My thanks to @kenSwinson for their help and troubleshooting with ActivityPub integration into WordPress (visit their website at https://www.kenswinson.com/). Although I thought it was a simple matter of loading a plugin, it turned out to be a little bit more complex. Technical process really is that simple – just load the plugin and configure. However, the real difference is how the data presents itself and the connections are utilized.
ActivityPub’s plugin allows for a connection between this website (using WordPress) and a Federated site like Mastodon. Thru whatever programming magic, it creates an entity on Mastodon to post website updates, then provides a handshake to sync responses as comments on the website. The end result is a single coordinated entity, where both systems maintain update each other.
However, it does require some differences – the main one being the posting ID on Mastodon. In the past, I used @Halfling13 on my Mastodon server, @social.halfling13.com (combined profile of @Halfling13@social.halfling13.com). With the ActivityPub integration, the posting id instead becomes @Halfling13@www.halfling13.com. The system then registers anything posted on WordPress as a new Mastodon post, and any responses to Mastodon postings come back as comments on WordPress. A key limitation however is that only new postings since following the account seem to sync – if you follow now, any previous postings do not link, only future ones.
The other big challenge is that this new account is not actually managed via a logon on Mastodon, like I had assumed. Instead, it is a setting and configuration thru the WordPress site, which provides access to any followers and followed accounts, and the ability to modify them.
As a secondary addon, I also configured the Friends plugin, which supposedly works in concert and will auto-follow anyone who ends up following the site. I haven’t had much to really dig into with that module yet, but hopefully it will continue to help the site grow.
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