When a post is made, its sent a group’s inbox, and then the group sends it to the inbox of every user subscribed to it. If I send you a direct message, my server sends it to your inbox.
If you go to a post in your browser, it shows it in the web interface, but if you set whats called a header (some small bits on information sent to a server when you request a page) saying that you’re a server, it gives you a machine readable representation of it.
For example, your comment here looks like this:
{"@context":["https://join-lemmy.org/context.json","https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"],"type":"Note","id":"https://lemmy.world/comment/17178560","attributedTo":"https://lemmy.world/u/Docker","to":["https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public"],"cc":["https://lemmy.world/c/nostupidquestions","https://startrek.website/u/FriendOfDeSoto"],"content":"<p>In this regard, can a singular website function like a unique instance of the fediverse ?</p>\n","inReplyTo":"https://startrek.website/comment/16837450","mediaType":"text/html","source":{"content":"In this regard, can a singular website function like a unique instance of the fediverse ?","mediaType":"text/markdown"},"published":"2025-05-21T09:55:42.214962Z","tag":[{"href":"https://startrek.website/u/FriendOfDeSoto","name":"@FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website","type":"Mention"}],"distinguished":false,"audience":"https://lemmy.world/c/nostupidquestions","attachment":[]}
So, you could make a post or page of a website like one of these, and then manually send it to everyone’s inbox, but you won’t be able to handle incoming messages.
In this regard, can a singular website function like a unique instance of the fediverse ?
To explain federation (I am terrible at explaining things),
Every user/group on an instance has an inbox and an outbox, for example, yours is https://lemmy.world/u/Docker@lemmy.world/inbox and !nostupidquestion@lemmy.world’s is https://lemmy.world/c/nostupidquestions/inbox .
When a post is made, its sent a group’s inbox, and then the group sends it to the inbox of every user subscribed to it. If I send you a direct message, my server sends it to your inbox.
If you go to a post in your browser, it shows it in the web interface, but if you set whats called a header (some small bits on information sent to a server when you request a page) saying that you’re a server, it gives you a machine readable representation of it.
For example, your comment here looks like this:
{ "@context": [ "https://join-lemmy.org/context.json", "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams" ], "type": "Note", "id": "https://lemmy.world/comment/17178560", "attributedTo": "https://lemmy.world/u/Docker", "to": [ "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public" ], "cc": [ "https://lemmy.world/c/nostupidquestions", "https://startrek.website/u/FriendOfDeSoto" ], "content": "<p>In this regard, can a singular website function like a unique instance of the fediverse ?</p>\n", "inReplyTo": "https://startrek.website/comment/16837450", "mediaType": "text/html", "source": { "content": "In this regard, can a singular website function like a unique instance of the fediverse ?", "mediaType": "text/markdown" }, "published": "2025-05-21T09:55:42.214962Z", "tag": [ { "href": "https://startrek.website/u/FriendOfDeSoto", "name": "@FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website", "type": "Mention" } ], "distinguished": false, "audience": "https://lemmy.world/c/nostupidquestions", "attachment": [] }So, you could make a post or page of a website like one of these, and then manually send it to everyone’s inbox, but you won’t be able to handle incoming messages.