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Inkwell - a multi-tenant long-form writing platform for the fediverse (open source, FEP-b2b8)

Wanted to share something with this community and see if it’s useful to anyone. Inkwell (inkwell.social) is an open source, multi-tenant social journaling platform built on ActivityPub. The goal is to fill the long-form writing gap in the fediverse in a way that’s accessible to non-technical users, not just developers who can spin up their own instance of WriteFreely or Ghost.

What it does: users sign up, write journal entries or articles, and those posts federate as Article objects per FEP-b2b8 with preview Notes so they render cleanly in Mastodon and other microblogging clients. You get a title, excerpt, and link rather than a decontextualized URL. Follows, boosts, and likes all work bidirectionally with Mastodon.

It’s ad-free, algorithm-free, and the code is open source on GitHub (github.com/stantondev/inkwell). The hosted instance is at inkwell.social if you want to try it, or you can self-host your own.

Some things that might interest this community: ActivityPub federation with HTTP signature verification, Stamps (emotional reactions) instead of generic likes, a tipping system called Postage for supporting writers, newsletter delivery, custom profile themes, and data import from other platforms. Currently working on improving comment edit propagation and post scope handling for better fediverse compatibility based on community feedback.

Would love to hear thoughts, especially from anyone who’s been looking for a long-form option in the fediverse or anyone interested in running their own instance. What’s working, what’s missing, what would make this more useful to the ecosystem?

#fediverse #activitypub #longform #writing #opensource

julian

@julian@activitypub.space replied · 3 days ago

Inkwell - a multi-tenant long-form writing platform for the fediverse (open source, FEP-b2b8)

@inkwell@piefed.social are you involved with @portafed@mastodon.social as well?

Can you let your owner know to please come out from the shadows and own up?

Rimu

@rimu@piefed.social replied · 3 days ago

Beware this app was written using AI.

For example, Mastodon does not implement FEP b2b8. So that’s bullshit.

The whole thing was ‘written’ in 3 weeks.

inkwell

@inkwell@piefed.social replied · 3 days ago

Fair points to address, and I appreciate the directness.

On AI: yes, I use Claude Code as a development tool and I’m transparent about it. There’s a CLAUDE.md in the repo that says so explicitly. I’m doing this solo with a day job and a passion for building, and AI tooling lets me ship faster than I could alone. I get the skepticism given the slop AI is generating. I think the distinction that matters is whether someone is engaged, iterating on real feedback, and building something they actually use and maintain. I’m trying to be that.

On FEP-b2b8: my wording was unclear, and I can see how it read that way. Inkwell publishes Article objects per FEP-b2b8 and also sends a preview Note so the content renders cleanly in Mastodon and other microblogging clients that don’t handle Article objects. Saiwal read it right. I should have separated those two ideas more clearly in the post. That’s on me.

On the timeline: three weeks of full-time-equivalent effort from a solo dev using modern tooling. The code’s all on GitHub if anyone wants to look at it, break it, or tell me what’s wrong with it. Happy to take feedback on the implementation. I’m not trying to sell anything here. I had an idea, I’m over big tech and social media, and I’m learning and trying to be part of the fediverse community. The platform is free to use and open source. If it’s not useful to this community, that’s fine. But I’d rather get roasted on specifics than dismissed as another bot project.

evan

@evan@activitypub.space replied · 2 days ago

Inkwell - a multi-tenant long-form writing platform for the fediverse (open source, FEP-b2b8)

@inkwell@piefed.social Hey, I'm really sorry for all this dogpile. You shouldn't be getting this kind of flack when you took the time to implement ActivityPub.

Thanks for your work. I'm trying it out as @evan@inkwell.social and I have to say it's a really lovely UI. I'll give any feedback I can on the ActivityPub implementation.

strypey

@strypey@piefed.social replied · 17 hours ago

@evan@activitypub.space

I’m really sorry for all this dogpile. You shouldn’t be getting this kind of flack when you took the time to implement ActivityPub

You took the words right out of my mouth. I have no bones about dismissing #MOLE Training as a technology for most purposes; https://disintermedia.net.nz/invasion-of-the-mole-trainers/

I might argue the toss with someone using a Trained MOLE, outside of the narrow range of applications it’s suitable for (eg digging holes in data). In fact, it’s pretty damn likely. But I don’t bully hobby developers for making technical choices I disagree with. Some of the comments I’ve seen directed at Stanton here are worse than the Mastodon HOA. Which is usually at least about some kind of substantive issue with the project (eg not respecting posting scopes when displaying replies), even if the overreaction is nuclear scale.

@rimu@piefed.social @julian@activitypub.space If you really believe you’re talking to a Trained #MOLE, do you expect it to take offence and withdraw its participation if you’re sufficiently mean to it? Why would it do that? If you are talking to a chatbot, you’re just hurling all this toxic negativity into the fediverse for no reason. It’s a special case of flooding the zone with shit.

But take a breath, touch some grass, and consider this; what if you’re wrong? Which is a possibility a rational person must always stay open to. Have you considered how you would feel if somebody judged your AP implementations and your fediverse replies to be the work of a MOLE, and treated you this way? What if this is an unusually prompt and calm person (maybe they meditate regularly or something)? Or they have a disability and they’re using a MOLE to help them reply promptly, but there is a thinking, feeling human being reading these replies. Honestly guys, pull your woolly head in.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I absolutely cannot abide bullying, of any kind, for any reason.

Disintermedia

Invasion of the MOLE Trainers

Why I use "MOLE" to describe what most people are calling "AI"

julian

@julian@activitypub.space replied · 3 days ago

Inkwell - a multi-tenant long-form writing platform for the fediverse (open source, FEP-b2b8)

@inkwell@piefed.social said in Inkwell - a multi-tenant long-form writing platform for the fediverse (open source, FEP-b2b8):

Saiwal read it right. I should have separated those two ideas more clearly in the post. That's on me.

Let me be clear, preview notes are not supported by Mastodon.

Rimu

@rimu@piefed.social replied · 3 days ago

You even wrote this comment using AI. Do you have any idea how that makes people feel?

https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/

It's rude to show AI output to people | Alex Martsinovich

Feeding slop is an act of war

julian

@julian@activitypub.space replied · 3 days ago

Inkwell - a multi-tenant long-form writing platform for the fediverse (open source, FEP-b2b8)

This morning I saw another product show up that was AI generated. No idea who is behind it but it's sketchy as hell.

It was an account portability migration tool, which is something the AP community-at-large needs, but not like this.

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