this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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Ghost blog adding activitypub (activitypub.ghost.org)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by tofuwabohu@slrpnk.net to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
 

Not sure if this has already been posted since it's kind of old news (early 2024), but I think that's exciting. I'm currently looking into blog software with nice webgui and I might wait for this to become real. Looking at the announcement page, they seem to take it seriously and there's continuous merged PRs since April until recently regarding AP on their GitHub.

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[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 19 points 4 days ago (6 children)

What is the use of federating a blog? Just commenting?

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 24 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I look at it like this: ActivityPub is to RSS as a GUI is to a CLI.

Meaning, you could already use the tools (RSS or the CLI) that are there to do the task, but someone has created something (protocol, AP or application, GUI) to make that task easier. In the case of RSS and AP, that task is generally getting content in front of the user. With RSS I have to go hunt down RSS feeds and whatnot, but with AP I just interact with stuff and wait for the people I interact with to interact with stuff, and then I get content.

[–] ITGuyLevi@programming.dev 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Honest question as I finally dusted back off my interest in RSS. With RSS I need to add the URL to my client and it periodically checks back to show me when new content is posted, does ActivityPub handle this differently? Like how does it know which sources to use without having to hunt down their AP feed and add it to a client?

I could totally be missing something super simple or implied.

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

For whatever reason I'm struggling to remember how to properly explain the difference between push/pull protocols, but AP only moves data at a users request.

This means that if I follow you on Mastodon, and you comment on a post by some other third party which I have no interaction with, it's going to bring that comment to me and bring along any other related data. In this case, that means the post you commented on and all of the other comments and data related to that post.

This cycle works constantly, so I get content from the other side of the world because I (in reality, my instance, not me in particular) interacts with a chain of instances to keep data flowing

[–] ITGuyLevi@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for the explaination!

That definitely sounds like it could be a nice upgrade depending on well it could be filtered (I could see that spidering out pretty quickly if the things you follow interact a lot). Definitely something I'll have to check out sometime, thanks again.

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Well, you're here on Lemmy using the ActivityPub protocol. How's the experience been? Does the filtering fit your needs?

I realize you might be talking about the server side rather than for users, ie if you were gonna set up your own instance. In which case, what you're referring to is called "federation/defederation." My understanding is that you just have to go flip a switch on your backend to filter out a whole instance, a person, a community etc and nobody on your instance will see it anymore.

[–] SilentKnightOwl@slrpnk.net 6 points 4 days ago

I think that's a pretty good analogy in this case

[–] tofuwabohu@slrpnk.net 11 points 4 days ago

Mostly commenting though the Fediverse, yes, but they also develop the possibility to follow other Fedi users and have a timeline when logged in.

I think most current blog commenting systems have some drawback (closed platform like discuss, limited to WordPress, or something that requires email confirmation, captcha or something else) so the ability to comment from another service is a huge factor for me.

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 10 points 4 days ago

And you would be able to see blog posts in a fediverse feed and subscribe to a blog that way.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

People can follow and comment to my WordPress from the fediverse. My posts are long enough that they don't really look right on Mastodon (and images all show up as attachments rather than inline), but nice for shorter format blogs

[–] chaospatterns@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm working on adding ActivityPub to my Hugo blog right now. I support RSS, but I figured AP support means that you can get it into your Mastodon feed or even Lemmy feed making it easy to follow. Additionally, commenting (assuming it doesn't get taken over by spammers.)

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 3 points 4 days ago

I would love to know how you get on with this.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Federated as opposed to using a Wordpress hosting service etc that can be turned off by someone's business decision.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You’re confusing federation with self hosting.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Somewhat, but I'm thinking of the future of federation as a torrenty mesh of peers with no actual hosting "service" that can be turned off. That's how I picture the Cortex in the Firefly universe. When Simon as a boy is excited about getting a "source box" I imagine it's a participant as opposed to just an endpoint.