It was difficult to `cryptographically sign`_ posts. > > g. Forums had no obvious analogue to the RFC 822 Message-id header, > making it difficult to identify individual posts. > > h. The proliferation of different mark-up syntaxes used by various > forums made it difficult to remember which syntax you were supposed > to be using at any given time. > > > Social Networks > =============== > > The technology that's been displacing e-mail and Web forums over the > past decade or so is, obviously, that nebulously nefarious Medusa known > as "social networking". Of course, there's no need to describe how > backwards and awful today's social networks, such as Facebook, are. > There have been several attempts to create "open source" social > networks; the most successful to date has probably been _`Diaspora*` > (http://diasporafoundation.org). Diaspora* solves many of the > aforementioned problems, such as ensuring privacy and control over your > own data. Because it's Free Software, it's also smart-compatible. > However, it still has significant limitations: > > I. Diaspora* cannot easily be used to create "groups". > > II. Content published on it cannot be removed, edited, or censored (if, > indeed, that's something you want_ to be able to do). > > III. It uses a push mechanism for distributing updates, so it cannot be > used in disconnected operation, like a MUA can. > > IV. It is a Ruby/Rails application. > > > The Plan 9 Way > ============== > > So, if social networking were to be re-designed from scratch, all over > again, "the Plan 9 way", how would it be done? > > Obviously, the network would present itself as a file system. :D I > should be able to browse and post content using shell commands at the > command line. Or, I could use the Acme plug-in to automate the process, > just like using Acme Mail. I'd be able to batch-up incoming or outgoing > changes using tar(1) or hg, so I could work disconnected from the 'Net, > too. But... here's the tricky part... > > It would have to be both stupid-compatible and smart-compatible at the > same time. Perhaps there would be an HTTP server which would translate > between the file system interface and some flashy Web interface > reminiscent of Facebook or `Diaspora*`_. Of course, the HTTP server > would offer some sort of click-tracking advertising framework, so that > the HTML view of your social life could be packed with ads by whatever > company you've chosen to host your profile. Maybe that HTTP server > would be written in Limbo, so it could be run on Plan 9, Linux, Mac OS, > or Windoze. Meanwhile, power users could fly right in, under the HTTP > layer, and access the file system using 9P, Acme, or whatever their > perferred tool may be, without having to deal with all the HTML cruft. > A social network has to be stupid-compatible if it's going to be > successful. But it also has to be smart-compatible, i.e., done the > "right" way, if we are to keep from going insane. ;) > > -- > +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | human <cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org> | > |Any sufficiently high intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.| > +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > >
