Blogging platform agnostic

2025-06-19 22:27

Note: I wrote this as a gemlog originally at gmi.zkbro.com, so this may be confusing. I've confused myself. Help.

I've found lately that I'm not a very loyal user of any one tool or service for writing. I used to be pretty hung up on keeping all my blogs and notes (short and long-form, private and public) in a structured single website, or digital notebook. Lately however, I feel like I am drifting away from that structure, and rather falling to whatever is under my nose at the time. I'm also quite enjoying this change.

I think what has happened is I have just found some platforms that I really enjoy writing on, along with the communities with them, and I don't particularly want to part with them just to be in the one place.

I hear the term Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (POSSE) thrown around a bit. I get that maybe that helps a bit with keeping ALL your stuff on your main site, while you spit it out to various other places. However I feel like a lot is lost in that syndication. I feel like the writing is separated from the publishing. Author separated from reader.

Let me try to explain. Right now, I am writing in a text editor, SSH'd into my Raspberry Pi in the console. The reason I'm here, on the Pi, which is also my Gemini server, is because I was emailing someone regarding their own Gemini setup and the use of Gemcert to create their TLS certificates. I was checking some settings, trying to replicate an issue they were having. I was also using Lagrange to search for any other information I could find to help with my response. I sent a reply back (probably not a very useful one unfortunately), but I was in a terminal and Gemini headspace, so I just jumped right in and started to write in that space too. Which is where I am now.

For some reason, it'd throw me off if I were to pull myself away from this space and start writing in my setup for my https website. Although that setup is in tmux in a terminal emulator, for whatever reason it feels different. I have to push to Neocities, and my git repository. Maybe I wanted something a bit more raw tonight. This gmi file feels enough.

The other day I was installing a new operating system on an old laptop, and I visited my old smol.pub site where I used to log notes on my venture into linux for the first time. Those notes are still there, and I still use them. I ended up bailing on the new install, but when I finish it off, I'll likely post something on smol.pub again because it feels like a continuation of that topic I used to write about there.

I guess its a better intertwining of a current activity, writing, and a published piece. More immersion.

Now if I were to write about a mountain running adventure, I'd likely keep to my website. I'll want to be including embedded maps, elevation profiles, and photos along with my words. It helps tell the story better and give me a reminder and reference points for further down the track if I want to revisit it.

I don't particularly enjoy writing in my web browser anymore. smol.pub isn't too bad because it's so minimal, however there is a script to do it from the terminal. I think I got that going once, but have forgotten since. If I write something on Mastodon I will generally do it via the tut TUI, but sometimes I'm in the browser because I want that GUI experience, and I just respond there because I'm there.

I know I've contradicted myself - on my front page I've specifically said my notes.zkbro.com site is going to be a sync of my gemlog. I'm going to change that. Be a bit more loose, and just let myself write wherever I want to write, wherever I want to write, and let all those places take form.

Maybe this makes sense, maybe not. I may revisit this post and split it out into further chunks. I've touched on writing tools, syncing, services, syndicating. They all deserve deeper dives. Maybe someone would like to do a re: post to touch on something, and be less scatter-brain as I am.

Now... do I send to Antenna? Copy to website? Leave as is?? Argh I don't like this part.