Fix old posts being federated when edited

[pfefferle]

Fixes #

Proposed changes:

• Fix old posts (>30 days) being federated when edited, even when "Do not federate" is shown as default in the editor
• Use metadata_exists() to distinguish between "never set" (calculate age-based default) and "explicitly set to public" (respect user choice)
• Update Classic Editor to only save visibility when it differs from the natural default, avoiding DB flooding with default values
• Normalize 'public' to empty string in Classic Editor to match REST API behavior

Other information:

• Have you written new tests for your changes, if applicable?

Testing instructions:

Scenario 1: Old post without explicit visibility

1. Create a post dated >30 days ago (or manually set post_date in database)
2. Edit the post without touching the visibility setting
3. Save → post should NOT be federated (default is now "local" for old posts)

Scenario 2: Old post with explicit public visibility

1. Create a post dated >30 days ago
2. Edit the post and explicitly select "Public" visibility
3. Save → post SHOULD be federated (user choice is respected)
4. Edit again → visibility should still show "Public" (not reset to "local")

Scenario 3: New post keeps default

1. Create a new post, keep visibility as default "Public"
2. Save → post is federated
3. Check database → activitypub_content_visibility meta should NOT exist (no DB flooding)

Scenario 4: Any post set to local

1. Create/edit any post and set visibility to "Do not federate"
2. Save → post is NOT federated
3. Edit again → visibility is still "Do not federate"

Changelog entry

• Automatically create a changelog entry from the details below.

Changelog Entry Details

Significance

• Patch
• Minor
• Major

Type

• Added - for new features
• Changed - for changes in existing functionality
• Deprecated - for soon-to-be removed features
• Removed - for now removed features
• Fixed - for any bug fixes
• Security - in case of vulnerabilities

Message

Fix old posts being federated when edited despite "Do not federate" default.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes a bug where posts older than 30 days were being federated when edited, despite the UI showing "Do not federate" as the default option. The fix consolidates default visibility logic into a single function to ensure consistent behavior between the UI and federation logic.

• Centralizes default visibility logic in get_content_visibility() function
• Updates is_post_disabled() to use the centralized logic instead of reading raw meta values
• Removes duplicate visibility logic from Classic_Editor::get_default_visibility()

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
integration/class-classic-editor.php	Simplifies get_default_visibility() to delegate to centralized get_content_visibility() function
includes/functions.php	Adds default visibility calculation logic to get_content_visibility() and updates is_post_disabled() to use it
.github/changelog/2703-from-description	Adds changelog entry for the bug fix

---

💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.

[Copilot]

When a post is not federated and is not older than 30 days, $_visibility remains set to ACTIVITYPUB_CONTENT_VISIBILITY_PUBLIC from line 1448, but this case is not explicitly handled in the else block. This could lead to unexpected behavior. Add an explicit else clause to set $_visibility = ACTIVITYPUB_CONTENT_VISIBILITY_PUBLIC; for clarity and to ensure the intended default for new posts.

Suggested change

	$_visibility = ACTIVITYPUB_CONTENT_VISIBILITY_LOCAL;
	$_visibility = ACTIVITYPUB_CONTENT_VISIBILITY_LOCAL;
	} else {
	// Newer post, default to public.
	$_visibility = ACTIVITYPUB_CONTENT_VISIBILITY_PUBLIC;