About & FAQ

Commonplace is a self-hosted, federated link-collection manager. You can create curated collections of links and share them with followers across both the Fediverse (Mastodon, Pixelfed, etc.) and Bluesky — without creating new accounts on either network.

No. You log in with your existing Mastodon or Bluesky handle. Commonplace acts as a bridge — your identity stays where it already lives.

A collection is an ordered set of links grouped around a theme, topic, or project. Each collection has a title, description, optional tags, and a licence. Collections can be public or private.

Each public collection is a Group actor on ActivityPub and a feed generator on AT Protocol. When you add a link to a collection, followers on Mastodon receive it as a post and Bluesky subscribers see it in their feed. No extra steps required.

The owner created the collection and has full control — they can edit settings, add or remove curators, and delete the collection. Curators can add and remove links but cannot change collection settings or remove other curators.

Here is a summary of what each role can do across the platform:

Visitor = not logged in · Member = logged in with a Fediverse or Bluesky account · Curator = added to a specific collection by its owner

Yes. Each public collection has a Fediverse handle (shown on the collection page). Search for it in Mastodon or any ActivityPub client and follow it. Links will appear in your home timeline.

Yes. Each public collection is available as a Bluesky feed. Open the collection page, click Subscribe, and follow the instructions to add it as a feed in the Bluesky app.

Yes — use the Suggest a link button on any public collection page. Curators will review and approve or dismiss your suggestion.

If you use Mastodon or another Fediverse app, you can also mention the collection's Fediverse handle in a post with !propose https://your-link.com and the suggestion will appear in the curator review queue automatically. Bluesky users should use the web form.

Go to your collection, open the gear menu, and choose Manage curators. Enter the Mastodon or Bluesky handle of someone who has already signed in to this instance at least once, then click Add curator.

Collections default to CC BY 4.0. You can also choose CC BY-SA 4.0, CC0 (public domain), or All Rights Reserved when creating or editing a collection.

Yes. Commonplace is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence. The source code is available on Framagit.

The concept originates from MoodleNet (2018–2020), a federated social network for educators built on ActivityPub. That project explored curated, shareable collections across the open social web.