I was excited when Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, announced that they had acquired the popular WordPress plugin ActivityPub.
Although I had enabled the ActivityPub plugin in 2019, I hadn’t committed to using it and soon disabled it. Matthias Pfefferle’s later announcement that Automattic had enabled ActovityPub across all of WordPress.com filled me with confidence to re-enable the plug-in and commit to the fediverse.
The ActivityPub plugin for WordPress is a tool that extends the functionality of a WordPress website to make it compatible with the ActivityPub protocol. ActivityPub is a decentralised social networking protocol that allows different social media platforms to communicate and share content in a standardised way.
My WordPress site can interact with other ActivityPub-compatible platforms such as Mastodon. This means I can follow and be followed by users on other ActivityPub-compatible social networks like Mastodon, Pleroma, or Pixelfed. I can share my posts, articles, and updates from my WordPress site directly to subscribers on other platforms that support ActivityPub.
ActivityPub enables interactions such as liking (favouriting), sharing (boosting), and commenting (replies) on my WordPress posts from other ActivityPub users. The plugin allows me to control the visibility of my posts, making it possible to share them publicly or restrict it to specific audiences.
Once a person follows the @khurtwilliams@islandinthenet.com profile, any blog post I publish publicly will land in their Home feed on Mastodon. I receive notifications for interactions with my blog, such as when someone likes, shares, or comments on my posts from those external platforms.
The ActivityPub plugin enhances my WordPress website's connectivity, enabling it to become a part of the larger decentralised social web. It fosters a more open and interconnected online social experience, where users on various platforms can engage with my website seamlessly.
@starrwulfe @khurtwilliams oh man! That blog post is the one I wish I had written. Ditto!
My blog already exchanges messages with BlueSky via Brid. gy and I’m excited for Threads to join the party. My account wasn’t one of the fortunate ones to get early access to ActivityPub on Threads.
@starrwulfe let me read your post before I respond to the other question.
@starrwulfe It’s mostly positive but there are some odd bugs. For example, when I schedule a WordPress post to go live at a later date, the link gets posted to Mastodon even though the post isn’t live.
Examples here: https://photog.social/@khurtwilliams@islandinthenet.com/111956155403281798
and here: https://photog.social/@khurtwilliams@islandinthenet.com/111953539533389664
@manton I appreciate that.
@khurtwilliams I'm looking into this again. Clearly something isn't quite right, but it is really difficult to unravel. I'll follow up on the help forums because that seems the best place.
It seems like we're both in need of some insights from @manton, as he's the expert on how micro.blog operates. Since you're not familiar with micro.blog, it might be best for us to wait for @manton's guidance. I appreciate your input so far, but it looks like this is something that only someone with direct knowledge can address.
Just to clarify, I wasn't seeking troubleshooting help, but rather trying to highlight some issues I've encountered, despite micro.blog's stated support for these features.
@khurtwilliams ok-- so I'll just have to read your mind I guess. I literally have no idea where your URL comes from and how your account is setup. But I'll repeat-- I am not a MB employee. I have no roll here. I don't want one. I have generally tried to be helpful, and I've generally found your tone in various places to be pretty aggressive and unpleasant. I hoped to help, but clearly I am not helping. I'd appreciate it if you didn't use me as your personal webmentions test case-- I don't really have a desire to be your troubleshooter, and none of what you've posted gives me enough information to really help anyway. It seems to me like you're not getting the support or functionality you want, so it seems to me like this isn't the place for you at this point. It's been years.
@jsonbecker WRONG! none of those commnets originated from my website.
I read your post there @khurtwilliams, looks like it was a rough start to implement for your site. Is everything running smoothly now?
Also w/r/t my post being referenced how would you choose to set things up when there's Threads also being thrown into the fedi?
(I also posted about this a bit here myself.)
On the subject of Connecting Federated Social Media Networks
@khurtwilliams not to me— the ones from your website are webmentions sent from your website comments, which won’t know about your user name here, I’d imagine— at least that’s what I think is happening, which also seemed to be what you wanted?
@jsonbecker isnt it odd that some of the replies on micr.blog are to @khurtwilliams and some are to @islandinthenet.com but all of my exchanges are via the only micro.blog account I have?
@khurtwilliams @jsonbecker Thanks, I need to refresh my memory about this.
@jsonbecker there are no threaded comments on micro.blog so …. unsure which this is.
Replies to replies to replies is how Webmentions work. That’s expected behaviour. If micro.blog doesn’t support that, perhaps @manton can document that.
@islandinthenet.com I’m not sure I understand what this reply was meant to be? But I saw it as a reply to my earlier reply in Micro.blog even though it’s coming from your URL.
@khurtwilliams and yes, I remember that thread and Manton saying “if you make the link point to the main post and not the comment you’re replying to, that seems semantically different than your expectation/description of desired action”— and that was set up on the sender side.
@khurtwilliams I have no idea if that is meant to work. A reply to a reply is sending a webmention to a reply… a reply that has been pulled into WordPress, and a reply which, itself, is not a post. I’m honestly unsure. I don’t think I know what I would expect. I don’t generally think of webmentions in my personal mental model as a mechanism for threaded replies. I think of it as something close to ping back/trackback style. “I’m informing you I wrote a post about your post” not conversation back and forth. That could be wrong, but my understanding of webmentions is not “this is a full conversation system”.
That said, I don’t build anything here and I’m not officially anything, just describing my own understanding.
@jsonbecker I dont think you understand what I am posting about.
@jsonbecker thats an interesting statement to make considering whats written here.
help.micro.blog/t/replies...
@jsonbecker iI want to disolay them. Nothing since 2023.
@khurtwilliams here’s an example of webmentions from you.
I just have no interest in displaying webmentions. Just like I dont display replies.
@khurtwilliams i recieve webmentions from your blog. They are webmentions, however, and not magical MB replies. MB supports receiving and sending webmentions, but it does not consider a webmention something to be converted into an MB reply. MB replies are not inclusive of webmentions. activitypub replies to posts are, however, considered replies in that way.
@khurtwilliams I'm following your account on Mastodon too so will reply there. I might unfollow you on Micro.blog since the replies are not working. I assume the posts are the same.
@pratik I just want Webmention replies to work so that the next time you comment from micro.blog to one of my post you don't think I'm ghosting you. 🙂
@khurtwilliams I bet. I was half-joking ? Just that this all seems like lots of tinkering. I have done that in the past but don't have the time now.
@pratik FYI. Go look at the original blog post. You can clearly see that my self-hosted WordPress blog is receiving Webmentions correctly.
@pratik we have some people like @jsonbecker saying Webmentions work on micro.blog but I state, with a tinge of anger and annoyance, it does not. And the documentation in incorrect. I mentioned this to @manton but he's been too busy to fix any of it.
@khurtwilliams This all sounds too technical and no wonder I didnt hear back in nearly three months. I could’ve snail-mailed you my comment instead
@jemostrom follow @khurtwilliams@islandinthenet.com to follow the blog posts. I also syndicate them to @khurtwilliams. Follow me on @khurtwilliams if you want to see my random micro-posts.
I know all of this stuff is confusing. Nerds made it for other nerds.
@islandinthenet.com Ah! I thought you were only sending photo posts to photog.social. But you are sending everything there. So technically, the photog.social is your Mastodon presence and WordPress is your ActivityPub.
, yes! That’s how it’s supposed to work. Webmention support across platforms can be spotty. Some known issues exist with the ActivityPub WordPress plugin.
Update: Yet another
u-in-reply-towebmention that micro.blog did not pick up.@khurtwilliams But you are splitting your micro posts on another Mastodon instance, right? Why not blog micro posts also on WordPress using the Asides format?
I don’t post on micro.blog anymore.
Micro.blog pulls in my self-hosted WordPress posts via RSS/JSON feed. WordPress sends my posts to
photog.socialvia ActivityPub. The blog itself can be followed directly frommicro.blogor Maston by following @khurtwilliams on those platforms.I’ve had Wedmention support on my self-hosted WordPress since 2017. Micro.blog also supports Webmentions. Any comments on micro.blog should appear back on the WordPress post. Any replies from my WordPress should also be sent back to micro.blog via Webmentions.
I use Brid.gy to back feed the comments from photog.social to my self-hosted WordPress.
I do not want to pollute my RSS feed with short posts.
Update: Yet another
u-in-reply-towebmention that micro.blog did not pick up.@khurtwilliams slightly confused, what address should I use to follow?
follow @khurtwilliams to follow the blog posts. I also syndicate them to @khurtwilliams@photog.social. Follow me on @khurtwilliams if you want to see my random micro-posts.
I know all of this stuff is confusing. Nerds made it for other nerds.
@khurtwilliams this should appear as a comment on the WordPress blog.
This WordPress comment should appear on micro.blog as a comment to your comment.
@khurtwilliams the possibility to reply from Micro.blog to your blog is simply very cool!
@khurtwilliams I'm not sure how you will get this reply, though.
all your reply comments for the syndicated link on from micro.blog will make it back to my blog. If micro. blog's Webmention reply support is working as expected, and then you'll see my (this) reply in micro.blog itself.
NOTE: It doesn't work as expected. Replies to comments left via micro.blog never make it back to micro.blog and I have no way to troubleshoot it. This used to work but either @manton has removed this feature or there is a bug in the micro.blog implementation of Webmention.
Here's the Webmention markup I am using.
<a href="https://micro.blog/numericcitizen/26727320" class="u-in-reply-to">@numericcitizen</a> all your reply comments for the syndicated link on from micro.blog will make it back to my blog. If micro. blog's <a href="https://help.micro.blog/t/replies-and-mentions/28">Webmention reply support</a> is working as expected, and then you'll see my (this) reply in micro.blog itself.
@khurtwilliams you are the first WordPress.com site that I now follow using the Fediverse. I'm following you from Micro.blog Mastodon compatible feature.
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