Inspired by @evan@cosocial.ca 's recent article on advancing long-form text in the social web, we've taken the leap and developed our first prototype for publishing and reading articles on Bonfire, based on the FEP-b2b8 draft specification.
Beyond microblogging
From day one, we've designed Bonfire to break free from the constraints of microblogging-centric social networks. We've already experimented with extensions for coordinating tasks, exchanging resources, and more. As we work on Bonfire Social 1.0, adding article support felt like a natural evolution of this vision.
Working based on a FEP (fediverse enhancement proposal) that provided both design guidelines and technical specifications was refreshing and showed how co-design and shared standards can be our strongest ally for pushing the fediverse forward.
One feed, many content types
Adding articles marks a small but significant step towards realising the vision of the open social web: a digital space where you can receive, read and interact with diverse content types from a single place, rather than juggling multiple platforms, accounts, and notification streams.
With Bonfire, articles from writefreely, ghosts, wordpress and any other federated platforms that implement the FEP-b2b8, now appear seamlessly in your feed alongside other content from your network. You can:
- Preview articles in the feed
- Read the full article and nested comments without loading an external site (just like the good old days of RSS readers)
- React or reply to the article or other comments
This UX improvement offers a glimpse of what becomes possible as more platforms and software embrace the fediverse.
But why stop there?
Thanks to our modular feed builder, we've added an "Articles" feed preset. This dedicated timeline displays only long-form content, with sorting options for most liked, most replied, and more.
It's like having a decentralised blogging platform and feed reader integrated in your social network.
Speaking of feed readers, we've also added RSS and Atom feeds so you can subscribe to Bonfire feeds (including articles and/or microposts) via your favourite feed reader app as well.
And yes, you can also write articles directly in Bonfire! While the authoring experience is still rough around the edges (we're actively improving the UX), we're pleased with this initial prototype (which includes a simple rich text editor using markdown, and the option to add a title and cover image). In fact, this very article was written and published through Bonfire.
What's Next?
As we refine the implementation, ideas are already flowing:
- Personal blog pages: Do users want an optional dedicated blog section on their profile, maybe with tabs to easily switch between notes, articles, or other content types?
- Instance curation: Could instance moderators pin and showcase their best articles on the homepage?
- Enhanced authoring: Should we create specialized UIs for properly writing and managing blog posts?
- Email subscriptions: Non-fediverse users could subscribe via email to federated blogs?
The possibilities are endless, but we believe long-form content features should be shaped by actual community needs and designed collaboratively in the open, building upon FEP-b2b8 through real-world usage and experimentation.
Join the experiment
This is just the beginning. You can experience writing and reading articles on Bonfire today at our campground instance or by setting up your own Bonfire instance.
If your community is interested in test-driving or co-designing long-form content features, we’d love to collaborate.
To build a fully integrated, community-shaped publishing experience — and continue improving Bonfire in many other areas — we’re actively seeking support. You can back Bonfire on OpenCollective or get in touch to help shape the future of federated publishing.
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What would you like to see in federated long-form content? Join the conversation and help us build the open social web together!
