Kathleen Fitzpatrick (hcommons.social (Mastodon/Hometown))Hey, @chrisaldrich! It's been a while since I've been in touch with you around #IndieWeb stuff. I'd love to know if there have been any new developments, or if there are new possibilities on the horizon, especially on Mastodon <=> WP front. I'm thinking about my writing workflows and how I'd like to structure them in the weeks ahead...
There are some well built and not overly complicated pathways that allow syndicating from your WordPress website to a Mastodon instance and getting responses back from them, just as I think you’ve done with Twitter in the past. Most of these can be done with plugins like Syndication Links or Mastodon Autopost or a handful of other similar plugins in conjunction with Brid.gy (which does the work for bringing back responses). Personally, I prefer Syndication Links for this and it particularly dovetails well with other IndieWeb infrastructure like Micropub clients.
There are a small handful of methods for “mirroring” your WordPress site so that it will look like its own (single or multi-user depending on your configuration) instance within the Fediverse running ActivityPub, meaning that those on Mastodon or other related platforms could follow your site directly. Most of them are configured as publishing only, so you won’t have a built in reader interface and would have to rely on other (available) infrastructure for those portions.
(More technical, and with a few less features) Brid.gyFed, which has options to do the syndication to a separate instance mentioned above, as well as making it look like your website appear to support ActivityPub.
More details on this here: https://indieweb.org/Bridgy_Fed
Our friend Matthias Pfefferle, a genius engineer and longtime opensource advocate and WordPress developer who has also written significant pieces of other IndieWeb code you’re already using on WordPress, has written a handful of plugins which will make it appear as if your WordPress site supports ActivityPub out of the box. You’ll broadly want the following plugins: ActivityPub plugin, WebFinger plugin, NodeInfo(2) plugin.
They don’t have very many configurable options though some may be hiding a bit, so try:
/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=activitypubwill give you options for how your posts appear;/wp-admin/users.php?page=activitypub-followers-list will show you who is following your site so you can more easily subscribe back via a reader if you like;/wp-admin/profile.php and look under “Fediverse” where your profile identifier will be found. It is based on your username within WordPress.The documentation for these plugins are scant and I’ve got the intention to write up something explaining the subtleties and a few quirks, but it will have to wait until the holidays I’m afraid. In the interim, they’re not as complete as they could be, but the following two blogposts have some useful details and hints, though its obvious to me that they’re much newer in the space:
There are one or two quirks still pending for how things display if you’re using the IndieWeb-based Post Kinds Plugin, but the developers are generally aware of most of them and will hopefully get them ironed our shortly.
As a result, mostly of these plugins, WordPress is already the fifth largest number of instances in the Fediverse with an (under-)estimated 878 as of this morning.
I’m practicing both the POSSE option as well as Option 2 above on my own site, which can be followed at @chrisaldrich@boffosocko.com, as an example. Matthias’s example can be found at @pfefferle.
This is a lot to consume and potentially implement, so, as ever, I’m happy to help guide and lay out the sub-branching options or even hop on a call to walk through bits with folks who have questions. David Shanske and I have been thinking about doing some group sessions and some training videos to walk people through some of this within the next few weeks. There’s also the IndieWeb chat which welcomes questions and conversation which is sure to give you some additional perspective: https://chat.indieweb.org/wordpress/.
For the social reader portions I briefly mentioned, I outline some of those options last year at OERxDomains in A Twitter of Our Own.
Separately, congratulations to HCommons having stood up a Mastodon server so quickly!
It looks like it’s running Hometown, which has local only (unfederated) posting, though I’m not sure how many are aware of that useful feature (hiding on the link in the posting interface) which is sadly missing from most Mastodon instances, particularly for smaller communities. It might be something useful to add to the welcome email? I think this could be a great feature for Universities to allow more private class-based social networking while providing some safer spaces that don’t reach the broader internet and which might comply with FERPA. Obviously it would need some testing and some of the barriers for standing up and maintaining these servers to come down a bit.
There’s a lot of messaging and potential education to be had to roll it out well, but it could be interesting to see the WordPress offerings from hcommons.org include some of these IndieWeb and Fediverse tools as well.
Tim Chambers (@tchambers@indieweb.social) (Indieweb.Social)My team at work just launched new research on the #TwitterMigration: We analyze which platforms are growing - especially #Mastodon, #Tumblr & #Post. We look at which sites users are adding to their Twitter bios, posting to their friends about & downloading apps for. Please do boost this, and love to hear any comments or feedback on it! Download it here: https://www.deweysquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/DSG-Snapshot-of-the-Twitter-Migration-December-12-2022.pdf
Jim Luke (econproph) (@econproph@mastodon.social) (Mastodon)@chrisaldrich Prob wouldn't work for your use since the paper stock, but Post-its come in 4x6 portrait (usu w/lined) gummed into a pad. Issue is post-its are usu lightweight stock - closer to 80#text (ordinary copier stock: 125gsm) and what we call cardstock is typically 65#card or thicker (175gsm+).
/explore page of an instance? I notice that some smaller instances have pages of people to check out (opted in by each user in the settings), eg: https://hcommons.social/explore. Did social.ds106.us specifically opt out of this for its instance?
Dr. Jonathan Flowers (Mastodon (zirkus))Next semester, I get to teach Philosophy of Technology, and I have only one objective: teach students that "social media" does not "cause" anything. Yes, you heard that right, I'm going to teach them that social media does not have agency, but is instead given agency through how users use the platform and interact with one another on the platforms. Hopefully, this will cut down on the "social media causes..." or "due to social media" takes.
I anxiously await this syllabus and reading list were it to be available. Kudos!
Before I go the DIY route, has anyone seen gummed 4 x 6″ index cards available for sale? I’d love to have a bunch of index cards temporarily glued together almost in notebook form for easy use and portability.
I’m looking for something along the lines of traditional note pads or memo pads like this: https://finecardstock.com/product/memo-pads-paper-white-4×6/, but which used a thicker index card stock.
I know there are a handful of manufacturers who make spiral bound versions with perforations for tearing cards out, but I’m looking for something a tad less bulky for putting in a back pocket or jacket pocket. I’ve also considered using binder clips and even book rings, but again, I’m trying to slim the system down.
If there’s nothing great, I may just go with my favorite cards and DIY with some PVA Glue which is often used in book binding and is suggested frequently in crafting videos like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Wp0sLpnMY. In the end, this may be the best route to allow me to choose my favorite cards in addition to how thick I can make the “notebooks”.
Similar/related/useful things I’ve come across in this related space:
Kaitiaki 3×5 Inches Index Card Organizer, though they don’t seem to have anything for 4 x 6 inch index cards.
Rite in the Rain (zettelkasting in the elements while hiking anyone?), though they all appear to be designed around 3 x 5″ cards.
Oxford At-Hand Note Card Case, this could work, but as ever, it only seems to be available for 3 x 5″ index cards
YOAVIP 4×6 Index Cards Clear Plastic Holder looked interesting, but was a larger, notebook sized version, though still had some useful portability features, yet might be a bit persnickety for regular in-and-out usage.
Has anyone else done this or anything similar? How about wallets, folios, or thin covers? What’s your experience?
This is ultimately what I ended up doing:
A notepad for my Zettelkasten! 🗃️
30 index cards, some bookbinder’s (PVA) glue, a brush, some clips, and ten minutes of craft time. We’re ready for the road…
How do I add my WordPress blog to Mastodon?
Donncha O Caoimh (odd.blog)It’s mostly straight forward. Install these two plugins: ActivityPub WebFinger The installation instructions are unfortunately not great. After you install both plugins, go to your Profile page (Users->Profile) and scroll right to the end. Down there you will find your profile identifier. It will look like @author@hostname.tld.
You’re right that the documentation isn’t necessarily the best. Another useful plugin for better Fediverse dovetailing is to use the NodeInfo plugin by Matthias as well. It helps by providing some additional details about your instance to the broader Fediverse. For example, you’ll see your site show up on the-federation.info where you’ll also see a number of other WordPress sites/users who are in the Fediverse as well. I’d heard rumors that portions of this were moving into the main ActivityPub plugin, but haven’t seen confirmation of all of it.
For those going the cross posting route and using Mastodon Autopost and Mastodon Auto Share I’ve written up some details for Crediting your own website when syndicating to Mastodon with WordPress plugins.
Aaron Davis (Read Write Respond)Whenever I read about the various ideas, I feel like I do not necessarily belong. Thinking about my practice, I never quite feel that it is deliberate enough.
Are you collecting examples of things for students? (seeing examples can be incredibly powerful, especially for defining spaces) for yourself? Are you using them for exploring a particular space? To clarify your thinking/thought process? To think more critically? To write an article, blog, or book? To make videos or other content?
Your own website is a version of many of these things in itself. You read, you collect, you write, you interlink ideas and expand on them. You’re doing it much more naturally than you think.
—
I find that having an idea of the broader space, what various practices look like, and use cases for them provides me a lot more flexibility for what may work or not work for my particular use case. I can then pick and choose for what suits me best, knowing that I don’t have to spend as much time and effort experimenting to invent a system from scratch but can evolve something pre-existing to suit my current needs best.
It’s like learning to cook. There are thousands of methods (not even counting cuisine specific portions) for cooking a variety of meals. Knowing what these are and their outcomes can be incredibly helpful for creatively coming up with new meals. By analogy students are often only learning to heat water to boil an egg, but with some additional techniques they can bake complicated French pâtissier. Often if you know a handful of cooking methods you can go much further and farther using combinations of techniques and ingredients.
What I’m looking for in the reading, note taking, and creation space is a baseline version of Peter Hertzmann’s 50 Ways to Cook a Carrot combined with Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. Generally cooking is seen as an overly complex and difficult topic, something that is emphasized on most aspirational cooking shows. But cooking schools break the material down into small pieces which makes the processes much easier and more broadly applicable. Once you’ve got these building blocks mastered, you can be much more creative with what you can create.
How can we combine these small building blocks of reading and note taking practices for students in the 4th – 8th grades so that they can begin to leverage them in high school and certainly by college? Is there a way to frame them within teaching rhetoric and critical thinking to improve not only learning outcomes, but to improve lifelong learning and thinking?
Though he indicates it was a “process [he] developed”, it is broadly similar to that of the influential “historical method” laid out by Ernst Bernheim and later Seignobos/Langlois in the late 1800s.
I’ve developed a way of working to make this huge project of a world history of design manageable.
—Victor Margolin
Notice here that Victor Margolin doesn’t indicate that it was a process that he was taught, but rather “I’ve developed”. Of course he was likely taught or influenced on the method, particularly as a historian, and that what he really means to communicate is that this is how he’s evolved that process.
I begin with a large amount of information.
—Victor Margolin
As I begin to write a story begins to emerge because, in fact, I’ve already rehearsed this story in several different ways by getting the information for the cards, mapping it out and of course the writing is then the third way of telling the story the one that will ultimately result in the finished chapters.
—Victor Margolin
