protocol.md

The Blog Threads protocol version 0.1.1

The Blog Threads (BHread) protocol defines methods that allow any website to be used to participate in a decentralized social network.

In simple terms, it allows bloggers to use their blogs for interacting with other bloggers on the internet.

For more information, read on or see the blog.

The architecture

Bhread is composed of any number of two components:

• a hub website
• and a point website.

Point

A point is any website that has an RSS Feed.

This should mostly be blogs. The blog may have any number of feeds as long as it doesn't repeat its posts across feeds. Repeated posts will be handled by selecting the post that belongs to the oldest feed registered.

Hub

A hub is a website where multiple points (blogs) can register to.

There could be multiple hubs existing at a time and a point can be registered to any number of hubs at any time. One example of a hub is bhread.com.

A hub is a website that accepts syndication feeds from anyone and scans posts the feeds. The posts are displayed but with different layouts depending on the content of the post.

---

This document defines the protocol for the hub, and the protocol for the point.

The point site content protocol

This section contains methods a website can use to participate in the network.

The Bhread protocol is designed to implement features that we think is essential for any social media platform: Discovery, Interaction, and Space.*

* Basis to follow

Discovery

• Create opportunities for allowing a user to find what they want despite millions of available posts.

• Create opportunities for allowing an author to find their readers.

First, the hub will respect a user's feed category tags.

For Atom 1.0, you need to add <category term="tag"/> to your posts. See RFC 4287 Section 4.2.2 for details. For RSS 2.0, you need to add <category>tag</category> to your posts. See RSS 2.0 Specification for details.

Interaction

Must allow users to interact (replies, threads, reposts)

1. Posting

   • A post can be made by any website that has a feed which is registered to the hub.
   • Published posts after registration will also be posted to Bhread.
   • Post formatting will depend on how it is formatted by the RSS/Atom feed.
     • If the post truncates the post, bhread will display it as a truncated post.
     • If the post contains the full text, bhread will display the full text.
     • Bhread will allow non-harmful element tags based on feedparser's sanitization.

2. Replies

   • What: A string "replying to" followed by an <a> tag to the post

   • e.g. replying to <a href="https://example.om">this article</a> This is a great article.

   • The hub should display this as a reply to the link inside the <a> element.

   • Replies to replies must be possible, forming a thread.

   • Users may reply to any URL in the internet.

     • useful for giving feedback to a site. e.g.

     replying to [instructables](https://instructables.com)
     
     Neat site. Bookmarking this one.

3. Votes

   • What: A button or a set of buttons that allow the user to vote a post.
   • The hub may optionally implement any voting system for any posts.
   • Votes can be used to determine discoverability
   • Votes may be stored in a centralized database.
   • This means that each hub can have its own personality.
   • A topic in one hub may not be seen while it may trend on other hubs.

4. Repost

   • Useful for sharing content a user has already published without replying e.g.

   I wrote [this article](https://example.com) 5 years ago.
   The data needs to be updated.

   • If any existing post url from a feed is detected in the body of a post, display that inside of the post like a twitter repost.
   • Find only the first instance of an existing url.
   • If the url is preceded by the Reply string replying to, it's a reply, not a repost.
   • A post can only be a reply or a repost.

Space

Must allow users to be with who they want to be with (groups, subreddits).

1. Creating a group.

   • To create a group, publish a post containing the group registration string: bhread.com/makegroup/<groupname>. The group will be accessible using the post's url in Bhread.
   • If the feed is verified, the group will also be accessible using the URL bhread.com/<feed owner username>/<groupname>.

2. Posting to a group. To post to a group, simply make a reply to the URL of the group post.

3. Editing the group. To edit a group, publish a post containing the registration string of the group containing query parameters.

   • e.g. bhread.com/user1/hackernews?layout=compact&bg=orange
   • Note that there is not setting available in the protocol yet.
   • Options will be decided later on.

4. Moderation. To disallow a website from posting to a group, bhread.com/ban/<groupname>/<domain name or feed url>

The hub protocol

• The hub is a website that collects feeds (RSS, Atom) submitted by anyone.
• The hub scans posts from the feed, and presents them in the way that this protocol defines.
• The hub must be replaceable by anyone who implements the protocol.
• Multiple hubs may exist at any time.

Submissions

• Allow anyone from the internet to add any rss feed to the hub.
  • Feed urls must be unique. If it already exists, notify contributor.
• Allow blogs to be owned by an account by verification.
  • Verify by adding bhread.com/feeds/<bhread account username>/verification to any part of their website and submitting it to bhread.
    • automatically detect posts that contain verification so that users can verify by publishing a post.
    • Understandably, users may not want to publish a new post to verify to some sketchy protocol, so a hub MUST allow a user to submit any page on the site that contains the verification string.
      • e.g. put string inside site.com/about then submit that.
      • Submission will be needed because the /about will not be in the rss feed.
  • These accounts will have more customization to their accounts
  • Customization of Display Photo
  • Disallowing their site to be on Bhread. By submitting any page on their domain containing the text: "bhread.com/feed/<feedname>/optout".

Subscriptions

• Users must be able to subscribe to any rss feed, like any rss feed reader.
• Allow bulk submission of subscriptions from other platforms.
  • Hub Must register feeds that don't exist

Viewing

• The hub must default to showing users only their subscriptions on the home page.
  • This is because the frontpage may be full of unwanted posts (unrelated to users interests, or nsfw posts).
• Users must have the ability to look at a /frontpage where the top posts from all of bhread can be found.
• Optional 'for you' page where user can find posts related to their suscriptions.

Handling of URLs

General rule: If a url works without a trailing slash, use the version without the trailing slash.

google.com/
google.com

Use: google.com

Goals of this protocol

This protocol aims to create a social network that is

• Simple to use
  • Must be teachable to non-tech person.
  • Must be memorizable.
  • Must be typeable
  • Does not require further configuration from users
• Decentralized
  • Important Data must not be hosted at one single place.
  • Data must live even if hub dies
• Censor-resistant
  • Data cannot be censored in any way unless the internet itself is censored.
• Familiar
  • To a degree, must be close to what people know.
  • Must be readable. People unaware of the protocol must understand with no explanation required if they visit a website participating in the protocol.
• Searchable
  • Data must be viewable by search engines, bots, and humans.

Related technologies

• Nostr
• Webmentions
• Activitypub

Questions

Section for important questions. Feel free to add (better than filing an issue).

• How will this handle moderation?
• How will this handle RSS feeds from other content-submission websites?
  • No idea

Credits

• diff.blog

To do

• Define delimiter for make group
• Define handling of a post/feed's language
• Should specify that a post can repost a group creation post
• Decide if group can be created if post is a reply. (True for now)
• Mention that a post with same url but different feed must be treated differently
• Repost will scan for any links in the DB. But protocol should mention handling
• of reposting a URL of the same post that's reposting.
• If two or more replying to <link> phrases exists, use the last one to appear in the text.
• If two or more repostable links exists, use the first one
• Allow commenting to urls with anchor e.g. bhread.com/article/hello.html#introduction
• Display replies to this as a comment but add a link to the anchor
• Define moderation. In essence, we don't want to remove any posts but we want to moderate posts by adding post filters. Use a good default filter (no NSFW, no spam, ) but allow users to toggle these filters.
• Define standard route for feed archive