Distributed (and zero configuration needed), but with centralized development. Federated is not good enough - separate instances may lag behind in versions, or their admins do something wrong, and user identities and posts are tied to them.
Ideally when an instance goes down, all its posts and comments and users are replicated in the network and possible to get.
A distributed Usenet with rich text, hyperlinks, file attachments, cryptographic identities, pluggable naming\spam-checking\hatespeech-checking services (themselves part of that system).
It was a good system for its time, first large global thing for asynchronous electronic communication.
OK, if you are, you don't pretend, and if you pretend, you aren't. And if you talk about someone somewhere probably designing something, then you are not making that something closer. I'm tired of typing things in the interwebs people either already know and agree with, or won't take seriously.