I’ve noticed that most online spaces for witches and covens—like:
Witchcraft Academy Coven (Patreon),
Various Discord/Facebook groups,
etc.
—are centralized or rely on closed platforms.
Even the more “community” oriented ones, such as WitchBook or PaganSquare, are siloed and not interoperable with each other.
Given the rise of the Fediverse and its ability to host decentralized, community-driven platforms (Mastodon for microblogging, Pleroma for lightweight social feeds, PixelFed for image sharing, Lemmy for Reddit, PeerTube for video, etc.), has anyone ever thought about potentially attempting a federated network specifically for witches, covens, and pagan practitioners?
Some possible use cases:
Federated coven “instances” where each group can moderate its own space but still connect with others
Resource sharing (spells, rituals, book clubs, event calendars) via ActivityPub
Privacy and inclusion features for marginalized practitioners
Integration with platforms like PixelFed for sharing altar photos, PeerTube for ritual videos, and Mastodon/Pleroma for discussions and announcements
Does anyone know of any ongoing projects like this, or have thoughts on how such a network could be structured?
What challenges do you foresee (moderation, privacy, drama, etc.), and what features would be most valuable to the witch/pagan community?
I’d love to try building or contributing to something like this, but unfortunately I lack the ability and energy.
Still, I think the idea is worth discussing.
Frankly, I don’t think the privacy model of the fediverse is workable at all and it doesn’t seem to be developed and maintained by people who understand or care about safety. The centralized systems are much safer for users because you only have to trust the admins of the centralized servers.
Fediverse’s Achilles heel is trust and all the convo and discussion about it is extremely dismissive and superficial about the realities of how the centralized systems became they way they are–much safer against stalking and mobs. Fediverse mostly gets away with this by being small and fringe.
The fundamental flaw is laid bare every time a site defederates another about because of safety issues. It’s a tacit concession that the federation model and implementation is not safe. If you have to defederate everyone to ensure user safety, then why bother with the fediverse in the first place? This is the core problem with the fediverse as it exists today.
That’s because most fediverse platforms have no privacy features. You’d have to use something like Hubzilla or Friendica if you want access control, privacy, and groups with limited membership. They also allow users to control what they see and don’t see.
There are solutions in the fediverse out there. They’re just not widely known.
It’s rather the opposite: the federated models allows to choose which instances you want to connect with.
On centralized models, you can’t escape, you are trapped with everyone else, Twitter being a good example.
No they allow admins to decide that. Users have no control. User activity is fully public and cannot be controlled for safety.
Instances usually vote for defederation https://sh.itjust.works/post/11308397
This is the sort of superficial dismissal I was referring to.
“There are no safety issues because you can plead your case publically and incite a mob!” isn’t exactly as trust-inspiring as you seem to believe.