The Story of My Domain

Here are my answers to Alan’s list of questions about my domain:

What is your domain name and what is the story, meaning behind your choice of that as a name?

I use the domain name BoffoSocko as my online identity.

I’ve spent 20+ years working in the entertainment industry in one way or another and was enamored of it long before that. Boffo and socko are slanguage from the trade magazine Variety essentially meaning “fantastically, stupendously outstanding; beyond awesome”, and used together are redundant. I was shocked that the domain name was available so I bought it on a whim expecting I’d do something useful with it in the future. Ultimately who wouldn’t want to be Boffo, Socko, or even both?

In my youth I think I watched Muppets Take Manhattan about 1,000 times and apparently always thought Kermit was cool when he said “Boffo Lenny! Socko Lenny!”

What was your understanding, experience with domains before you got one? Where were you publishing online before having one of your own?

Over the ages I’d had several websites of one stripe or another going back to the early/mid-90’s when I was in college and everyone was learning about and using the web together. Many of my domains had  a ~ in them which was common at the time. I primarily used them to promote work I was doing in school or with various groups. Later I remember spending a lot of time setting up WordPress and Drupal sites, often for friends, but didn’t actually do much with my own. For me it was an entry point into working with coding and simply playing with new technology.

I didn’t actually begin putting a lot of material online until the social media revolution began in 2006/2007. In 2008, I purchased a handful of domain names, many of which I’m still maintaining now. Ultimately I began posting more of my own material, photos, and observations online in a now defunct Posterous account in early 2010. Before it got shut down I had moved back to WordPress which gave me a lot more freedom and flexibility.

What was a compelling feature, reason, motivation for you to get and use a domain? When you started what did you think you would put there?

When I bought my first handful of domains, it was primarily to begin to own and brand my own identity online. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was going to do with them, but I was posting so much content to Facebook and Twitter I thought I ought to be posting it all (especially the longer form, and in my mind, more valuable content) to a site I owned and controlled and then syndicating the content to those other sites instead. Initially microblogging, bookmarking, posting checkins, and sharing photos made it easier to being writing and producing other things.

What kinds of sites have you set up on your domain since then? How are you using them? Please share URLs!

Most of my domains are personal and personal education related, though I do have a few for separate business/work purposes.

https://www.boffosocko.com is my primary, personal, catch-all domain run with WordPress. I can do almost anything and everything I want with it at this point.

I use it to (privately or publicly):

  • collect bookmarks of interesting things I see online or want to read in the future;
  • post about what I’m reading, watching, or listening to;
  • post what I’m eating, drinking, or places I’ve checked into, photos of things around me;
  • post podcasts and microcasts from time to time;
  • draft and synthesize big pieces of the above to write reviews or longer pieces (from articles to books) and publish them for others to read.

Generally I do everything others would do on any one of hundreds of other social media websites (and I’ve got all those too, though I use them far less), but I’m doing it in a centralized place that I own and control and don’t have to worry about it or certain pieces of functionality disappearing in the future.

In large part, I use my website like a modern day commonplace book. It’s where I post most of what I’m thinking and writing on a regular basis and it’s easily searchable as an off-board memory. I’m thrilled to have been able to inspire others to do much the same, often to the extent that many have copied my Brief Philosophy word-for-word to their “About” pages.

Almost everything I do online starts on my own domain now, and, when appropriate, I syndicate content to other places to make it easier for friends, family, colleagues, and others to read that content in other channels and communicate with me.

https://chrisaldrich.withknown.com — This is a WithKnown-based website that I used when I initially got started in the IndieWeb movement. It was built with IndieWeb and POSSE functionality in mind and was dead simple to use with a nice interface.

http://stream.boffosocko.com — Eventually I realized it wasn’t difficult to set up and maintain my own WithKnown site, and it gave me additional control. I made it a subdomain of my primary website. I’ve slowly been using it less and less as I’ve been able to do more and more with my WordPress website. Now I primarily use it for experiments as well as for quick mobile replies to sites like Twitter.

What helped you or would have helped you more when you started using your domain? What do you still struggle with?

Having more examples of things that are possible with a domain and having potential mentors to support me in what I was attempting to do. I wish I had come across the IndieWeb movement and their supportive community far earlier. I wish some of the functionality and web standards that exist now had been around earlier.

I still struggle with writing the code I’d like to have to create particular pieces of functionality. I wish I was a better UX/UI/design person to create some of the look and feel pieces I wish I had. Since I don’t (yet), I’m trying to help others maintain and promote pieces of their projects, which I use regularly.

I still wish I had a better/more robust feed reader more tightly integrated into my website. I wish there was better/easier micropub support for various applications so that I could more easily capture and publish content on my website.

What kind of future plans to you have for your domain?

I’d like to continue evolving the ability to manage and triage my reading workflows on my own site.

I’d like to be able to use it to more easily and prettily collect things I’m highlighting and annotating on the web in a way that allows me to unconditionally own all the relevant data without relying on third parties.

Eventually I’d like to be able to use it to publish books or produce and distribute video directly.

I’m also continuing to document my experiments with my domain so that others can see what I’ve done, borrow it, modify it, or more easily change it to suit their needs. I also do this so that my future (forgetful) self will be able to remember what I did and why and either add to or change it more easily.

Tomorrow I’m positive I’ll see someone using their own website to do something cool or awesome that I wish I had thought to do. Then I hope I won’t have to work too hard to make it happen for myself. These itches never seem to stop because, on your own domain, nearly anything is possible.

What would you say to other educators about the value, reason why to have a domain of your own? What will it take them to get going with their own domain?

Collecting, learning, analyzing, and creating have been central to academic purposes since the beginning of time. Every day I’m able to do these things more quickly and easily in conjunction with using my own domain. With new tools and standards I’m also able to much more easily carry on two-way dialogues with a broader community on the internet.

I hope that one day we’re able to all self-publish and improve our own content to the point that we won’t need to rely on others as much for many of the moving parts. Until then things continue to gradually improve, so why not join in so that the improvement accelerates? Who knows? Perhaps that thing you would do with your domain becomes the tipping point for millions of others to do so as well?

To get going it only takes some desire. There are hundreds of free or nearly free services you can utilize to get things rolling. If you need help or a mentor, I’m happy to serve as that to get you going. If you’d like a community and even more help, come join the IndieWeb chat room. You can also look for a local (or virtual) Homebrew Website Club; a WordPress Meetup or Camp, or Drupal Meetup or Camp; or any one of dozens of other groups or communities that can help you get moving.

Welcome to the revolution!

📺 Investigative Toolkit | Jon Udell

Watched Investigative Toolkit by Jon Udell from Jon Udell

This is great! The more citation of sources, the better. If I want to check those sources, though, I often wind up spending a lot of time searching within source articles to find passages cited implicitly but not explicitly. If those passages are marked using annotations, the method I’ll describe here makes that material available explicitly, in ways that streamline the reporter’s workflow and improve the reader’s experience.

Reply to a reply to Dan Cohen tweet

Replied to Reply to Dan Cohen tweet by Chris AldrichChris Aldrich (BoffoSocko)
Dan, There are a lot of moving pieces in your question and a variety of ways to implement them depending on your needs and particular website set up. Fortunately there are lots of educators playing around in these spaces already who are experimenting with various means and methods as well as some of their short and long term implications.
@jbj Given the number of people I’ve seen experimenting over the past months, I’d be happy to put together a series of short pieces for @ProfHacker covering the areas of overlap of between , , , research, academic publishing, samizdat, commonplace books, etc. Essentially tighter versions of some of https://boffosocko.com/research/indieweb/ but specifically targeting the education space using WordPress, Known, and Grav. Let me know if you’d accept submissions for the community.

👓 Vice Media Was Built on a Bluff. What Happens When It Gets Called? | Daily Intelligencer | New York Magazine

Read Vice Media Was Built on a Bluff. What Happens When It Gets Called? by Reeves Wiedeman (Daily Intelligencer)
For almost 25 years, Shane Smith’s plan was that, by the time the suckers caught on, he’d never be stuck owning the company he co-founded.
A fantastic article.

This reminds me a lot of the recent Theranos stories and book. It’s sad how companies don’t do enough due diligence on potential investments like this. When I think about how much basic work and discussion Marcus Lemonis does for $100,000 investments, I’m appalled to hear what people are doing for multi-millions. It’s stunning that a company can get to this size and be worth nearly nothing. Using the relative size (ie number of employees) of business units like human resources and legal within a particular industry could be a reasonable guide for the internal management of a company.

This is also a good example that while investments may give a company a particular valuation, it can rarely be the actual potential present value of the company. As a result, workers who are working for near free plus stock should be paying closer attention to company internals to know that their stock portion is going to be completely worthless.

Worse, I’m always pained to hear that young people (rich or otherwise) are essentially giving away their work and sweat equity away for free to big companies that could easily pay them. Eventually the pendulum is going to swing back the other way and companies are going to need to pay more.

One of my favorite quotes from the piece:

“Shane would always say that young people are the No. 1 bullshit detector, which was annoying once you realized that the thing he mastered is getting young people to buy shit,” says a recently departed senior employee.

🔖 ❤️ Protohedgehog tweet

Bookmarked a tweet by Jon TennantJon Tennant (Twitter)
This suggests some interesting bookmarklet functionality.

👓 Possible cultural & technological futures of digital scholarship | W. Ian O’Byrne

Read Possible cultural & technological futures of digital scholarship by W. Ian O'Byrne (wiobyrne.com)
I think there is a need to develop a system to track the draft of a manuscript from the beginning to the end of the process. This will open up new possibilities to scaffold new scholars while we onboard them in the process. This will also provide new opportunities for open scholarship and open science. Finally, this will allow researchers to replicate, remix, or reproduce the (research, reflection, writing, revision, publishing) process. The answer may be in indieweb philosophies, but the main impediment may be in the people and systems that make all of this possible. I think we have an opportunity for new technological opportunities in academic publisher, but I’m not sure if culturally we’re ready. Let me explain.

I think there is a need to develop a system to track the draft of a manuscript from the beginning to the end of the process.

If you’re drafting in WordPress you can set the number of revisions of your posts to infinite so that you can keep (archive) all of your prior drafts. see: https://codex.wordpress.org/Revisions

“pre-print” versions of manuscripts

This is just another, albeit specific, form of academic samizdat.

Reply to Bryan Alexander

Replied to a tweet by Bryan AlexanderBryan Alexander (Twitter)
When I was at a major talent agency selling to studios/producers, their mantra was “keep executives busy reading our material/meeting our clients; they won’t have time to think about hiring/using our competition.” I suspect the same applies here.

👓 Meghan Markle's Ex-Husband Trevor Engelson Gets Engaged 2 Weeks After Royal Wedding: Report | People

Read Meghan Markle's Ex-Husband Trevor Engelson Gets Engaged 2 Weeks After Royal Wedding: Report (PEOPLE.com)
Trevor Engelson, who was married to Meghan Markle for two years, reportedly popped the question to nutritionist Tracey Kurland in California's Napa Valley on Friday

❤️ xanalter tweet

Liked a tweet by Alexandra Alter on TwitterAlexandra Alter on Twitter (Twitter)

🔖 How To Code in Python: Using Manifold to Deliver an Open Educational Resource | Building Manifold

Bookmarked How To Code in Python: Using Manifold to Deliver an Open Educational Resource (blog.manifoldapp.org)

Recently, my eBook on Python programming, How To Code in Python 3, was made available as a Manifold publication. I would like to offer my perspective to the Manifold community to give some background on the work and how I believe the Manifold platform provides additional layers of value to the text through providing a place for learning and idea exchange in both university communities and broader publics.

An interesting article about OER relating to a book that looks interesting to read.

👓 Introducing Janeway – the new open source publishing software | Birkbeck, University of London

Read Introducing Janeway – the new open source publishing software from Birkbeck (bbk.ac.uk)
The Birkbeck Centre for Technology and Publishing has released a new scholarly communications platform, Janeway, as an open-source download.

📺 Why Manifold? from Zach Davis | Vimeo

Watched Why Manifold? by Zach Davis from Vimeo

Welcome to Manifold. The intuitive, collaborative, open-source platform for scholarly publishing you’ve been waiting for.

Publishers already work with authors, license copyrights, and create printed books. Let Manifold handle the web-based editions. You can easily convert your existing files into online publications, and Manifold’s open-source platform provides a beautiful, deep reading experience that fosters community and encourages discussion.

Manifold wants to extend the reach and power of academic publishing. That's why we've made Manifold intuitive, open source, and free to use. But we can't do it without your help. Learn more, or get started today at manifoldapp.org

Why Manifold? from Zach Davis on Vimeo.

👓 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.

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.