Using Ghost’s ActivityPub Integration with Existing Fediverse Handles

I’m excited about Ghost’s ActivityPub integration as we can now publish directly to the fediverse – including Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky – from the Ghost dashboard.

However, what’s the best approach for publishers who already have existing handles on those platforms? Since Ghost creates a new federated identity (like @name@yourdomain.com), how do people manage the transition or coordination between their old and new presence?

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I’m wondering the same thing. I have an established presence on Bluesky. I don’t want to start from scratch or have two Bluesky accounts.

Sorting this out will be key for a lot of people to try Fediverse.

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At this point I have no way to tell a friend to simply follow me on Mastodone or the Fediverse because I don’t know how to find myself (logged in with my old account).

There appears to be a delay before the Ghost-identity propagates.

I set one up yesterday @social@mydomain.com and couldn’t find it searching from Bluesky or Mastodon. This morning Mastodon finds it, but Bluesky doesn’t. Bluesky needs to use the instantly unmemorable @social.mydomain.com.ap.brid.gy‬. I’m aware that Bluesky uses a different protocol, but it also is the only one (I’m aware of) that allows the domain as the handle, which appears a lot more professional. And memorable. As @petem64 says, sorting all this out will be important to avoid a proliferation accounts, with all the associated problems that causes.

I can see the account now but the note posted yesterday on my Ghost profile is not visible and the avatar image is a mastodon default. This feels not right.

I had a brief look at the federation of your sites (since I can connect both of yours :sweat_smile:).

The sites themselves are federating correctly. Profiles, profile pictures, and notes are publicly available.

The issue really seems to be on Mastodon’s side, which seems to cache things somehow.

I’ve used https://browser.pub to look at things, in case anybody’s wondering.

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Thanks @jannis … from Mastodon it identifies I’ve made one post, but it’s not visible. I’ll try again tonight to see if it’s worked it’s way through the system.

My previous limited experience with micro.blog suggests that Fediverse communication was not quite as smooth and trouble-free, or rapid, as people would like.

I’ll also look at browser.pub which I’m not familiar with :+1:

Keep in mind that, Mastodon doesn’t fetch posts from other servers dynamically. They only show the posts they were already aware of. Awareness comes with a follower from their server.

For example: If no one from @mastodon.social server follows your Ghost account, mastodon.social will never know any of your posts. But if just 1 person follows you, mastodon.social server will start getting and saving all of your posts starting from that point. After that point, if someone from mastodon.social server searches your handle, they will able to see your latest posts before following you.

This is same for every other Mastodon instances (like mastodon.online) And actually this is a very common approach on other ActivityPub implementations as well.

Ghost works different. When you look for a profile on fediverse that you don’t follow yet, it dynamically fetches its latest posts, following and follower lists, and I think this is a great approach.

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The promise of this picture is that it works. If Jannis is right about the cache thing, then it should have been resolved in the beta period together with the people at Mastodon, no? I find it also a bit misleading that Bluesky is in the picture.

Sorry for being a bit unclear there. The cache was meant in regard to the profile image not showing up.

What @muratcorlu pointed out is absolutely correct. ActivityPub is a “push” protocol. Your Ghost site pushes content to the servers that are subscribed to it, which happens by someone following you.

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I was writing here and didn’t see when @muratcorlu replied, I understand now.

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This is actually great and important insight. I was not aware of it.

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One good advice for the discoverability would be, just open a mastodon account on popular mastodon instances (if you don’t have any), and just follow your Ghost account. Then you will be easily discoverable on those instances :blush:

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I have a problem that in browser.pub I see ma actor @feed@blog.chytrybazar.sk and I cannot find on any mastodon istances. Do you have any idea how to debug it please?
Thanks a lot.

btw When I was not logged in to mastodon I couldn’t find it, once I logged in I was able to find it.

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Doesn’t look like the OP question was answered here…

If we have existing fediverse accounts, what’s the best practice for connecting since Ghost now creates another account, at our own domain. Also what happens to that account, if for some reason we want to migrate away from Ghost at some point?

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Regarding the Threads social web integration with Ghost 6 I’d like to know if anyone had success doing this:

  1. finding & following your Ghost handle in the Threads app (logged in with a pre-existing account)
  2. finding & following a person on Threads in the Ghost social web backend

If yes, how did you achieve it? Thank you :slight_smile: