I know am a bit late to share, but I always enjoy parsing through the findings from GitHub Octoverse. This year’s report is no different - some fascinating trends, some suppositions affirmed. Especially in the people part - “how, when and where developers build and learn”.
If you need to persuade someone to take action, you’re doing marketing.
Seth Godin on marketing. I believe my attempt earlier was to persuade more people to join Micro.blog. I didn’t want to use the word, but I guess I was marketing the platform.
xkcd, as always, gets it bang on why I dislike the smart computers of today correcting and reminding me continuously. And now they also start second guessing what I might say next. I cringe every time that happens.
It is always exciting to check the Pingdom monthly report. And always see zero outages with response times in 200-300ms range since I moved to a static site. At times, when intended purpose is simple, like a text-heavy blog, it’s better to select a solution that ain’t complex.
Discuss on Micro.blog
I have recently been thinking a lot about making it easier for people to interact on my posts. The commenting systems of yesteryears served well till they were completely ruined by spams and unnecessary hurdles around setting them up and managing them.
Since I embraced the IndieWeb, I realised that webmentions can potentially address this need. One primary reason that I believe they can fare better than the existing commenting system is the required skills barrier to get started.
But I was afraid that the same barrier to “entry” would also mean not everyone could comment on my posts. It could potentially limit the audience, especially one that interacts, to the developer niche that understands IndieWeb. But I was pleased that wasn’t the case. More on why later, first a quick comment on comments.
I am not alone who is fed up of the commenting systems. Dave Winer has since long turned off the responses on his posts. And in recent times he also has been particularly unhappy with Disqus, his selected replacement to the in-built responses. So, he found out his way to enable a commenting mechanism that did not need constant managing. Plus at the same time, had an entry barrier of sorts. He now uses Twitter reposts for comments.
Use the [retweet] feature here on Scripting News more. It’s a way to comment on what’s going on here, without using Disqus.
Sure, it meets the need. You need not manage a separate commenting system. You can follow tweets on Twitter - they are closer to post on Twitter. And Dave publishes RSS feed of all the comments. So he, and the readers, can receive all the comments.
For me personally though, this does not meet the one main criteria - it keeps the responses away from the posts, hence from the context. And inadvertently from the readers too. There’s no way then to inspire any inclination amongst readers to contribute and be part of an ongoing conversation on the post.
So, back to webmentions. I can display mentions along with my post (and with this recent guide I had written, you can too) and that means any reader at my blog is aware of the sort of discussion that’s taking place over the post. If you see my recent posts, they have significant interactions between multiple people.
But where is this discussion taking place? And how can one be part of it? It’s primarily all happening on micro.blog. The platform fosters a pleasant community of many creative and open minds. It also encourages meaningful conversations over mindless reactions. And Manton, the mind behind Micro.blog, is a firm proponent of the open web.
I wish more people become part of the platform - better, support the platform by subscribing to the paid plans. And one of the ways I thought I can advertise the platform and bring it to the attention of many is by prominently displaying it along with posts. So, now for every posts on this blog with conversations at micro.blog, there will be a clear “Discuss on Micro.blog” link that takes you directly to the conversation thread (example). “You want to comment? Please join Micro.blog.”
That would, in addition, be a nudge to post a longer response on one’s own website.
My hope is this will exhibit the biggest asset of the micro.blog platform, it’s community, in context and as a result, inspire more people to join with a ready-to-access link to the place where the conversation is taking place. If a significant section of the platform users, one that can, starts to display the conversations (webmentions) and starts to include such links, we should soon have an extremely diverse set of users joining the platform.
It’s so great to see updates to the Dialog app. It‘s a great app - very well-designed and beautiful to scroll through. And with ability to post finally available, makes it a great option on Android. I was seriously considering attempting to write an app for Android. May not now.
Anticipation of any sort is the biggest sleep killer. Your mind wanders around, stitching up every permutation and combination of what’s to happen. I have realised the only thing that puts my mind to rest in this state is Music. 🎶
A Warm Adieu, 2018
2018, for me, was a year of many firsts. To be frank, I was uncharacteristically active overall — so much so that I startled myself at multiple times throughout the year with the liveliness. I possessed heaps of clarity in terms of what I was working on, both within and outside of the profession.
Sure, if I look outward, 2018 has left the world in complete disarray. There is chaos, unclarity all around. There is an inconspicuous tension building up in every part of the world. A lack of trust, faith in one another. In humanity.
2018 may very well be remembered as the year when the word “true” lost all its meaning. A fight to drum up the perception that my truth is the only truth made one insensitive of everything that was being said by anyone.
And it did get tiring. As Scaachi Koul rightly said, “2018 wore us all the hell out” (h/t Sameer Vasta). I empathise with her when she says
I am usually energized by arguing, by getting aggressive, by putting a name or a face to an enemy, online or otherwise. Not this year.
But then I have decided to remember 2018 for the goods it brought me personally.
I expressed. Kept churning up more longer posts and lots and lots of shorter microposts.
I captured. Snapped a significant part of my life as pictures. Posted them, shared them more.
I learnt. Understood. And got enamoured by IndieWeb.
I developed. Worked on so many new projects - many found useful even by few others.
I experimented. Recorded a first podcast episode. Started a new individual podcast.
Unlike me, I gave up a lot lesser in 2018. Almost everything I noticed above was taken to completion.
And most importantly, I lived. Quality time with people closest to me. Family reunions. Getaways. Holidays. Making new friends, in real and digital life.
Yep. I will remember 2018 as a year of being satisfied. And being alive. It is only fair to welcome 2019 with a clean, untidy slate.
Every time I read or watch anything listicle, I cringe. I inattentively fall for the shady tricks from these “evil” people - I am a sucker for such stuff, I guess. There so much angst for this form of media that I feel crummy inside when that happens.