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Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
  • From its conception, #Enigmatick has leaned heavily on the /inbox and /outbox endpoints for client operations. There are some /api endpoints, but I avoid that were I can shoehorn operations into the #ActivityPub specification and #ActivityStreams vocabulary.

    While typical operational activities are fairly well accounted for, administration is a weak point. For example: I haven't identified a clear way to use the currently described mechanisms for an administrative user to pull up and manage instances or actors on a server.

    I've relied on CLI tools (e.g., ./enigmatick --help) to manage some of that. And in some cases, I know how to manipulate data in my database, so I haven't worried too much about building tooling. But I'd like to ship something that other folks can use to share in my efforts, so I've been thinking about how to model those activities in an ActivityPub-esque way to use in the Svelte UI.

    ActivityPub Messages

    To that end, I'm now using Block and Delete activities sent from the client to the server outbox to manage the blocking of instances and purging of data.

    { "@context": [ "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams", { "ek": "https://enigmatick.social/ns#", "Instance": "ek:Instance" } ], "id": "https://enigmatick.social/activities/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000", "type": "Block", "actor": "https://enigmatick.social/user/system", "object": { "type": "Instance", "id": "https://spammy-instance.example" } }

    In practice, my client does not generate the id, but that attribute is generated by the server and the Activity is stored alongside other typically federated activities. These local Block activities are not federated out to other servers; they are intended solely for local server management.

    The Block activity is sent as a message signed at the client by a user with administrative privileges on the server. Enigmatick's user authentication is unique (i.e., I use a separate set of encryption keys for client-signing executed by a wasm module in the browser). That can be a topic for a future article.

    That the actor as the system Application user is important. That is used by the server to establish the scope of this action as system-wide, not just for a single user. The system actor is discoverable in the nodeinfo metadata.

    I'm using a typed object rather than just an id reference. This is so that I can use this same flow for blocking and purging Actor objects (i.e., the type would be Person, Service, or Application).

    The purge action is similar, using the Delete activity.

    { "@context": [ "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams", { "ek": "https://enigmatick.social/ns#", "Instance": "ek:Instance" } ], "id": "https://enigmatick.social/activities/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000", "type": "Delete", "actor": "https://enigmatick.social/user/system", "object": { "type": "Instance", "id": "https://spammy-instance.example" } }

    The term, "delete" is a bit of a misnomer in this case as it applies to the instance specifically. The instance will remain, but the objects, activities, and actors associated with that instance will be fully deleted (i.e., not set to Tombstone).

    Collection Endpoints

    To facilitate the UI operations, I've created two new collection endpoints on my server: /instances and /actors. These endpoints provide typical ActivityPub Collection objects.

    { "@context": [ "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams", { "Instance": "ek:Instance", "activitiesCount": "ek:activitiesCount", "actorsCount": "ek:actorsCount", "blocked": "ek:blocked", "ek": "https://enigmatick.social/ns#", "lastMessageAt": "ek:lastMessageAt", "objectsCount": "ek:objectsCount" } ], "type": "OrderedCollection", "id": "https://enigmatick.social/instances", "totalItems": 7702, "orderedItems": [ { "type": "Instance", "id": "https://example-instance.name", "blocked": false, "created": "2025-12-16T16:56:33Z", "lastMessageAt": "2025-12-16T16:56:33Z", "actorsCount": 0, "objectsCount": 1, "activitiesCount": 0 } ], "first": "https://enigmatick.social/instances?max=9223372036854775807", "last": "https://enigmatick.social/instances?min=0", "next": "https://enigmatick.social/instances?max=1765657395402834" }

    I've added some extensions in the @context to account for a few non-standard attributes.

    That collection is used by the UI.

    The Enigmatick instances UI showing the most recently discovered instances from the enigmatick.social server

    Collection Discovery

    nodeinfo is a common protocol used for discovering information about ActivityPub-speaking servers. I've extended my use of that to facilitate client-discovery of these new endpoints using the metadata object contained in the nodeinfo JSON.

    "metadata": { "actor": "https://enigmatick.social/user/system", "adminActors": "https://enigmatick.social/actors", "adminInstances": "https://enigmatick.social/instances", "domain": "enigmatick.social", "url": "https://enigmatick.social" } Final Thoughts

    As I'm reading through this, I see some opportunities for refinement. I should probably be using OrderedCollectionPage instead of OrderedCollection for my collection endpoints. I'm sure there are other tweaks to be made.

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  • Agreed that forums are definitely needed, and the energy NodeBB has brought to the Fediverse has been very welcome indeed! The coexistence is often smooth but sometimes quite clunky (although of course that's true for ActivityPub platforms in general).

    Specifically for the deletes, I had also run into problems where they weren't getting propagated everywhere. Not sure if there's a similar thing happening here; If I recall correctly, the issue I was experiencing related to unsigned fetches.

    @julian

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  • @klu9 @eyeinthesky

    Having multiple servers connect to each other is Federation.

    Having multiple independent servers (regardless of whether they connect to each other or not) is Decentralization.

    ...

    TS is an independent server — thus, it with others form Decentralized social-media.

    TS does not connect to other servers — thus, not Federated.

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  • @reiver @eyeinthesky

    I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand the difference

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  • @klu9 @eyeinthesky

    TS removed the Federation — not the Decentralized.

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  • @reiver @eyeinthesky

    Isn't the key technical difference between & regular that TS removed the decentralization?

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  • @eyeinthesky

    For better or worse, he is also probably the most successful example of a politician embracing and using decentralized social-media.

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  • I'd say that forums are definitely welcome and needed on the Fediverse, and can coexist well with microblog platforms like Mastodon.

    ActivityPub.Space is proof of that!

    We straddle both the microblogs and threaded discussions.

    Spam is taken care of just like everywhere else: Delete activities.

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Post suggeriti
  • 0 Votes
    6 Posts
    11 Views
    Yes. If no one on, say, mastodon.social is following you then none of your posts will show up in the global timeline there or in searches or in hashtags. Also if you have few followers your posts will receive few boosts so hardly anyone will follow you. So we end up with a handful of wildly popular accounts dominating the conversations which mostly happen on the big instances. Centralised power. Bad. The threadiverse solves this. People don't follow other people, they join communities and it's their membership that determines where the federation traffic goes. So nearly every instance has all the conversation and everyone is on an equal footing.
  • 0 Votes
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    @markwyner I don't know if this was the same thing, but I saw(and boosted) posts talking about people who literally had Nazi-esque usernames. Is that the situation here? If so, how can open registration not have a blacklist of names that, at the very least, would be quarantined(to deal with things where bad words in one language appear in other languages in more favourable contexts)?Also, thank you for all the work you do to improve the community.
  • Finally!

    Uncategorized peertube kodi
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    13 Views
    Finally! I managed to get the custom instance option into the #peertube #kodi plugin! :)🎉I might wait with the official release since someone was so nice to make a PR for favorite instances! I'll likely try to merge that wirst.But you can git clone the repo from https://forge.giftedmc.com/haui/plugin.video.pt
  • 0 Votes
    1 Posts
    19 Views
    Running a community in the Fediverse means balancing openness with safety. Every year, @iftas takes the pulse of administrators, moderators, and community managers with their Annual Needs Assessment. This survey helps identify what’s working, where support is needed, and which tools can make a difference for those keeping decentralized spaces safe.The 2025 survey is now openTake part in the IFTAS Needs Assessment (5–10 minutes).Take the survey now(If you haven’t seen them before, you can also take a look at last year’s report)Last year’s responses represented moderators of over 4.3 million accounts across ActivityPub platforms. With WordPress now the largest group of federating instances, it’s especially important for our community of hosts, site admins, and moderators to be heard.Moderation in WordPress: From Site-Wide to Personal ControlsWe recently introduced a major update to the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress: personalized and site-wide moderation tools.Site administrators can now set domain, keyword, and actor-level blocks that protect the entire site.Individual users can fine-tune their own experience with personal blocks, managed directly from their profiles.Content is checked against both global and personal rules—so moderation works at every level.These improvements directly address needs raised in previous IFTAS surveys, making moderation more discoverable, flexible, and effective for WordPress communities in the Fediverse.Your Input MattersIFTAS uses the Needs Assessment to guide tools, policies, and advocacy that reflect the real-world challenges of moderators—especially those in under-resourced communities. The more representative the responses, the stronger the outcomes for everyone.If you’re running a federating WordPress site, please consider:Filling out the survey yourself.Sharing it with other admins, moderators, and community organizers.Reminding folks that it’s anonymous, quick, and impactful.Take the 2025 Fediverse Needs AssessmentTogether, we can keep building a safer, healthier Fediverse—one that reflects the needs of its communities.