zkbro

Re:x4 Connecting, Consuming, Contributing

2024-08-28 21:27

bleh, I got bored with writing this, wasn't happy with it, but posted anyway. I struggle to create boundaries sometimes, and this became a jumbled mess. If anything, just click some random links. There's some good stuff there from people who know how to write.

In the space of 12 hours my RSS feed dripped in four posts about personal approaches to building and consuming in the web - particularly the blogosphere, personal websites, socials, RSS and the likes. As I started to draft up my first ever reply post, my feed kept loading up with more glorious thoughts and approaches. Either there's something in the air (change of seasons?), or it's just a case of me taking notice because my interests are perked up.

I always find it interesting how others connect, consume and contribute. For this post I'll explore some of my current approaches and thought patterns in this area. I've dropped some other interesting alternatives at the end. I've also dropped in some links throughout which will lead to many other topics on the same subject. It's endless really, but I think it's good to dive in every now and again as there are constantly new tools appearing which lead to new approaches.

I'll likely move pieces in here to dedicated pages at some point. But for now, here's a dump of my mushy thoughts.

RSS

consuming

RSS is my main means of reading. It's how the above posts came to me. I have around 160 authors in my list. I'll sometimes read an article from the top of the list (the most recent post to be published), otherwise I'll read blog by blog, letting the feed build up a while and then read a few posts by a single author from oldest to newest. I find this way I feel more connected with the author, understand their journey, thought patterns and style of writing. It also helps me get decide if I am still connecting with them as my interests evolve over time and adjust subscriptions accordingly.

I use the FreshRSS feed reader which I access through my mobile and laptop web browsers. This week I've gone full light-mode and chosen the Ansum theme which is a delight. In dark mode I use Nord theme. I'll sometimes click through to the author's web page to enjoy their personal styling, which I'm regularly blown away by.

I bookmark posts (in FreshRSS) when I want to take an action on it - follow up with author, explore the content further, or create a new task/project as it sparks an idea. Once I've actioned it I'll unbookmark it, usually referenced somewhere so it's not lost completely. Example: I bookmarked the 4 posts above because I wanted to write this reply post.

When subscribing to a feed I will name it by the author's name if I can find it. When I'm eyeballing what to read, this splits out the personal blogs from the others and gives me better connection to the human behind it. Sharing of names is a personal choice though, and I respect that.

I also track Mastodon hashtags in my RSS feed but limit this to 5 posts per hastag and don't show them in the main feed as they can be pretty frequent. I don't check these very often.

For my own website I have a single RSS Atom feed which includes blogs, quick-posts, list-posts, and site-updates. If you subscribe, you get the full shabang. Others split thier feeds, and I appreciate that too. I feel like I post infrequent enough to not overwhelm someone's feed.

I also subscribe to my own feeds so I can check they're working (and apologise if it goes awry).

Socials

consuming | connecting | contributing

I use the Phanpy Mastodon client to connect with and discover new authors and interesting topics. Following hashtags like #IndieWeb #SmallWeb #SmolWeb #blogging #weeknotes returns great results for discovery. I have a dedicated Phanpy column that shows those tags. I use the Filter option to clear out topics I'm not interested in. I think this is the power of Mastodon over your regular socials.

I also migrate servers occasionally to discover other interesting peeps, making use of the "Local" timeline. My journey so far has been mastodon.social -> mastodon.nz -> defcon.social (current). I have a mountains.social and indieweb.social accounts which I check out the local feeds from time to time, and will likely move to one of those shortly. I find moving servers in Mastodon a bit like moving towns. You stay connected with some folk, lose others, then starting making new connections. I am by no means crazy active in this space, but that's the gist.

I syndicate my blog posts there manually at the moment. Might look at using EchoFeed again now I'm moving away from micro.blog.

Although Mastodon and the wider fediverse gives you more control over content, it can still contribute to anxiety, depression and addiction that comes with any social media. I try and be intune with my actions and feelings. If it becomes unhealthy, I will leave. Simone puts it bluntly:

...the Fediverse idea, albeit interesting on paper, is gloriously showing its main flaw: pretty much all their incarnations are mimicking social media, with all the consequent detrimental effects. Doom scrolling, an infinite series of short burst of personal opinions, usually disconnected from one another. Whether siloed or decentralised, the resulting unsearchable ephemerality is not really different from other mainstream corporate incarnations.

Simone goes on to express his waning interest in the IndieWeb, which Matthew followed up a bit more in depth, and now I am a bit confused by what IndieWeb is. I thought it was just websites created by people doing it the way they want with their tool/s of choice.

Webrings/Web Directories

consuming

I like discovering new blogs through webrings and web directories. Some are themed, some are hand-curated, and some have random page buttons. I have to be strict on myself when I'm surfing these. There is a tonne of good content out there. I generally do this in the evenings when I've nothing else on my plate. Probably the worst time to do it, before bed and all.

consuming | contributing

Now this place is exciting. These pages and posts are hand-curated by humans, often with their own thoughts on the topic. There's a great mix of old and new links, to articles, websites, tools, magazines, zines, whatever. People are getting creative in the ways of presenting these. They reflect the person's interests, and if they're similar to yours, you'll know you'll be in for a treat when they appear in your feeds.

Some of my favs:

Or how about a webring of folk who are curating these blogs/posts/links/bookmarks: Wayward Web

I have some ideas I want to try on this site (moving all the links on this post into dedicated page/s for starters).

Email

connecting

Email is still useful.

My website

contributing | connecting

I agree that everyone should blog. This is my wee contribution. The Micro text editor is where I write my posts, including the HTML and all that goes with. It's encouraging me to get familiar with the command line and explore more command line tools. I enjoy the simple space to write. Maybe not the most efficient, but I get a kick out of it.

Need a hand writing? Here's some random blogging prompts. And consider writing your own damn HTML.

Other interesting spaces and concepts

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