@ev

Would you be able to clarify the approach you'll be taking towards implementing this grant?

Part of this process will be exploring the different approaches to implementing this. The grant is for "research and implementation".

As mentioned in the root post, I suspect that once I start down this rabbit hole, my approach may change.

Just from discussions, I have changed my mind about using about messages in favour of contact.

My current plan is that someone follows their other feeds with sameAs: true. If the other feeds also follow back with sameAs: true, then patchcore will merge these identities together.

Since the actual mechanism for merging feeds is separate from the sameAs following stuff (it is a filter in patchcore), potentially it could be used by other features. I will explore what these are as part of the R&I. @cinnamon has given me a lot to think about in this area, as far as how public this sort of thing should be: the "subjective" merge. At this stage, I want to at the very least implement it as a private feature (I can merge feeds in my client, but no one else can see it). But this is much less important than the two way full merge as above, so I won't prioritize it.

cc @keks