# Bring groups to Discourse/ActivityPub - extending the ActivityPub Plugin
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/bring-groups-to-discourse-activitypub-extending-the-activitypub-plugin/363519
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** activitypub
**Created:** [April 25, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bring-groups-to-discourse-activitypub-extending-the-activitypub-plugin/363519 "2025-04-25T21:44:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ric](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ric)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bring-groups-to-discourse-activitypub-extending-the-activitypub-plugin/363519/1 "2025-04-25T21:44:39Z")
Many of the fediverse fans here will be familiar with [https://a.gup.pe/](https://a.gup.pe/) which provides groups to fediverse users. You can think of groups kind of like directories of users or mailing lists. If the group owner sends a message to the list everyone gets that message. Users sub/unsub by simply following or unfollowing the activitypub username/group name. Others in the group can reply to the messages and those get distributed also.
You can also allow anyone in the group to send a message and start a discussion. If we enabled this in Discourse this would allow anyone to start a topic and replies to that topic would show up in the thread.
This could drive a lot of engagement from other platforms on discourse via the fediverse. I think extending the activitypub plugin to enable this group management would be great. Adding extra features such as banning a user from a group to fight spam would also help.
Ric
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### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2025, 4:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bring-groups-to-discourse-activitypub-extending-the-activitypub-plugin/363519/2 "2025-04-26T04:01:41Z")
Earlier a.gup.pe wouldn’t be question of allowing, but a.gup.pe had a bug and gave error 500.
> [@ActivityPub Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/activitypub-plugin/266794/409):
>
> EDIT Following issue is connected to @a.gup.pe user. Every federated categories find user @koirat@a.gup.pe and follows it showin status waiting. Changing the page and returning back shows nothing, that following has disappeared. Categories can follow real humans, though. That actor is de facto a bot, and Discourse can’t follow bots — but AFAIK it doesn’t identified itself as a bot. And even the issue would be the bottiness (is that even a word flushed_face) Discourse shouldn’t let me follow…
I haven’t checked what is situation now.
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### Author:  [@angus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/angus)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2025, 5:57am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bring-groups-to-discourse-activitypub-extending-the-activitypub-plugin/363519/3 "2025-04-28T05:57:09Z")
Hey @Ric, thanks for the feature request! I would like to add support for Guppe, however it seems so have an issue with interpreting an appropriately formatted ActivityPub Follow request.
> [@ActivityPub Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/activitypub-plugin/266794/410):
>
> The reason that’s not working is because when Discourse tries to send a Follow to a.gup.pe/u/koirat/inbox it’s getting a 500 internal server error in response. HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error\r\n In other words, there’s a bug in Guppe. I would note that the collective fediverse approach to groups is currently evolving somewhat. I’m discussing it, and a few other related issues, currently with folks from NodeBB, Wordpress, Mastodon and others. See for example: The other issue that Guppe …