Fediverse Long-form Text (FEP-b2b8) — Complete Reference

Overview

Long-form text — blog posts, magazine articles, forum posts — is represented in ActivityPub using the

Article

The core problem FEP-b2b8 addresses: the fediverse grew around microblogging where

Note

Article

Note

Article

preview

1. Article vs. Note — When to Use Which

The Activity Vocabulary defines:

• Note

  — a short written work, typically less than a single paragraph

• Article

  — any kind of multi-paragraph written work

Publishers SHOULD use

Article

Note

Publishers should avoid this workaround, and instead give consumers the full information they need to display the content correctly in their own interfaces.

The IndieWeb community uses a pragmatic heuristic: articles have titles (a

name

name

content

2. The Article Object — Properties

id

A unique HTTPS URL that resolves to the object. Equivalent to RSS 2.0

guid

name

The title. Should be plain text (no HTML entities like

&

title

"name": "Long-form text with included content"

url

Location of the full HTML representation. Can be:

• A single string URL
• A

  Link

  object with

  mediaType: "text/html"

  and

  href

• An array of strings/Link objects for multiple representations

At least one entry should have

mediaType

text/html

https

link

"url": "https://example.com/2024/11/07/long-form-text.html"

Or as a Link:

"url": {
  "type": "Link",
  "mediaType": "text/html",
  "href": "https://example.com/2024/11/07/long-form-text.html"
}

summary

A brief description, teaser, abstract, or "lede." Guidelines:

• Maximum about 500 characters
• A few sentences or a short paragraph
• Can include HTML markup
• MUST NOT include embedded media (images, video, audio)
• MUST NOT include navigation elements or affordances (favourite, like, bookmark buttons)
• MUST NOT include "Read more..." links

Equivalent to RSS 2.0

description

Summary generation hierarchy (recommended by Evan Prodromou):

1. Manual user-defined summary (preferred)
2. Use full text if it is ~500 chars and a single paragraph
3. Use first paragraph if it meets the rough guidelines
4. Truncate with ellipsis (

   …

   ) as fallback

Implementation note (NodeBB): NodeBB allows a "magic string" (HTML comment) that power users can place in their content to manually select where the summary should end. The limit and marker are configurable per instance. After consulting with Matt Baer (WriteFreely), this approach was adopted alongside ellipsis on truncation.

Interop quirk (GoToSocial): GoToSocial treats

summary

summary

attributedTo

The author(s). Can be:

A string (just the actor id):

"attributedTo": "https://example.com/evan"

An object with full author info:

"attributedTo": {
  "type": "Person",
  "id": "https://example.com/evan",
  "name": "Evan Prodromou",
  "summary": "<p>Founder of Social Web Foundation</p>",
  "url": "https://example.com/evan",
  "icon": {
    "type": "Image",
    "mediaType": "image/png",
    "url": "https://example.com/evan.png"
  }
}

A Link (for authors without an AS2 representation):

"attributedTo": {
  "type": "Link",
  "href": "https://example.com/evan",
  "name": "Evan Prodromou"
}

An array for multiple authors (strings, objects, or Links mixed).

published

Publication date as

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ

pubDate

updated

Date of last update, same format. If absent, consumers can assume the object has not been modified since

published

image

A notable or representative image. Can be an

id

Image

content

The full text of the article in HTML. The HTML MUST be a sanitized subset — no CSS, no JavaScript. Allowed elements:

<p>

<span>

<h2>

<h6>

<br>

<a>

<del>

<pre>

<code>

<em>

<strong>

<b>

<i>

<u>

<ul>

<ol>

<li>

<blockquote>

<img>

<video>

<audio>

<source>

<ruby>

<rt>

<rp>

Notable omissions:

<h1>

name

<table>

<div>

<figure>

<figcaption>

<details>

<summary>

The content MUST NOT include navigation links (home page, category pages), affordance buttons (favourite, like, bookmark), or "Read more" links. Any embedded media (

<img>

<video>

<audio>

content

attachment

source

If the text was originally created in a different format (e.g., Markdown), the original source for editing:

"source": {
  "mediaType": "text/markdown",
  "content": "# My Article\n\nFirst paragraph..."
}

replies

A URL resolving to a collection of reply objects. Replies are usually

Note

Article

Question

comments

inReplyTo

If the article is a reply to another ActivityPub object, a string URL or JSON object. If it is commentary on a web resource (not an AP object), a

Link

href

attachment

Additional media for pre-fetching without parsing

content

"attachment": [
  {
    "type": "Image",
    "id": "https://example.com/image1.jpg",
    "mediaType": "image/jpeg"
  }
]

tag

Two important tag types:

• Hashtag:

  { "type": "Hashtag", "name": "example", "href": "https://..." }

• Mention:

  { "type": "Mention", "href": "https://..." }

context

Link to a larger collection — an article series, newspaper column, blog category, magazine section. Can be an array. (For topic tagging,

tag

generator

Information about the publishing software. Usually an

Application

Service

id

name

to

,

cc

,

bcc

,

bto

,

audience

Addressing properties. Determine delivery targets in ActivityPub and provide access control. Publishers and consumers MUST NOT disclose Article properties to anyone except addressees and creator(s).

sensitive

Marks content as potentially sensitive (nudity, violence, spoilers, etc.). When set, consumers should obscure the article until the user opts in.

To help users decide whether to read, display these properties (in order):

1. dcterms:subject

   — Dublin Core subject string(s). Most informative and least likely to leak sensitive content.

2. tag

   — Hashtag names. Less human-readable than subject.

3. name

   — Title. Authors may leak sensitive material here.

4. summary

   — Last resort. A well-written summary likely includes significant excerpts of the sensitive content.

Using

dcterms:subject

{
  "@context": [
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    "https://purl.archive.org/miscellany",
    {"dcterms": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/"}
  ],
  "type": "Article",
  "sensitive": true,
  "dcterms:subject": ["Citizen Kane"]
}

3. The

preview

Property — Microblogging Fallback

The

preview

Note

{
  "type": "Article",
  "id": "https://example.com/article.jsonld",
  "name": "Long-form text with preview",
  "url": "https://example.com/article.html",
  "attributedTo": "https://example.com/evan",
  "summary": "<p>This is the summary.</p>",
  "content": "<p>Full article content here...</p>",
  "published": "2024-11-07T12:00:00Z",
  "image": {
    "type": "Link",
    "href": "https://example.com/image.jpg",
    "mediaType": "image/jpeg"
  },
  "preview": {
    "type": "Note",
    "attributedTo": "https://example.com/evan",
    "content": "<p><strong>Long-form text with preview</strong></p><p>This is the summary.</p>",
    "published": "2024-11-07T12:00:00Z",
    "attachment": {
      "type": "Link",
      "href": "https://example.com/image.jpg",
      "mediaType": "image/jpeg"
    }
  }
}

Rules for

preview

• Type SHOULD be

  Note

• Content should combine the

  name

  (as bold text) and

  summary

• MUST NOT include a link to the HTML representation
• MUST NOT include navigation or affordance elements
• Metadata from the Article (

  attributedTo

  ,

  published

  ,

  updated

  ,

  tag

  ) can be repeated; consumers fall back to the Article's properties if absent
• The Article's

  image

  may be included as

  attachment

  in the preview
• The preview MAY have its own

  id

• The consumer (not the preview) is responsible for displaying a link to the full article content

Community debate: trwnh raised concerns that

preview

4. Complete Example — Minimal Article

{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "type": "Article",
  "id": "https://example.com/2024/11/07/my-post.jsonld",
  "name": "My Blog Post Title",
  "url": "https://example.com/2024/11/07/my-post.html",
  "attributedTo": "https://example.com/users/alice",
  "summary": "<p>A brief teaser about the post content.</p>",
  "content": "<p>First paragraph of the full article.</p><p>Second paragraph with more detail.</p>",
  "published": "2024-11-07T12:00:00Z"
}

5. Complete Example — Article with External Content Only

An Article can omit

content

{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "type": "Article",
  "id": "https://example.com/2024/11/07/external.jsonld",
  "name": "My External Article",
  "url": "https://example.com/2024/11/07/external.html",
  "attributedTo": "https://example.com/users/alice",
  "summary": "<p>A brief description of the article available at the URL.</p>",
  "published": "2024-11-07T12:00:00Z"
}

6. RSS 2.0 Property Mapping

FEP-b2b8 explicitly draws parallels to RSS 2.0 for publishers familiar with syndication:

id

guid

name

title

url

link

summary

description

attributedTo

author

published

pubDate

replies

comments

7. How Consumers Should Display Articles

FEP-b2b8 includes UI guidance for stream-oriented interfaces:

Standard display (with image)

Show: author avatar + name,

name

image

summary

published

url

Without image

Same as above, minus the image. The

summary

Without title

If

name

summary

content

Sensitive content

If

sensitive

dcterms:subject

tag

name

With preview

If the consumer does not natively support

Article

preview

Fallback for consumers that only display short text

Show

name

summary

url

8. Interoperability Matrix

Publishing platforms (send Article type)

Consuming platforms (display Article type)

summary

9. The Note vs. Article History

Understanding why FEP-b2b8 exists requires knowing the history:

2017: Mastodon treated Note and Article identically, stripping most HTML from both. When this was raised, Mastodon changed Article to display only as a title + link. This created a fundamental disincentive to use Article.

2019–2023 (SocialHub discussions): Years of debate over what distinguishes Note from Article. Proposals included:

• Length-based (short vs. multi-paragraph)
• Formality-based (informal message vs. publication)
• Title-based (articles have

  name

  , notes don't — IndieWeb approach)
• Formatting-based (notes have minimal markup, articles have rich layout)

No spec-level resolution was reached.

2024: The Social Web Foundation identified long-form text as a priority. Evan Prodromou convened implementer workshops with WordPress, WriteFreely, Ghost, and others. FEP-b2b8 was submitted November 7, 2024.

2025: Threads announced Article support. Bonfire adopted FEP-b2b8. WriteFreely worked on implementation. Community debates continued around the

preview

10. Known Issues and Pitfalls

• Mastodon's degraded display is the #1 practical problem. Articles appear as just a title and link in Mastodon's UI, losing boosts, replies, and in-app engagement. This is why many publishers historically sent Note.
• GoToSocial summary-as-CW: GoToSocial interprets

  summary

  as a content warning, not a teaser. Articles with summaries will display behind a CW gate, which is not what the publisher intended.
• NodeBB engagement drop: When NodeBB switched from Note to Article for longer posts, engagement dropped because the truncated summary was less compelling than the full Note.
• No

  <h1>

  in content: The allowed HTML subset starts at

  <h2>

  . The article title belongs in

  name

  , not in the HTML content.
• No

  <table>

  in content: Tables are not in the allowed element set. Content with tabular data must use alternative markup or be simplified.
• preview debate: trwnh and others question whether

  preview

  is the right mechanism, arguing it creates ambiguity about which object properties are authoritative.
• summary length is guidance, not a hard limit: "about 500 characters" is a recommendation. NodeBB made it configurable per instance. Some implementations may use longer summaries.

11. Scope Limitations

FEP-b2b8 explicitly does NOT cover:

• Book-length or longer text
• Specific media types beyond text with embedded media
• Client-to-server (C2S) article creation workflows
• Full-text search or discovery mechanisms