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The biggest goal for Fediverser is to become a system where administrators of different instances can coordinate their efforts. This will allow us to do things like:

  • Pull and push data from the crowdsource mapping database
  • Get updated information about users on Reddit that have already migrated to a different instance
  • Avoid sending messages to users on Reddit who already expressed no interest in migrating to the Fediverser
  • Keep track of spam accounts, fake bots, etc.

Fediverser achieves these goals with a simple system where instances can check each other's "change feed" which pulls the data from different instances and presents this information in the admin dashboard. You, as the admin of your instance, can then choose to merge those changes into your own database, which will in turn create more entries in your change feed and will be then picked up by other instances.

Why not just use ActivityPub itself?

That's an excellent question! :) It would be very interesting to have all this communication between instances happening via ActivityPub. We chose this initial model simply because it is simpler to get started and does not require any change in the existing software.

Merging changes from users

The primary source of data changes are from users in your Fediverser portal. Whenever a new user annotates (i.e, provides any type of meta-data about) an instance/community/subreddit/redditor, the information is not directly updated in your database. Instead, it creates a Change Request, which can then be reviewed at the admin dashboard.

To see the list of change requests, go to "Core > Change Requests" section of the admin:

Change Requests

Each change request will have a short description and the user that has proposed the change. You can then select the entries and either "Accept" or "Reject" those changes by selecting them and choosing the action in the dropdown menu.

Merging changes from instances

To manage changes from other instances, you should look into the "Core > Change Entries". The idea is the same. Each change from other instances will be displayed in the page and if you can select the entries and select the "Merge selected entries into our database" option.