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Comment by kissgyorgy | Hacker News Reader

I would say Gemini have about the same characteristics as Hacker News which is why we love it so much!

HN is IMHO a good counter-response: It works just as it is on the web, and you afaik couldn't build it on Gemini, because having forms etc is "going to far" for Gemini. (And to be fair, if your model is the imaginary "good old web", then maybe forums are a step to far, because that's what mailing lists are for? It's an exercise in making things purposefully extra effort after all)

You can have forms on Gemini.

> if your model is the imaginary "good old web"

Is your assertion that the original cookie free, javascript free web was a hellscape of arbitrary executable code intended to exfiltrate as much monotisable information from the user as possible? Just because someone doesn't like the current situation doesn't mean the past was imaginary.

> You can have forms on Gemini.

As far as I see this doesn't cover most uses of forms, since its result should be appended to the URL with `?` and the URL is limited to 1024 bytes.

For short to mid length posting, it should be probably enough. Long-form content could be handled by e.g. uploading posts via SFTP or IPFS. As a bonus, the user can also download all of their previous posts and take them elsewhere if they want to jump ship or export.

I don't consider 1024 bytes as "mid length", especially considering non-Latin scripts. For the comparison Twitter's 280-character-of-sort limit translates to the maximum of 840 UTF-8 bytes (reachable for many Middle Eastern writing systems).

I also don't find the usage of SFTP or IPFS reasonable because that would mean two separate clients necessary for a single Gemini site. In fact I personally imagined email instead and email alone can already handle the forum usage (i.e. mailing lists). Gemini at the current state is simply not meant to be used as a full-featured forum. I do think there is a rather simple extension to allow that usage (add an equivalent of HTTP POST to the request protocol, and extend INPUT to give a pre-filled template), but any additional feature to Gemini can possibly weaken its merits.

> You can have forms on Gemini.

Oh interesting, had missed that when I took a look at it.

> Is your assertion ...

Obviously not, and responses like this from its proponents are a main reason I'm not interested in it, despite quite a lot of ideological overlap. Saying that not all was as perfect in the past as it's sometimes presented is not asserting that all everything today is better.

> Obviously not, and responses like this from its proponents are a main reason I'm not interested in it, despite quite a lot of ideological overlap. Saying that not all was as perfect in the past as it's sometimes presented is not asserting that all everything today is better.

Some people are optimising for different properties than the current web. They are developing new technologies to do that.

It is entirely hostile to say that their model is 'the imaginary "good old web"' or to imply that they present the past as perfect (as you do here - clearly in poor faith). They do neither. They are learning from the past and the present and trying to develop some other technologies and a new community that addresses some of their concerns. With great success!

It's strictly impossible for a person who advocates for Gemini to believe the past was perfect. A person who felt the past was perfect would be using the technologies of the past. The people who use Gemini want some things to be different, and find it productive to learn from the past and the present in building this new space. It is a new and fulfilling project. This entire thread is based around the premise that is sufficient as it is, even if a bazillion people aren't posting on it. No imaginary models need enter into it.

Twice now you've used standard but false tropes: Anyone who wants to learn from the past and the present instead of accepting the present as good enough has an imaginary view of the past and believes the past is perfect. Some times, a person runs "git checkout -- some/file" while fully acknowledging that the reason they started editing some/file was because it wasn't perfect when they started. Sometimes a person runs "git bisect" to see how they next version of the code can have the wins of the past and the wins of the present. Acknowledging value in the past is not presenting it as perfect, nor mere imagination.

If you don't like getting pushback for mischaracterising someone's opinions and projcets, feel free to not do that. If the main reason you're not interested in it is because people defend themselves against such unreasonable mischaracterisations, it's probably Gemini who's winning.

We're not looking for perfect. We're looking for good enough. The web isn't.

Why is it that people who go, "Is [it] your assertion-" or "Is it your contention-" never actually get their rhetorical question right?

But you can actually build HN on Gemini!

gemini://geddit.glv.one https://proxy.vulpes.one/gemini/geddit.glv.one

I can imagine a PhpBB alternative written for Gemini very easily, both on the posting and reading side. 1024 character post limit is plenty for a thriving discussion.

I think you will like this gemini site, then: gemini://geddit.glv.one

It's a Reddit/HN cone for gemini.

cf. https://github.com/pitr/geddit

I tried gemini, i like the idea of a frugal web protocol, it's just too esoteric as it is IMO. I like different but it felt just a tad too much and too crude.

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