Feature Request: Option to set the "Federate" setting to Do Not Federate by default when editing existing unfederated posts

[VirtualWolf]

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What

I'd like an option to set the "Federate" setting when editing posts to be set to "Do Not Federate" by default if that post hasn't already been federated before.

Why

I have over 20 years of blog posts, a lot of them imported from my old LiveJournal, and to this day I still occasionally come across things like broken links that need fixing, egregious spelling errors that I didn't notice at the time, and so on. On multiple occasions since installing the ActivityPub plugin I've edited these old posts and forgotten that the "Federate" option is turned on by default, and so end up publishing a post from like 15 years ago to my blog's fediverse account.

It would be nice if I didn't constantly need to remember this and I could just have the Federate option turned off by default.

How

For existing posts that have already been federated and are being edited, those would want to default to the "Federate" option being on, this feature request is just for existing posts being edited that have never been federated before.

An additional thought I had, I don't know much about the internals of how Wordpress works so I'm not sure if you can distinguish between a new post versus editing an existing one, but if so it'd be neat if some sort of "This post will be federated" prepublish check could be shown for new posts.

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is stale because it has been open 120 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed in 5 days.

[edent]

I'd really like this! I regularly edit old posts to fix broken links. I then get people replying on the Fediverse. In this case, someone replying to 16 year old post as though it was new. https://mastodon.social/@Edent/114778888488041697

It looks like the following custom field works - setting activitypub_content_visibility to local.

[edent]

I think this feature has broken. Today I edited a post from 2016 and it appeared as an update.

See - https://mas.to/@schmerg/115292654796313511

Plugin: Version 7.4.0 WordPress: Version 6.8.2

[pfefferle]

There is a bug in the current code! It should be fixed in 7.5.0 https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/pull/2210

[pfefferle]

This change is setting the checkbox in the sidebar to default local, so you can see if it works or not and/or do this by hand if you do not want to send any updates to the fediverse.

[edent]

I do not have a sidebar on the classic editor. Is there any way to set this option globally?

I've got a lot of old posts to update and I don't want them spamming the timeline.

[pfefferle]

Ah, I see! I forgot about that case! I will run some tests with the classic editor!

[edent]

I think I see one of the issues. I was editing a post from 2018 which had previously been federated.

The order in https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/blob/5a4241a72bc6d6932867103c748e5297bcbde984/includes/class-post-types.php#L526 is

1. If federated, return default visibility.
2. If not federated and older than a month, return local.

But what about posts which were federated and are now older than a month? I think they should stay local as well. So the order becomes:

1. If older than a month, return local.
2. If federated, return default visibility.

Do you think that's suitable?

[pfefferle]

I think they should stay local as well.

I think there might be very different opinions on that! I think every article that was published once should be updated, to keep the context updated!

An example: You federated an article that received a lot of comments. You now change the text of the post some month later to something controversial (bitcoin spam, ...). The commenters will not be pinged and have no chance to react to that change!

[edent]

I see what you mean.

When I edit a post on Mastodon, the only people who are alerted are those who have previously interacted with it. When I edit a post on WordPress, it jumps to the top of my feed.

Is there a way to update the post without pushing it to the top of the feed?

[pfefferle]

I can check with the mastodon team if they do something special or if we do something wrong.

[VirtualWolf]

Oh I forgot to ask about this bit in my original request:

On multiple occasions since installing the ActivityPub plugin I've edited these old posts and forgotten that the "Federate" option is turned on by default, and so end up publishing a post from like 15 years ago to my blog's fediverse account.

How does one go about deleting an accidentally-federated post? Not the post itself in Wordpress of course, just what shows up when you view the blog's profile from the fediverse. I have two posts in this state from 2004, and also two attachments that I accidentally added because I was mucking around and didn't realise what would happen. 🤦🏻‍♀️