Read Be careful what you copy: Invisibly inserting usernames into text with Zero-Width Characters by Tom Ross (Medium)
Zero-width characters are invisible, ‘non-printing’ characters that are not displayed by the majority of applications. F​or exam​ple, I’ve ins​erted 10 ze​ro-width spa​ces in​to thi​s sentence, c​an you tel​​l? (Hint: paste the sentence into Diff Checker to see the locations of the characters!). These characters can be used to ‘fingerprint’ text for certain users.

A cool little trick with text for embedded steganography, security, or other communication purposes. 

This could also be used for pseudo-private communication via Webmention even. Just hide your messages inside of public messages.

Aaron Parecki bookmark Be careful what you copy: Invisibly inserting usernames into text with Zero-Width Characters (medium.com) ()

From Following Posts and Blogrolls (Following Pages) with OPML to Microsub Servers and Readers

I’m still tinkering away at pathways for following people (and websites) on the open web (in my case within WordPress). I’m doing it with an eye toward making some of the UI and infrastructure easier in light of the current fleet of Microsub servers and readers that will enable easier social reading without the centralized reliance on services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Medium, LinkedIn, et al.

If you haven’t been following along, here are some relevant pieces for background:

Generally I’ve been adding data into my Following Page (aka blogroll on steroids) using the old WordPress Links Manager pseudo-manually. (There’s also a way to bulk import to it via OPML, using the WordPress Tools Menu or via /wp-admin/import.php?import=opml). The old Links Manager functionality in WordPress had a bookmarklet to add links to it quickly, though it currently only seems to add a minimal set–typically just the URL and the page title. Perhaps someone with stronger JavaScript skills than I possess could improve on it or integrate/leverage some of David Shanske’s Parse This work into such a bookmark to pull more data out of pages (via Microformats, Schema.org, Open Graph Protocol, or Dublin Core meta) to pre-fill the Links Manager with more metadata including page feeds, which I now understand Parse This does in the past month or so. (If more than one feed is found, they could be added in comma separated form to the “Notes” section and the user could cut/paste the appropriate one into the feed section.) Since I spent some significant time trying to find/dig up that old bookmarklet, I’ll mention that it can be found in the Restore Lost Functionality plugin (along with many other goodies) and a related version also exists in the Link Library plugin, though on a small test I found it only pulled in the URL.

Since it wasn’t completely intuitive to find, I’ll include the JavaScript snippet for the Links Manager bookmarklet below, though note that the URL hard coded into it is for example.com, so change that part if you’re modifying for your own use. (I haven’t tested it, but it may require the Press This plugin which replaces some of the functionality that was taken out of WordPress core in version 4.9. It will certainly require one to enable using the Links Manager either via code or via plugin.)

javascript:void(linkmanpopup=window.open('https://exanple.com/wp-admin/link-add.php?action=popup&linkurl='+escape(location.href)+'&name='+escape(document.title),'LinkManager','scrollbars=yes,width=750,height=550,left=15,top=15,status=yes,resizable=yes'));linkmanpopup.focus();window.focus();linkmanpopup.focus();

Since I’ve been digging around a bit, I’ll note that Yannick Lefebvre’s Link Library plugin seems to have a similar sort of functionality to Links Manager and adds in the ability to add a variety of additional data fields including tags, which Ton Zijlstra mentions he would like (and I wouldn’t mind either). Unfortunately I’m not seeing any OPML functionality in the plugin, so it wins at doing display (with a huge variety of settings) for a stand-alone blogroll, but it may fail at the data portability for doing the additional OPML portion we’ve been looking at. Of course I’m happy to be corrected, but I don’t see anything in the documentation or a cursory glance at the code.

In the most ideal world, I’d love to be able to use the Post Kinds Plugin to create follow posts (see my examples). This plugin is already able to generally use bookmarklet functionality to pull in a variety of meta data using the Parse This code which is also built into Post Kinds.

It would be nice if these follow posts would also copy their data into the Links Manager (to keep things DRY), so that the blogroll and the OPML files are automatically updated all at once. (Barring Post Kinds transferring the data, it would be nice to have an improved bookmarklet for pulling data into the Links Manager piece directly.)

Naturally having the ability for these OPML files be readable/usable by Jack Jamieson’s forthcoming Yarns Microsub Server for WordPress (for use with social readers) would be phenomenal. (I believe there are already one or two OPML to h-feed converters for Microsub in the wild.) All of this would be a nice end -to-end solution for quickly and easily following people (or sites) with a variety of feeds and feed types (RSS, Atom, JSONfeed, h-feed).

An additional refinement of the blogroll display portion would be to have that page display as an h-feed of h-entries each including properly marked up h-cards with appropriate microformats and discoverable RSS feeds to make it easier for other sites to find and use that data. (This may be a more IndieWeb-based method of displaying such a page compared with the OPML spec.) I’ll also note that the Links Manager uses v1 of the OPML spec and it would potentially be nice to have an update on that as well for newer discovery tools/methods like Dave Winer’s Share Your OPML Subscription list, which I’m noting seems to be down/not functioning at the moment.

🔖 Libre 2 Theme — WordPress.com

Bookmarked Libre 2 Theme (WordPress.com)

(Libre 2 is a refreshed version of the Libre theme, with more features and added flexibility.)

Libre 2 brings a stylish, classic look to your personal blog or site for longform writing. The main navigation bar stays fixed to the top of the screen while your visitors read, keeping your most important content at hand, while three footer widget areas give your secondary content a comfortable home. Customize Libre 2with a logo or a header image to make it your own.

This could be a good pared-down theme to consider.

hat tip: Jon Beckett

👓 facebook backfeed via email notifications · Issue #854 · snarfed/bridgy | GitHub

Read facebook backfeed via email notifications · Issue #854 · snarfed/bridgy (GitHub)
this is a kinda crazy, somewhat dangerous, generally inadvisable idea that we almost certainly shouldn't do...at least, not as a public facing service for everyone. @chrisaldrich had the ...

👓 Create your own WordPress.com! | WP Ultimo

Read Create your own WordPress.com! – WP Ultimo (WP Ultimo)
With WP Ultimo you will be able to setup a Website as a Service platform, like WordPress.com or Wix.com, in a matter of minutes, not months!
This is just the sort of thing one could leverage to build a gen2+ IndieWeb platform… 

👓 This Is Gonna Be Emotional, We’re Setting over 90% of Our Premium Plugins Free! | WPMU DEV

Read This Is Gonna Be Emotional, We’re Setting over 90% of Our Premium Plugins Free! (WPMU DEV Blog)
WordPress is evolving, and so are we, even though it’s hard to see the kids leave home. It’s almost 12 years since Andrew and I launched WPMU DEV Premium as ‘a subscription-based service that offers advanced plugins for WordPress Multi-User’ and I reckon it’s fair to say that, well, it’s been quite the ride. And as of today, we’re taking another corner, guided by you, our members, and bringing all of our focus and efforts to the core services and functionality you care most about when it comes to running a great WordPress site, or two, or a few thousand.
This is awesome and sad at the same time. They’ve got an interesting reader hiding in here as well as the backbone of the edublogs platform. This latter could be used to create a platform for a WordPress-based IndieWeb platform.

👓 Creating GitHub-Style Contribution Graphs for Anything | schwertly.com

Read Creating GitHub-Style Contribution Graphs for Anything by Stan Schwertly (schwertly.com)
You can use akerl’s excellent GithubChart tool from GitHub to create contribution graphs using any data you want. Compare my current GitHub streak: Your browser does not support SVG versus all of my repos, public and private: Your browser does not support SVG (You’ll notice differences on the ...

📑 Three things about Readers during IndieWebCamp Nürnberg | Seblog

Annotated Three things about Readers during IndieWebCamp Nürnberg by Sebastiaan AndewegSebastiaan Andeweg (seblog.nl)
Oh IndieWebCamp. You come with a few things you want to for your own website, then you do some completely other things, and after that you leave with an even longer list of things to do for your own website.  
The story of us all…

👓 Top Cancer Researcher Fails to Disclose Corporate Financial Ties in Major Research Journals | New York Times

Read Top Cancer Researcher Fails to Disclose Corporate Financial Ties in Major Research Journals (New York Times)
A senior official at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has received millions of dollars in payments from companies that are involved in medical research.
This makes me think that researchers should have a page on their websites (like impressum, about, or other similar pages) that lists all of their potential research conflicts? What to call it? A Disclosure page, a Financial Ties page? It could have a list of current as well as past affiliations, along with dates, and potentially the value amounts paid (which are apparently available publicly in separate filings). In addition to posting their potential conflicts and disclosures on their own websites, researchers could easily cut and paste them into their publications (or at least their students, post docs, fellow researchers, or secretaries could do this when they’re apparently too busy to make a modicum of bother to do it themselves.)

I’m kind of shocked that major publishers like Elsevier are continually saying they add so much value to the chain of publishing they do, yet somehow, in all the major profits they (and others) are making that they don’t do these sorts of checks as a matter of course.

I’m really enjoying the fact that my website has an On This Day feature now. It’s nice to be reminded of interesting things I’ve done or things I’ve bookmarked and meant to read, but haven’t yet had the time. It also makes me want to pull in more data from older services to have a longer timeline for it.

Incidentally, Happy Anniversary to my Little Free Library which is celebrating its third birthday in a new location.

👓 Easy Custom Feeds in WordPress | Digging Into WordPress

Read Easy Custom Feeds in WordPress | Digging Into WordPress by Jeff Star (digwp.com)
Now that we have seen how to setup Tumblr-style posts, it would be nice to be able to segregate the Tumblr-posts category from the main feed into its own, separate feed. This would enable readers to subscribe exclusively to the Tumblr-posts feed and maybe display it in their sidebar or something.

While we’re at it, it would also be cool to be able to provide readers with a full menu of feed choices:
Everything feed: includes both the main posts and the Tumblr posts
Articles-only feed: includes only the main articles and no Tumblr stuff
Tumblr-only feed: includes only the Tumblr-style posts

Let's look at an overview of the process..

Plans and Thoughts for IndieWebSummit

IndieWeb Summit is upon us. Going into it I thought I’d jot down a handful of areas I’d like to play around with this week (and in coming weeks) as well as make a short list of things I might like to potentially build on day two. Things are sure to change as I see presentations and have conversations throughout the day, but at least I’ll have the ideas to hack around on in the coming weeks and months afterwards.

Session ideas

IndieWeb for Education (edtech, OER, outreach, DoOO)
Readers
Annotations
Publics/Audience
Vouch
Journalism
Syndication
Commonplace books online
WordPress Outreach (microformats for theme developers)

Build

Fix micropub set up for my site (esp. for reads/checkins)
TwentyTwelve theme fork with mf2 compatibility
Annotations post kind
Itch post kind
IFTTT code for PESOS from various RSS feeds
Plugin for the fragmentioner
Add annotations/highlights to the post types page
Tweaks to the Hypothesis Aggregator plugin to suit my workflow

 

📑 Highlight of “Interviewing my digital domains”

Annotated Chris Aldrich response to “Interviewing my digital domains” by wiobyrne (Digital Breadcrumbs)
Chris Aldrich used Hypothesis to annotate my post on Interviewing my digital domains.
Testing out the ability to more easily highlight content on the web and display it on my website using the Post Kinds Plugin. Typically a highlight wouldn’t include a textual note (like this), otherwise it would be considered marginalia or a general annotation. Perhaps I’ll get around to adding an annotation type shortly as well.

I’ve got an archive list of highlights now as well as a highlight feed.

👓 Icon request: icon-highlighter (icon-marker) · Issue #2095 · FortAwesome/Font-Awesome | GitHub

Read Icon request: icon-highlighter (icon-marker) · Issue #2095 · FortAwesome/Font-Awesome (GitHub)
A representation of a highlighter, similar to the pencil. I would use this in my Whiteboard app. Could also be named "icon-marker"
There is nothing more awesome than looking for a piece of functionality you want in a product and finding that it has literally been built and released within the last day! Font Awesome FTW!

I may have to follow up on my threat to build a particular Post Kind for highlights on my website.

A link to the newly released icon.

highlighter

Some thoughts on highlights and marginalia with examples

Earlier today I created a read post with some highlights and marginalia related to a post by Ian O’Bryne. In addition to posting it and the data for my own purposes, I’m also did it as a manual test of sorts, particularly since it seemed apropos in reply to Ian’s particular post. I thought I’d take a stab at continuing to refine my work at owning and controlling my own highlights, notes, and annotations on the web. I suspect that being able to better support this will also help to bring more self-publishing and its benefits to the halls of academe.

At present I’m relying on a PESOS solution to post on another site and syndicate a copy back to my own site. I’ve used Hypothesis, in large part for their fantastic UI and as well for the data transfer portion (via RSS and even API options), to own the highlights and marginalia I’ve made on the original on Ian’s site. Since he’s syndicated a copy of his original to Medium.com, I suppose I could syndicate copies of my data there as well, but I’m saving myself the additional manual pain for the moment.

Rather than send a dozen+ webmentions to Ian, I’ve bundling everything up in one post. He’ll receive it and it would default to display as a read post though I suspect he may switch it to a reply post for display on his own site. For his own use case, as inferred from his discussion about self-publishing and peer-review within the academy, it might be more useful for him to have received the dozen webmentions. I’m half tempted to have done all the annotations as stand alone posts (much the way they were done within Hypothesis as I read) and use some sort of custom microformats mark up for the highlights and annotations (something along the lines of u-highlight-of and u-annotation-of). At present however, I’ve got some UI concerns about doing so.

One problem is that, on my site, I’d be adding 14 different individual posts, which are all related to one particular piece of external content. Some would be standard replies while others would be highlights and the remainder annotations. Unless there’s some particular reason to do so, compiling them into one post on my site seems to be the most logical thing to do from my perspective and that of my potential readers. I’ll note that I would distinguish annotations as being similar to comments/replies, but semantically they’re meant more for my sake than for the receiving site’s sake. It might be beneficial for the receiving site to accept and display them (preferably in-line) though I could see sites defaulting to considering them vanilla mentions as a fallback.  Perhaps there’s a better way of marking everything up so that my site can bundle the related details into a single post, but still allow the receiving site to log the 14 different reactions and display them appropriately? One needs to not only think about how one’s own site looks, but potentially how others might like to receive the data to display it appropriately on their sites if they’d like as well. As an example, I hope Ian edits out my annotations of his typos if he chooses to display my read post as a comment.

One might take some clues from Hypothesis which has multiple views for their highlights and marginalia. They have a standalone view for each individual highlight/annotation with its own tag structure. They’ve also got views that target highlights/annotation in situ. While looking at an original document, one can easily scroll up and down through the entire page’s highlights and annotations. One piece of functionality I do wish they would make easier is to filter out a view of just my annotations on the particular page (and give it a URL), or provide an easier way to conglomerate just my annotations. To accomplish a bit of this I’ll typically create a custom tag for a particular page so that I can use Hypothesis’ search functionality to display them all on one page with a single URL. Sadly this isn’t perfect because it could be gamed from the outside–something which might be done in a classroom setting using open annotations rather than having a particular group for annotating. I’ll also note in passing that Hypothesis provides RSS and Atom feeds in a variety of ways so that one could quickly utilize services like IFTTT.com or Zapier to save all of their personal highlights and annotations to their website. I suspect I’ll get around to documenting this in the near future for those interested in the specifics.

Another reservation is that there currently isn’t yet a simple or standard way of marking up highlights or marginalia, much less displaying them specifically within the WordPress ecosystem. As I don’t believe Ian’s site is currently as fragmentions friendly as mine, I’m using links on the date/time stamp for each highlight/annotation which uses Hypothesis’ internal functionality to open a copy of the annotated page and automatically scroll down to the fragment as mentioned before. I could potentially see people choosing to either facepile highlights and/or marginalia, wanting to display them in-line within their text, or possibly display them as standalone comments in their comments section. I could also see people wanting to be able to choose between these options based on the particular portions or potentially senders. Some of my own notes are really set up as replies, but the CSS I’m using physically adds the word “Annotation”–I’ll have to remedy this in a future version.

The other benefit of these date/time stamped Hypothesis links is that I can mark them up with the microformat u-syndication class for the future as well. Perhaps someone might implement backfeed of comments until and unless Hypothesis implements webmentions? For fun, some of my annotations on Hypothesis also have links back to my copy as well. In any case, there are links on both copies pointing at each other, so one can switch from one to the other.

I could imagine a world in which it would be nice if I could use a service like Hypothesis as a micropub client and compose my highlights/marginalia there and micropub it to my own site, which then in turn sends webmentions to the marked up site. This could be a potential godsend to researchers/academics using Hypothesis to aggregate their research into their own personal online (potentially open) notebooks. In addition to adding bookmark functionality, I could see some of these be killer features in the Omnibear browser extension, Quill, or similar micropub clients.

I could also see a use-case for adding highlight and annotation kinds to the Post Kinds plugin for accomplishing some of this. In particular it would be nice to have a quick and easy user interface for creating these types of content (especially via bookmarklet), though again this path also relies on doing individual posts instead of a single post or potentially a collection of posts. A side benefit would be in having individual tags for each highlight or marginal note, which is something Hypothesis provides. Of course let’s not forget the quote post kind already exists, though I’ll have to think through the implications of that versus a slightly different semantic version of the two, at least in the ways I would potentially use them. I’ll note that some blogs (Colin Walker and Eddie Hinkle come to mind) have a front page that display today’s posts (or the n-most recent); perhaps I could leverage this to create a collection post of highlights and marginalia (keyed off of the original URL) to make collection posts that fit into my various streams of content. I’m also aware of a series plugin that David Shanske is using which aggregates content like this, though I’m not quite sure this is the right solution for the problem.

Eventually with some additional manual experimentation and though in doing this, I’ll get around to adding some pieces and additional functionality to the site. I’m still also interested in adding in some of the receipt/display functionalities I’ve seen from Kartik Prabhu which are also related to some of this discussion.

Is anyone else contemplating this sort of use case? I’m curious what your thoughts are. What other UI examples exist in the space? How would you like these kinds of reactions to look on your site?