w3c
Inconsistency on the side effect of receiving a Follow activity
Section 5.3 says:
Every actor SHOULD have a followers collection. This is a list of everyone who has sent a Follow activity for the actor, added as a side effect.
But section 7.5 disagrees: the side effect is to send an Accept or a Reject activity. The actor is only added to the followers collection if the reply is Accept.
The side effect of receiving [the Follow activity] in an inbox is that the server SHOULD generate either an Accept or Reject activity with the Follow as the object and deliver it to the actor of the Follow. [...] In the case of receiving an Accept referencing this Follow as the object, the server SHOULD add the actor to the object actor's Followers Collection.
Also, I think "receiving" in the last sentence should be "sending".
In the case of receiving an Accept referencing this Follow as the object, the server SHOULD add the actor to the object actor's Followers Collection.
that last sentence seems backwards. it should likely indeed be "sending", but it should probably also say "add the [object actor] to the [actor's] Followers Collection". in other words, Follow.actor is added to Accept.actor.followers -- the person following you is added to your followers collection, not the other way around.
I agree on both points. We need to add two errata; one for the misleading and inaccurate description of followers, and the other for the inaccurate processing of Accept activities.
