Running a community in the Fediverse means balancing openness with safety. Every year, @iftas takes the pulse of administrators, moderators, and community managers with their Annual Needs Assessment. This survey helps identify whatβs working, where support is needed, and which tools can make a difference for those keeping decentralized spaces safe.
The 2025 survey is now open
Take part in the IFTAS Needs Assessment (5β10 minutes).
(If you havenβt seen them before, you can also take a look at last yearβs report)
Last yearβs responses represented moderators of over 4.3 million accounts across ActivityPub platforms. With WordPress now the largest group of federating instances, itβs especially important for our community of hosts, site admins, and moderators to be heard.
Moderation in WordPress: From Site-Wide to Personal Controls
We recently introduced a major update to the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress: personalized and site-wide moderation tools.
- Site administrators can now set domain, keyword, and actor-level blocks that protect the entire site.
- Individual users can fine-tune their own experience with personal blocks, managed directly from their profiles.
- Content is checked against both global and personal rulesβso moderation works at every level.
These improvements directly address needs raised in previous IFTAS surveys, making moderation more discoverable, flexible, and effective for WordPress communities in the Fediverse.
Your Input Matters
IFTAS uses the Needs Assessment to guide tools, policies, and advocacy that reflect the real-world challenges of moderatorsβespecially those in under-resourced communities. The more representative the responses, the stronger the outcomes for everyone.
If youβre running a federating WordPress site, please consider:
- Filling out the survey yourself.
- Sharing it with other admins, moderators, and community organizers.
- Reminding folks that itβs anonymous, quick, and impactful.
Together, we can keep building a safer, healthier Fediverseβone that reflects the needs of its communities.