WordPress, Mastodon, ActivityPub….workflow?

Short version:

How do I set all this up so I have my blog and one Mastodon account that I can use in Mastodon apps like a normal user but the content I create (either posts or replies) goes out via my blog? With hashtags.

Long version:

How is the whole WordPress/Mastodon/ActivityPub thing supposed to work? I’ve got all the stuff installed and it seems to be working, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve got it set up wrong.

What I’m after seems simple, but apparently it isn’t or I’m missing something. I want it to work like this:

  1. I post via my blog and it goes out via ActivityPub to a Mastodon account – call it Account A.
  2. Replies to my posts come back to and show up on the blog.
  3. I can follow people using Account A, and interact with them in the same way as a normal Mastodon account. That means via an app on my phone.
  4. I reply to someone’s toot the reply goes out via the blog and ActivityPub.
  5. I can post from my phone.

Well, so far, I’ve got some of this working:

I can do & 2 via the ActivityPub plugin in WordPress – no problems there. It goes out under the @swduncan user, let’s call that Account B.

I can do also via the ActivityPub plugin and the reply bookmarklet, assuming I’m using the web version of Mastodon.

Doing is sort of easy via Ulysses, possibly easy via micro.blog (except no hashtags), maybe through other means. I’m not touching Jetpack, although that would be a choice as well.

It is number that is causing problems. I cannot log into Account B via the web to follow anyone. I can add followers via the Friends plugin on my blog, but then the only way to see them is the friends page on my blog.

I thought that the Enable Mastodon Apps plugin would solve this problem, but it doesn’t seem to. I can add account B, and I can post to Account B, but I can’t seem to add followers.

What am I missing here?


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