Write.as Development @writeas_dev@abunchtell.com

Okay, latest changes deployed. Included:

- Support for federation on custom domains
- Fixed avatars (some were off-center before)
- Users on custom domains are now excluded from NodeInfo stats on Write.as
- "Published" times on Create activities in the API

Doubt it'll be an issue, but have a bit more work to do to prevent overlap between blogs on Write.as and on custom domains (especially around account discovery) before I can deploy these changes. Will finish up tomorrow.

Now just double-checking all endpoints and #ActivityStreams data -- have to verify sites on write.as/*/, *.writeas.com, and custom domains.

✅ Blogs on custom domains are discoverable
✅ You can choose your handle for your custom domain blog (default: @blog@example.com)
✅ Custom domain blogs have NodeInfo showing them each as a single-user "instance"
✅ AP endpoints should be future-proof for when you can eventually self-host your blog
✅ Posts federate from blogs on custom domains

Good morning. Goals for today:

- Finish UI for enabling federation
- Experiment with rejecting replies
- Build onboarding flow for new users who want federation

Something I'm looking forward to: non-technical users seeing this new setting on their blog and asking me what it means. I have no doubt it'll be confusing to the uninitiated, so it'll be nice to hear everyone's questions, and figure out how to explain federation in a way that makes sense to them.

Based on that, I can tweak the UI so more people understand what's going on right away. Enough of that, and more people will be able to join the fediverse without the whole learning curve.

Actually it'll be something like this in the "Publicity" section for everyone, with a textbox that appears when "Custom domain" is selected.

Okay, custom domains are discoverable and have all endpoints in place. Now just need to let everyone choose their handle. This will go in a new "Federation" section on the blog settings page -- a page that's starting to get a little long I think, so I'll have to redesign it a bit in the near future.

One thing I want to do is make sure replies from the #fediverse are gracefully handled / rejected, since they don't go anywhere when replying to blog posts right now. Not sure how to do that, but I'll try a few things before the full roll-out.

Now I'm working on making blogs on custom domains discoverable in the fediverse , then adding a setting for all users to enable #federation.

Turns out boosting does work, just not on #writingexchange for certain accounts of mine I was testing with and broke on that instance (like @matt@write.as).

Only major bug I've found was with following multiple Write.as blogs -- the second or greater blog you followed didn't save in our database correctly.

That's fixed now, and I've reconstructed the missed follows via the server logs, so you should still be subscribed. Still, please double-check the blogs you're following, and if you see an hourglass icon where the follow button normally is, do the ol' unfollow/follow-again to get things right.

Now you can see how many #ActivityPub followers your blog has on your Stats page (though we don't divulge who individuals are -- again, goal is #privacy for readers, too)

Noticing some failed follow attempts from... Hubzilla? I believe. Going to see what I can do about supporting these other platforms next.

An account like @blog@write.as should work though...

Just kidding, I just had the IDs still pointed to the dev server, so @matt@write.as didn't work on certain instances (unfortunately including mastodon.social). Going to try deleting the account on dev and maybe that'll cause it to refresh the account?

Changes deployed, all looks good except follows are not being received. Looking into this now...

Soo not really sure if I need to do anything extra to get Announces (boosts) to work at this point. They do show up on my profile here when I boost, but don't appear to show up on my followers' timelines.

Otherwise everything seems solid. One last test and then I'll deploy the changes.

The easiest way to slowly roll this out will be to only have it available to users with Public blogs (a relatively small group of people). After a couple days of that, anyone will be able to enable federation.

Yep, that worked. Now I can search for accounts, but following doesn't work -- probably need to debug what headers Pleroma is sending. Will fix that in another iteration.