Related to the ForumWG topic of resolvable context collections, there are four FEPs that are currently in consideration:

1. FEP-7888: Demystifying the context property
2. FEP-400e: Publicly-appendable ActivityPub collections
3. Draft FEP-171b: Conversation Containers, an evolution of Conversation Containers
4. FEP-76ea: Conversation Threads

@[email protected] made a suggestion last month to hopefully reduce the number of moving parts:

• Both FEP-400e and FEP-1b12 implementations: support FEP-7888 (context collection)
• FEP-400e implementations: upgrade to Conversation Containers
• FEP-1b12 implementations: add target property to Announce activity that points to context collection.

This takes FEP 400e out of the running (potentially). But the day after that last meeting, @[email protected] put together FEP 76ea, and now we’re back to three.

My concern is that all three FEPs (7888, 171b, and 76ea) all share these distinct qualities:

• They establish a conversational context for a given object
• They federate out an Add on collection addition. (76ea also sends Remove)
• They contain some concept of a context owner (attributedTo)

They differ on the following qualities:

• 7888/171b use context whereas 76ea uses a new property thr:thread
• 171b specifies a new object type Context
• Collection items:
  • 7888 sends objects in chronological order
  • 171b sends activities in chronological order
  • 76ea sends objects in reverse chronological order

In the lead up to the November WG meeting I’d like to address those differences. All three FEPs are in pre-draft or draft stages, and so I am hoping we can find some common ground and compromise.

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Pinging interested parties (who were not already mentioned above) for comment:

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]