"context" isn't good enough to identify any relationship; this is the fundamental problem. It is a property that should never have existed. Today it identifies one relationship: the (loosely defined) thread. I would argue that this is in fact "common interoperability". I would also argue that this fully meets the incredibly vague letter of the ActivityStreams specification.

I have yet to see an alternative use of context that would not be better served by inventing a more specific term. Yes, this applies to use of context for thread too, but we have 7 years of its user to identify the thread as a defacto standard.

I have an example of a reply to multiple things in the FEP.

"Comment but don't participate in thread" is a quote boost. It also works for forking to a new thread.

So, that's what `Announce` has to do with it.

Conversation threads are *usually* reply trees, and we should optimize for that easy base case. The advanced tree-pruning and -grafting you describe are possible with a reply tree.

> Conversation threads are *usually* reply trees

this is an anti-pattern. conversations are only represented by reply trees when there isn't an actual conversation. reply trees are a poor substitute for that.

> "Comment but don't participate in thread" is a quote boost.

i'm talking about participating in a thread without responding explicitly to anything. or responding to something, but in a different thread. no one is boosting anything.

Maybe we need to agree that we are talking about different things.

I think that `context` is great for a related collection of objects, including for a project or event, as defined in AV.

For the specific collection of objects that are members of the same reply tree, we can use `thread`.

If it doesn't matter to specify that it's a thread, you can link to the exact same collection with `context`. It is, after all, also a related collection.

Sure, it's possible to declare both a `context` being whatever grouping, and a `thread` being specifically a reply tree. (Perhaps `thread` should be renamed to `replyTree`, and `root` should be renamed to `replyTreeRoot`?)

I'm specifically against conflating the two concepts, though. I also would prefer to not give `inReplyTo` any undue deference beyond simply being metadata. For as many systems that rely on it, there are systems that don't.

"ceo of cloud company says employees must work on premise."

must do wonders for the marketing of the capability of their platform.

CEO Matt Garman said nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support the new policy

Got news for you, Matt. 9 out of 10 workers are kissing your ass.