A new feature on Micro.blog inspired a discussion over what I think of as the ongoing friction caused by the dual nature of the platform as a paid blogging host, with free(ish) social network attached.
My reply got longer than I like to see in my own timeline so here we go…
The reason I would prefer to use a different label is that it helps me maintain a sense of place, to be aware of the context. To me:
- Conversation = timeline
- Replies = blog
(Edit: actually, this makes sense now that I’ve written it out. Conversation works because that’s where the link goes. My question now is: why is there a link to the timeline mixed in with my blog posts?
Maybe this would be easier to understand if Conversation.js was better equipped as a commenting system.)
This tripped me up because it appears to be an ongoing issue; I regularly see lots of people struggle with these ideas and there is no apparent proof of intent from the design side of things — what’s the idea, why was it done that way, will it change over time, how much does feedback matter in these decisions, etc —and I wonder if these choices add to the uncertainty and difficulty? I’m probably over-thinking it.
