Federated Community Events

🌟 CF Hackathon 2025 Project Results 🌟

A diverse team of 16 participants explored the concept of federated community events, bringing together users of centralized event platforms, community organizers, and developers of decentralized solutions. Their initial challenge was aligning everyone’s understanding of “federation” and “community events” and how these concepts could be meaningfully integrated.

The team developed comprehensive user stories to identify requirements for a federated event system that could compete with centralized platforms in terms of usability while offering the benefits of decentralization. They analyzed existing solutions in the WordPress ecosystem, RdfPub, and Mobilizon, with developers of these platforms participating directly in the team.

Their contributions included improved documentation, issue reporting in relevant projects, contributions to the ActivityPub standard for event federation, and starter kits to simplify onboarding. The team also created user stories explaining the advantages of federated events for non-technical users and developed a Docker setup to facilitate experimentation and contribution to WordPress and Mobilizon-based projects.

Post-hackathon, work continues enhancing the starter kit and spreading awareness about decentralized alternatives to mainstream event platforms, with potential future exploration of ActivityPub-based event federation in additional frameworks and content management systems.

Pitch Video Interview

Project Description

Local community organizers are increasingly looking for alternatives to centralized event platforms like Meetup.com due to rising costs and platform limitations. While some communities have moved to standalone WordPress solutions with events plugins, they miss out on the network effects and discovery features that make centralized platforms valuable.

This project aims to create a comprehensive, ready-to-use solution that combines existing federated event technologies with an improved user experience. Building upon the existing WordPress ActivityPub event bridge, we’ll create a “Community Event Starter Kit” that makes it easy for community organizers to host and share their events in the Fediverse while maintaining full control over their platform.

Key features will focus on discoverability and community engagement, including “events near you” functionality, cross-community discovery, and seamless federation through ActivityPub. By leveraging and enhancing existing open-source solutions, we’ll create a practical alternative to commercial event platforms that prioritizes community needs and interoperability.

Target Audience

• Community organizers and meetup hosts
• Local tech communities and user groups
• Event platforms seeking federation capabilities
• WordPress site operators

Hackathon Goals

The project scope is flexible and will be refined based on team composition and expertise. Potential deliverables may include:

• Streamlined installation and setup process for existing federation tools
• Enhanced event discovery features
• Implementation of geographic-based event recommendations
• User interface improvements for event management
• Documentation and migration guides
• Community engagement features

Teams can focus on improving specific components of existing solutions or develop new features that enhance the platform’s usability.