IndieWeb-ifying ColoradoBoulevard.net

I’ve spent some time over a few days this month to help IndieWeb-ify my local Pasadena online newspaper ColoradoBoulevard.net. They can now send and receive webmentions and can backfeed their comments, likes, and other responses from their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

They can stand to improve their support for microformats v2 and do some more work on their h-cards and other related metadata, but the editor seems thrilled with the initial results–particularly having their conversations in other areas of the internet come back to the original article.

I know that individual journalists have brought their personal websites into the IndieWeb fold, but this may be one of the first online newspapers/magazines I’m aware of to begin using some of these principles and tools. With any luck and some testing, they could be one of the first journalistic enterprises to begin receiving “Read” posts of their articles via webmention! Update: read posts are working! See the first example here.

I’d like to get them to a place where they can automatically syndicate to social silos and display their syndication links properly. In the end it would be really nice if their writers could own their own articles on their personal websites, syndicate them to the newspaper itself (as the rel=”canonical” link), and then both parties to be able to receive the appropriate backfeed, but this is a nice new baby step on the way to bigger and better things.

I did run across one interesting identity related issue that may need some addressing within this particular space. Some of their journalists prefer not to display photos (or even names) so that they’re not easily (or as easily) identified in person for the sake of doing online reviews or other sensitive reporting assignments.

Read 12 Cool Parks in Pasadena by Wafic Khalil (ColoradoBoulevard.net)
Pasadena has 25 parks and great natural open spaces. Since we published our “10 Cool Parks in Pasadena” back in 2015, it has gotten a lot of attention and recommendations. We took all that into consideration when we decided to update the list. Just in time for the summer (and any time of the year really), here’s the twelve of the coolest parks in Pasadena and surrounding areas.

👓 ‘Roseanne’ Canceled by ABC Hours After Racist Tweet by Roseanne Barr | New York Times

Read Roseanne Barr Incites Fury With Racist Tweet, and Her Show Is Canceled by ABC (nytimes.com)
Ms. Barr cited “The Planet of the Apes” in discussing Valerie Jarrett, a black woman and former adviser to President Barack Obama. ABC Entertainment’s president called it “abhorrent.”
 

📅 RSVP to WordCamp Los Angeles 2018

RSVPed Attending WordCamp Los Angeles 2018

Are you ready for WordCamp Los Angeles 2018 even though we’re still a quarter of a year away! We are too! And we’re excited to announce that early bird tickets are now on sale.

Today, we’ve released 70 General Admission and 20 Beginner’s Day tickets. The $40 General Admission tickets will give you full access to WCLAX on Saturday and Sunday, t-shirt, swag, coffee, snacks, and lunch. The $50 Beginner’s Day tickets will — in addition to providing you with General Admission on Saturday and Sunday (and all the swag and eats that come with it) — will get you into the limited seating Beginner’s Day on Friday!

We’ll release more tickets in June but if you grab em today you’re guaranteed a ticket and some early-birds-only swag!

I’m pretty sure I just bought the last of the early bird tickets for WordCamp Los Angeles. Everyone else will have to wait for the general release sometime in June now.

👓 Defending Trump, Roseanne Wants Her Show to Be ‘Realistic’ | The New York Times

Read Defending Trump, Roseanne Wants Her Show to Be ‘Realistic’ (nytimes.com)
Roseanne Barr said she was not an “apologist” for Mr. Trump but wanted the reboot of her sitcom to address the strong divide in the country.
I’m seeing a pattern of Roseanne  “quitting” Twitter, but returning to her detriment. I’m aware of morals clauses in countries like France, but I’m curious if, with social media, we’ll see more and more countries in the U.S. begin to add such clauses to talent contracts?
Thank you Pantheon for the catering at tonight’s Pasadena WordPress Meetup and the local WordPress 15th Anniversary celebration! It’s always great to watch our not-so-little community continue to grow.

As an aside, it’s interesting to take a look back at the original blogpost announcing the release of WordPress and see which commenters are still online and which pingbacks still resolve without linkrot. Photomatt’s first comment still resolves while many others don’t.

👓 WordPress Development Workflow 2018 | Alex Vasquez

Read My WordPress Development Workflow 2018 by Alex VasquezAlex Vasquez (Digisavvy: A Digital Marketing & WordPress Agency)
Development & business workflows are deeply personal opinions we all have when it comes to creating with WordPress. Over the years I’ve become more and more opinionated as I continue creating sites for clients. I’d like to share my current setup in the hopes that...
In the vein of Now Pages or What I Use pages, it would be interesting to see more people maintain these type of Development Workflow pages.

Alex has some great stuff here, though I wish there were even more links!

Reply to Your Challenge: Take Back The Open Web

Replied to Your Challenge: Take Back The Open Web by Daniel Bachhuber (WordCamp for Publishers: Chicago)

This year, we’re asking for speaker applications that focus on Taking Back The Open Web. But what does this really mean?

One thought is that the Open Web is inclusive and encourages fair distribution of ideas with no barrier to entry. It exists in opposition to proprietary systems created by companies for the purposes of lock-in, control of user experience, or requiring payment for entry. In 2010, the New York Times pointed out ways in which these platforms trade fair access to ideas for a better-looking web.

It’s 2018 now, and we’ve seen the impact of opaque, tightly-controlled systems. In  “Can We Save the Open Web”, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert asks:

Do we want the experiences of the next billion web users to be defined by open values of transparency and choice, or by the siloed and opaque convenience of the walled-garden giants dominating today?

After helping to implement and post the first “Read posts” within WordPress using the W3C Webmention spec yesterday, I really can’t wait to see what the WordCamp for Publishers: Chicago begins announcing for their upcoming lineup on the topic “Take Back the Open Web.”

Most promising to me is that this WordCamp actively, purposely, and contemporaneously quoted Drupal founder Dries Buytaert in their announcement right after he began contemplating POSSE vs. PESOS and other IndieWeb philosophies.

👓 Blogging, small-b, Big B | W. Ian O’Byrne

Read Blogging, small-b, Big B by W. Ian O'Byrne (W. Ian O'Byrne)
I’ve written quite a bit about blogging, and my creation of open education resources over the past on this website. A lot has changed in my blogging habits, and general digital identity construction since those posts. Most of the response that I get from colleagues, students, and tenure committees is “why in the world would you share that stuff openly online?” As such, I’ve been meaning to write up a post documenting my thinking about why I do…what I do.
One of these days I’ll get around to writing up my larger thesis about using a personal website for an all-in academic samizdat experience to rid academia of the siloed mindset its been stuck in for ages… This post comes relatively close to laying the underlying groundwork for some motivation.

As an academic, I need to regularly have empirical research publications in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals. Nothing else matters. Many senior colleagues bemoan the fact that I need to play double duty…yet the system still exists.

And why can’t your own blog count as a top-tier, peer-reviewed journal?

and serve as pre-prints to work that may live later on, or always exist in their current format

Thinking of a personal site as a pre-print server is an interesting concept and somewhat similar to the idea of a commonplace book.

📺 "Hinterland" Episode #1.3 | Netflix

Watched "Hinterland" Episode #1.3 from Netflix
Directed by Rhys Powys. With Richard Harrington, Mali Harries, Alex Harries, Aneirin Hughes. A body is found in the depth of a flooded quarry near the remote village of Penwyllt. The investigation tries to discover who he was and if his death was an accident.
Still not as good as Broadchurch or Shetland. The characters just aren’t there despite the fact that the individual episode plots are solid.

👓 Just teach my kid the <adjective> math | Medium

Read Just teach my kid the <adjective> math by James Tanton (Q.E.D. – Medium)
It is astounding to me that mathematics — of all school subjects — elicits such potent emotional reaction when “reform” is in the air…
An interesting take on the changes in math curriculum over the past few years. Takeaway, we need to think about the pedagogy we use with the public and parents as well.