Title: Page 12 – Alex Kirk

---

 * 
   ## 󠀁[Your WordPress as Your Personal Mastodon Instance](https://alex.kirk.at/2024/06/13/your-wordpress-as-your-personal-mastodon-instance/)󠁿
   
 * June 13, 2024
 * **tl;dr:** Three plugins can transform your WordPress install to your personal
   [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) Instance: [ActivityPub](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/),
   [Enable Mastodon Apps](https://wordpress.org/plugins/enable-mastodon-apps/), 
   and [Friends](https://wordpress.org/plugins/friends/).
 * As you might know, I am the author of the [Friends plugin for WordPress](https://wordpress.org/plugins/friends/).
   I started this in 2018 with the idea (which I [later described in a vision post](https://alex.kirk.at/2021/01/21/reducing-our-dependency-on-third-party-platforms-for-our-online-activity/))
   that something like Facebook (with private posts) could be implemented decentralized
   between WordPresses (and later other blogs/cmses).
 * To be honest, the effort is and stays somewhat niche. Social networks are good
   at locking people in, discovery is better, and many of my friends don’t actually
   run their own blog.
 * 
   ### Joining the Fediverse
   
 * A few years later, [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) became big, and having
   been in contact with [Matthias Pfefferle](https://notiz.blog), I realized (after
   he repeatedly poked me) that it’d be great to join forces with [his ActivityPub plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/)(
   later [acquired by Automattic](https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/03/17/making-the-social-web-a-better-place-activitypub-for-wordpress-joins-the-automattic-family/)):
   it allows people on Mastodon and other ActivityPub networks to follow your WordPress
   blog directly, not utilizing the then common “Share to Twitter” et al functionality.
 * So, when you have both ActivityPub and Friends installed, you can be followed
   and follow people on Mastodon. [The Friends plugin compiles a feed](https://wpfriends.at/consume-the-web-your-way/)
   of your follows (mixed in or separately also with all your RSS subscriptions).
 * ![A screenshot of the Friends plugin home screen feed.](https://alex.kirk.at/
   wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/friends-mixed-feed-1024x670.png)
 * This shows my private Friends page where statuses and posts display mixed (you
   can also have pure views)
 * This was already nice, but Matthias and I both had to implement further elements
   to be truly integrated into Mastodon conversations: [the ActivityPub plugin implemented replies with comments](https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/pull/550),
   Friends [implemented Boosting](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pull/287) and
   [Replying to any (ActivityPub) URL](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pull/307),
   and [much](https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed)
   [more](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed).
 * ![Screenshot of the ActivityPub Admin Screen](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/
   uploads/sites/2/2024/06/activitypub-admin-1024x615.png)
 * The ActivityPub admin page shows your Mastodon Handle
 * 
   ### A (Mobile) App Ecosystem
   
 * Still, there was one piece missing. Mastodon has a [thriving third-party app ecosystem](https://joinmastodon.org/apps).
   The UI of Mastodon as well of Friends (while [completely customizable](https://github.com/akirk/friends/wiki/Customizing-the-style-of-your-own-Friends-page)),
   is not to everyone’s taste, but you have a huge selection of apps to match your
   taste.
 * So, in the very end of 2022, I started to work on the [Enable Mastodon Apps](https://wordpress.org/plugins/enable-mastodon-apps/)
   plugin. It implements the [same API that Mastodon implements for talking to its clients](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/api/),
   just in WordPress.
 * ![A screenshot of Mastodon apps](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/
   2/2024/06/mastodon-apps-ecosystem-1024x732.png)
 * Today the [official directory](https://joinmastodon.org/apps) lists 56 apps, 
   likely many more exist
 * It was quite a wild ride (that likely is not over yet), reverse engineering some
   clients because they would crash even if the plugin spoke exactly [what the docs defined](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/api/guidelines/).
   The reason being that most apps (understandably) assume some further truths that
   are valid for [Mastodon’s implementation](https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/),
   like ids, while being [defined to be of string value](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/entities/Status/#id),
   actually need to be numbers. [Eugen Rochko](https://github.com/Gargron) actually
   later confirmed to me that this specific choice was merely made to avoid troubles
   with very large ids.
 * Last week, I [released 0.9.0 of Enable Mastodon Apps](https://github.com/akirk/enable-mastodon-apps/releases)
   which is almost a rewrite, fueled by [contributors at the CloudFest Hackathon](https://hackathon.cloudfest.com/project/enable-mastodon-apps-for-wordpress-and-its-plugins/):
   special thanks to [Matthias Pfefferle](https://notiz.blog) for hosting it, [Matthias Kittsteiner](https://kittmedia.com),
   [Konstantin Obenland](https://konstantin.obenland.it/), and [Ralf Wiechers](https://www.drivingralle.de)
   for your contributions! This resulted in a more stable implementation ([ensuring correct JSONs](https://github.com/akirk/enable-mastodon-apps/blob/main/includes/entity/class-entity.php#L40))
   and a stricter separation of concerns.
 * 
   ### Combining the Power of Three Plugins
   
 * So the combination of the three plugins now gives you the ability to fully interact
   with the Fediverse while not having to host your own Mastodon [which comes with quite a list of requirements](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/run-your-own/).
 * Granted, there are still rough edges (please help discover and fixing them by
   reporting in the [respective](https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/issues)
   [Github](https://github.com/akirk/friends/issues) [issues](https://github.com/akirk/enable-mastodon-apps/issues))
   and we yet only have experience with a couple hundred followers and follows. 
   But that works already reliably.
 * Each of the plugins are useful on their own:
    - If you have just the [ActivityPub plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/),
      people can follow your blog on the fediverse, can comment from the fediverse
      on your posts and your replies will go back into the fediverse.
    - If you have just the [Enable Mastodon Apps plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/enable-mastodon-apps/),
      you can use Mastodon Apps to see the posts on your blog (useful if it’s a 
      multi-people blog), reply and submit new posts.
    - If you have just the [Friends plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/friends/),
      you can connect WordPresses, follow RSS feeds, get keyword notifications, 
      apply feed rules, react on posts with emoji (there is a bit of an ecosystem
      of its own, with further plugins [Post Collection](https://github.com/akirk/friends-post-collection)
      and [Send to E-Reader](https://github.com/akirk/friends-send-to-e-reader)).
 * Together, by making use of [WordPress hooks](https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/hooks/)(
   see for example the [Enable Mastodon Apps Hooks Documentation](https://github.com/akirk/enable-mastodon-apps/wiki/Hooks)),
   the plugin extend each other’s API responses or UI. What travels over the the
   ActivityPub protocol is handled by the ActivityPub plugin. When a feed of posts
   is involved, the Friends plugin will fill in your friends’ posts. And so on.
 * 
   ### Alternative UIs
   
 * It’s really quite something to be able to browse your own blog, or statuses and
   blogs you follow with apps like [Phanpy](https://phanpy.social/) (web), [Elk](https://elk.zone/)(
   web), [Mammoth](https://getmammoth.app/) (macOS, iPad, iOS), or [Tusky](https://github.com/tuskyapp/Tusky)(
   Android) or [Ivory](https://tapbots.com/ivory/) (macOS and iOS).
 * The posting experience from mobile using a Mastodon App can be better than with
   the [standard WordPress mobile apps](https://wordpress.org/mobile/). Each app
   covers a different use case and has posting UI specialized in that.
 * 
   ### Empower Your WordPress!
   
 * I believe that the Fediverse comes to the rescue of blogging. Unfortunately, 
   years ago the comment sections of the web were killed by spam. The fediverse 
   now reopens meaningful interaction with your blog posts. Comments from the Fediverse
   appear in your blog and your responses are sent back as replies. That gets conversations
   going again!
 * To try it out, you can use [WordPress “run WordPress in your browser” Playground](https://wordpress.org/playground/)
   to take a little glimpse at the plugins without having to install it: Note that,
   because of its JS nature, playground is in a sandbox and can only connect to 
   CORS enabled URLs.
    - [WordPress Playground: Friends Welcome Screen](https://wordpress.org/plugins/friends/?preview=1)
    - [WordPress Playground: A pre-configured Friends plugin](https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://alex.kirk.at/friendsdemo1.blueprint.json)
    - [WordPress Playground: Enable Mastodon Apps](https://wordpress.org/plugins/enable-mastodon-apps/?preview=1)
    - [WordPress Playground: ActivityPub](https://playground.wordpress.net/?plugin=activitypub&url=/wp-admin/admin.php?page=activitypub)
 * Finally, these are the links to the WordPress plugin directory:
    - [ActivityPub](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/): have conversations
      about your blog posts across the fediverse.
    - [Enable Mastodon Apps](https://wordpress.org/plugins/enable-mastodon-apps/):
      make WordPress compatible with Mastodon apps.
    - [Friends](https://wordpress.org/plugins/friends/): follow others via RSS or
      ActivityPub.
 * Thanks for reading, I am curious for your opinions! You can reply to this post
   on the fediverse!
 * 
   ###### Fediverse Reactions
   
    -  [ ⌊Annette Schwindt⌉ ](https://bonn.social/@annette)
 *  -  [ ⌊Marcus⌉ ](https://mastodon.social/@habercore)
 * [Enable Mastodon Apps](https://alex.kirk.at/category/wordpress/enable-mastodon-apps/),
   [Fediverse](https://alex.kirk.at/category/fediverse/), [Friends Plugin](https://alex.kirk.at/category/wordpress/friends-plugin/),
   [Open Web](https://alex.kirk.at/category/open-web/), [Web](https://alex.kirk.at/category/web/),
   [WordPress](https://alex.kirk.at/category/wordpress/)
 * [ActivityPub](https://alex.kirk.at/tag/activitypub/), [Mastodon](https://alex.kirk.at/tag/mastodon/),
   [WordPress](https://alex.kirk.at/tag/wordpress/)
 * June 8, 2024
 * @simon-dewp-space Ich glaub der https://kraft.press Feed ist irgendwie kaputt.
   In [PocketCasts gibts den Beitrag](https://pca.st/xvt5c2a9) aber die Audio-Datei
   ist ein 404, im Feed [https://feed.kraut.press/en/](https://feed.kraut.press/en/)
   ist er nicht drin. [Über den Website-Beitrag](https://kraut.press/podcast/gatherpress/)
   kann man ihn hören.
 * [Web](https://alex.kirk.at/category/web/)

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