micro.blog | Chris Aldrich

👓 The way out | Manton Reece

There have been many articles written in the last month about the role of social networks. Some even reach the obvious conclusion: that the top social networks are too big. This interview on Slate was fairly representative, covering monopolies and centralized power. But these articles always stop sh...

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👓 a post | Flashing Palely in the Margins | Sameer Vasta

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Sameer Vasta (inthemargins.ca)

[...] We like to tell ourselves that micro.blog is a great place because we are civil and we have good conversations and discussions, even when we disagree, but I have faced more dismissiveness and insult on micro.blog in the past year than I have at any time in that other “micro” social network. This is not the civil community that we make it out to be, and by pretending that it is, we ignore when people feel actively excluded. [...]

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👓 How I send webmentions to Micro.blog | Eddie Hinkle

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Eddie Hinkle (eddiehinkle.com)

If you use Micro.blog completely from the native apps, everything works smoothly. If you communicate via the IndieWeb through webmentions, everything (mostly) works smoothly. But there is a big hiccup that is still being worked out when you communicate via Webmentions to Micro.blog. The current functionality is described here, however it's not exhaustive and it doesn't work 100% of the time. Some of the issues are documented on this GitHub issue, and eventually we'll work out the best practice use case. So what if you don't care about best practices and just want to communicate with Micro.blog through Webmentions? I have a working solution on my own website. Typically in a Webmention you have a source (your post) and a target (the post you are replying to) and the Webmention endpoint used is retrieved from the target. However because with Micro.blog sometimes the target post is on Wordpress or an externally hosted blog instead of Micro.blog. This causes an issue, because if you are wanting the Webmention to be received by Micro.blog but the target post does not advertise the Micro.blog Webmention endpoint, your post will never make it in to the Micro.blog system for an externally hosted post that you are replying to. What I do is I essentially do a "cc/carbon copy" Webmention. First I do the standard Webmention sending procedure, and then I check if the target Webmention endpoint was Micro.blog's endpoint (https://micro.blog/webmention), if it is not then I know Micro.blog did not receive the post and I send an additional Webmention. The CC Webmention contains the source as my post, the target as the post I'm replying to, and it gets sent to the Micro.blog Webmention endpoint. Micro.blog does a couple of things upon receiving the Webmention. First, it checks to see if the source post is coming from a URL that belongs to a verified Micro.blog user. Second, it checks if the target post exists already in the Micro.blog system. If both of those checks go through, then it will add the new post and link it up to the correct Micro.blog user as a reply to the correct Micro.blog post. This is not necessarily an easy thing to add in most Webmention systems and is not the intended final destination of cross-site replies. But if you want it to work today, this useful hack will get it working for you.

A useful layout of the technicalities, particularly for those running their own sites and syndicating into the micro.blog network.

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👓 I am completely baffled why some people seem to be choosing Mastodon over Micro.blog | Bruce Godin

Read I am completely baffled why some people seem to be choosing Mastodon over Micro.blog by Bruce Godin (brucegodin.ca)

It is completely baffling to me that a lot of people seem to be choosing Mastodon over Micro.blog as an alternative to Twitter lately. At least among tech geeks on Twitter anyway. I admittedly do not know a lot about Mastodon but it seems confusing AF to set up by all accounts and may be just yet an...

Micro.blog can be so many things to so many different people. We need to help them clarify to others exactly what it is that the service is doing and how to help people begin to use it. It’s not simply just a Twitter replacement as some might pitch it.

We should consider: How would Marshall McLuhan pitch it?

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Reply to Becky Hansmeyer about A Micro.blog App Idea

Replied to A Micro.blog App Idea by

Becky Hansmeyer (Becky Hansmeyer)

Yesterday I realized that I would really love a standalone app for publishing to Micro.blog that was focused on WordPress. The app itself would be structured very simply: it would open to a list of…

This sounds like something I think a lot of people would want. I know I do. It’d be particularly great if one could also simultaneously update/edit micro.blog posts as well, particularly when one is syndicating them to micro.blog via a feed. (Or does micro.blog accept fat pings to update the content? and maybe add some UI to indicate it was edited at a later date to prevent people from doing a bait and switch post?)

The closest thing I can think of currently for this is Aaron Parecki’s open sourced Quill app which works via micropub (to both WordPress and/or micro.blog hosted, or to WordPress and then syndicated via feed to micro.blog). I suspect that, depending on how one authenticates, Quill could (?) be aware of syndicated copies to micro.blog and be able to edit the posts on both platforms after-the-fact. Since Quill is a (progressive?) web app, it could be used as a mobile app on both iOS and Android.

As an aside, I notice your WordPress blog shows a generic: “This Article was mentioned on micro.blog.” line in many of your comments. Are you doing this by design, or are you unaware of the Symantic Linkbacks plugin which will help to take webmentions to your site and help turn them into more friendly looking replies within your comments section?

🎧 Episode 17: @eli | Micro Monday

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Micro Monday from monday.micro.blog

Eli Mellen, an art historian and printmaker turned web developer, talks to Jean about how he went from his “angsty LiveJournal” to being a proponent of the IndieWeb, and why he likes the new IndieWeb Ring. Eli is also the maintainer of Micro.wiki: Community resources for the avid Micro.blogger.

Eli’s wiki is truly a hidden gem.

🎧 Episode 16: @vanessa | Micro Monday

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Micro Monday from monday.micro.blog

Vanessa Hamshere is a musician, a crafter, a photographer, and one of the “fountain pens, paper, and planners gang.” We talk about how online communities evolve and thrive, and how a good mix of technical expertise and interests helps everyone.

It’s nice to have a group of people from across the world with different interests. I love random conversations.

Vanessa gives Colin Walker and I an overly kind little shout out during the episode. I suspect she either knows more than she lets on or she’s got a ton of tenacity, because she has a very lovely site. Lately I noticed that she’s even begun delving into microsub clients and Indiepaper, which I have barely begun to scratch the surface of, so perhaps I’ll have to pick her brain a bit in return.