After a long time consuming gemlogs by subscribing to gemini pages that comply with the widely adopted subscription convention described here:
gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/companion/subscription.gmi
I can't help but notice that at their core, email and usenet show a similar pattern to index.gmi files inside gemlog folders when presenting an index of messages to the user, perhaps with the exception that they also show a from address, in addition to a date and a subject.
Does anyone think it would be useful to have a gemnet folder inside our capsules, in a similar fashion to gemlog, using the same subscription convention as mentioned above, but perhaps adding a "from" field like this:
/gemnet/index.gmi:
#gluon's gemnet
=> hello_gemnet!.gmi 2021-03-01 - Hello gemnet! - gluon
=> another_message.gmi 2021-03-02 - Another message - gluon
=> one_more_message.gmi 2021-03-03 - One more message - gluon
=> re_and_now_a_reply.gmi 2021-03-03 - Re And now a reply - gluon
=> re_and_now_a_reply_2.gmi 2021-03-03 - Re And now a reply - gluon
=> re_and_now_a_reply_3.gmi 2021-03-03 - Re: And now a reply - gluon
That renders as usual (this is just an example, my real gemnet folder with real messages is linked at the bottom):
2021-03-01 - Hello gemnet! - gluon
2021-03-02 - Another message - gluon
2021-03-03 - One more message - gluon
2021-03-03 - Re: And now a reply - gluon
2021-03-03 - Re: And now a reply - gluon
2021-03-03 - Re: And now a reply - gluon
This looks like a very simple way to post messages and replies in a "semi-distributed" way, making use of Gemini as the underlying transport mechanism. Distributed in the sense that messages would live only within the server of each author.
Then, anyone interested in the messages of a particular author would make use of clients that allow YYYY-MM-DD subscriptions or run local aggregators with such feeds to be able to see the messages. Posting messages or replies would be elegantly the same as posting a gemlog entry, using whatever mechanism you already use for that. That said, specialised clients could also easily be developed to make use of this convention and allow an interface more similar to an email/usenet client if desired.
One further convenience of this "network architecture" is that SPAM is easily avoided, since that by design, you need to opt-in to any person's feed and you won't see the messages of anyone you haven't subscribed to. Think of a killfile from usenet but in reverse.
I mentioned a separate folder called gemnet, but in reality gemlogs are so generic that we could use them as they are. After all, any gemlog post could be a message itself. Using the current gemlog folders would even make it very easy to reply to gemlog posts, something many people often feel the need to. However, maybe this approach would create too much SPAM, so I think having a separate gemnet folder is more reasonable?
I guess that's it. Once again sorry if this makes no sense at all, or has already been discussed. On the other hand, if you resonate with the concept, I'm willing to create my own gemnet and subscribe to anyone who does the same. We could experiment communicating using Gemini this way.
If you're used to YYYY-MM-DD feeds, feel free to subscribe to my gemenet folder below to see my messages automatically (this is just like a gemlog for messages):
gemini://gluonspace.com/gemnet
Then create your own gemnet folder as well, following the same Gemini feed subscription convention (YYYY-MM-DD) as you do for gemlogs and as I described above.
Finally send me an email with your gemnet folder URI similar to mine above and I will subscribe to you: