====== About PawPub ======

**PawPub**, the subject of this wiki, is an experimental web-based protocol for federated((Refers to the ability for multiple separate [[instances]] to communicate with each other, as opposed to being a single centrally-operated website)) social media, based on common standards like HTTP and JSON. While inspired by [[https://activitypub.rocks/|ActivityPub]], it aims to be considerably simpler to understand and implement by having a more focused purpose, and easier to extend by having a well-defined [[extension]] system.


===== A note on JSON =====

PawPub uses JSON heavily for encoding [[objects]], [[instance metadata]], etc. One feature of JSON is that values can be defined as ''null'' or they can be undefined (i.e. not specified at all). For all intents and purposes these are treated exactly the same by PawPub and therefore whenever you (for example) check if a value exists, you should consider the doesn't-exist case and the exists-but-is-null cases as equivalent.


===== Why is it called that? =====

<blockquote>
  * i like paws (i am a furry)
  * it's a publication protocol (in the same vein as ActivityPub or LitePub or whatever else)
  * i didn't have any better ideas
  * it's quite memorable
<cite>winter</cite>
</blockquote>

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