What tools are missing? I think it helps to talk about specific feature requests here. The current design is around muting, reporting, and curation of the various sections of Discover.

In reply to Manton’s comment:

Similiar to Smokey, there are worries about manual curation in the future but that’s not a thing I think is worth caring about too much for the rest of us right now since it’s mostly theoretical and has too many potential solutions for which it is impossible to know what will definitely be the best approach to take.

Immediately, I think about how Twitter has:

• Quality filter. When I switched this on it made my timeline so much better. Is the Micro.blog version of this the aforementioned Safe Replies? If so, I have missed the detail on that but even so would suggest that gets promoted a lot more.
• Keyword filters. Given the chance, you can really go deep with this and stay ahead of some of the worst offenders; people for whom dealing with is a struggle for even a team of community managers, not least because they are often part of a team themselves (4chan, etc).
• Private mode. You can switch this on if things are getting bad, you need to take a break from using the platform, you are unable to keep an eye on things, or you want a personal timeline as well as a public timeline.
• Per-person re-tweet setting. I know re-posting doesn’t exist on Micro.blog but right now people are already posting to the timeline with a variety of posts, they just happen to be manually created and not actually built into Micro.blog itself. But I can’t filter those out.
• Blocking. When signed into my timeline certain people simply don’t exist.

Now, I’m pretty sure a bunch of that list is either already sorted – for example, muting vs blocking is largely semantics and technical differences – or simply not needed due to the structural differences between Micro.blog and Twitter.

If so then I guess the main issue is exactly that I don’t know that the tools are in fact not missing and other than reading through Help have no way to know; don’t get me wrong, I am happy to see people promote Micro.blog independently (I mean, duh, of course I do right?) but my feeling wth moderation is that it should be almost too obvious these problems are already solved/impossible to encounter; to be perhaps as clear as I should have been all along: Micro.blog should be yelling about this, as it is a signal to many potential power users that the platform is ready for them right now.

In September of 2017 I had encountered a dilemma. The one all-encompassing hobby project to which I had committed everything I had available outside of my job was no longer feasible. Between the cost, energy, and time it had become a project desperately in need of a team to run it; unfortunately that was not forthcoming, not to the necessary standard and so by mid-October the project came to an end.

Gone. Just like that. More than seven years of my non-job life no longer evident in full public view.

It was strange, not least since things had become steadily worse leading up to this event and so in some ways I had already come to terms with the situation, although to this day I still regret that the project is gone and can never come back. There was a lot in that project, a website centred around creativity and community, that had taken me from my last typical day job through the chaotic first years of becoming a full-time carer. And now it was gone.

Needless to say I had a lot of energy and time now at my disposal, especially once I had taken a good two-week break to recover from such a significant event, and the first thing to come to mind was settling a question that had come often to my thoughts in the preceding years;

How can I just write?

I have written across different subjects in different ways onto different places across the web for a number of years, so much so that it feels odd to think of a time before I did it. The core of the aforementioned project was writing; I met my wife because of writing; my favourite hobbies have always involved writing, even if I do not partake. Thus the question was inevitable, since I no longer had a central project into which I could pour all of my writing energy.

Actually that’s not true.

Almost all of it.

You see, I have always dabbled in various writing-based hobbies and in the end the only constant was blogging. Whether it was a personal blog or in some other form, the act of blogging just… works for me. There’s no other way around it; it’s what I like doing, it’s what primarily drew me to the silos of mainstream social media, and eventually, away from them.

The answer was thus inevitable; I wanted my site, for my blogging, made clearly by my hand. No, not the whole site, just the actual blogging. The core of it all.

This meant considering my options and inevitably deciding WordPress was the best way to go. It just makes sense, right?

Only, no, not really. Of my web-based hobbies one of my favourites is technology. Not just phones or computers but web tech also, and given that the most proficient and well organised independent writers in tech lean very much in the direction of Apple, well, that’s where that hobby found a place. Everything from the blogs, to the news sites, to the podcasts, Twitter feeds, and more! Suddenly there was this backlog of years worth of fanatical people about whom I previously had no idea even existed.

Of course, this was before the project ended, by a couple of years. The specifics of the path I travelled upon to arrive to this collection of people, these connected communities, is not that important but needless to say I now had a lot more time and energy to fully invest my time in getting to know the people within the communities and further indulge my interests.

Inevitably the focus of my interests landed mostly on two people: John Gruber and John Siracusa. I’m just that way (you know, the same way as so many other people). By way of the various outlets through which the pair would express themselves and contribute to the tech communities I came across Manton Reece, a man engaged in such independently centred ventures that I could not help but take notice. There are links at the bottom of this post to better illustrate some of the timeline here and exactly why Manton’s work and words spoke to me strongly enough to wait.

You see, I wanted to blog and do it on my site, and now was the time! However, Manton was close to launching an initiative I had come across thanks to the aforementioned Mr. Gruber; Micro.blog. It was everything I was looking for, maybe… possibly. I wasn’t totally sure but I knew I wanted to try it for sure. But I did not have access – I certainly threw down my email address to join the queue for getting in – and would have to wait.

So I wrote. I wasn’t posting so much but I was certainly writing, blogging even, and thinking about it, and planning it… I was blogging in all but publishing. Quickly enough this changed, however, when I finally got access to Micro.blog and within ten minutes knew I wanted to do this, no matter how it might turn out.

Then a month passed and I felt stronger about it. Then some more weeks passed and I blogged and got more involved talking with people whom I had never previously spoken to. Then I started planning something more involved, something more than just blogging.

Unfortunately reality hit, specifically with regard to needing to tighten our financial belt and so the costs of my site were removed and I left Micro.blog. I returned briefly with a free WordPress hosted site plugged into my Micro.blog account but fortunately it wasn’t long until I was able to fully return, only this time I decided to go all-in with Micro.blog. Now it was the host for my whole site.

I had launched my planned project just before having to temporarily cancel my accounts; Today I Learned had become public and much to my annoyance and deep shame it became immediately inactive, as a neglected project with no notice. However, my planning continued privately and I was renewed by a sense of urgency upon my return to hosted Micro.blog.

For me any venture about which I care a great deal is only worth my time and energy if it is for more than just me. I truly believe we are all at our best, as communities and societies, when we share that which we have. And I believed in Micro.blog, in not just its potential but for what it could do right now. Since I believed Today I Learned could help people share Micro.blog, I thus believed Today I Learned was worth most of my spare energy, time, and any resources I could muster.

It is vital that we have time for each other, that we treat and are treated with care in such a way as to presume the best and wish to teach the most. If there are resources, even beyond that which might be available via official sources, and they are made available, worked on over time, improved constantly, and renewed by new ideas therein then I think a project has a great chance of achieving the goals for which it has been created.

Here it is then, my ongoing effort to contribute to Micro.blog in a form beyond my individual blogging and cheerleading; Today I Learned, an unofficial resource for Micro.blog.

• • •

Links:

• Daring Fireball: link post for the Micro.blog Kickstarter
• Daring Fireball: link post for the launch of JSON Feed
• Daring Fireball: The Talk Show episode, featuring Manton Reece and Brent Simmons
• Manton Reece: Twitter’s weeds
• Manton Reece: Blog archive format

This is partially in reply to Jonathan LaCour’s tagmoji suggestion and about the issue in general, since I’ve seen other people talk about it in the typically shallow way so many of us seem only capable of doing so.

Whilst it is important to avoid making it easy for people to be abused on Micro.blog, I think “improve diversity” is a rather shallow demand made with perhaps good intention but very little thought. We need to look deeper, at how our chosen web platforms work and the things we can do to substantially move away from a monoculture without falling into tokenism and other such behaviour.

First, before all else, Micro.blog needs to have a robust set of moderation tools. When even super priveleged white tech dudes are talking about how they have noticed a lack of moderation tools as compared to Twitter, then you know there is a fundamental flaw that needs to be addressed. I’m not joking here; a lot of people compliment Micro.blog with comments like “it reminds me of the early days of Twitter/Tumblr!” and guess what, it was in those early days those platforms utterly failed to prepare for the inevitable decline into savagery employed by hateful people.

We are in the early days of Micro.blog; now is when we decide the hard work of future-proofing against problems we see elsewhere is not just worth it but one of our top priorities. The platform already has issues having been founded in the white tech monoculture of the US and other white Western countries, against which Jean has already worked with manual curation of the community but it is also up to us, the community itself, to push things forward; we have the freedom of non-VC demands but also the constraints of fewer resources and so must dig in and help where possible.

Let’s talk about different things, different people, different cultures, speak with people who aren’t already a part of our lives, and never be afraid to read criticism without becoming defensive and deciding that “the world is too sensitive” or some other nonsense.

Since a part of Micro.blog’s built-in monoculture is being so Apple-heavy, let’s take their marketing seriously and actually think differently.

A few things for you:

• Blogging Your Breakfast. Patrick Rhone recently linked to this 5 year-old piece of his. It’s not just written well but also wonderfully pieced together, an excellent example of how some of the best writing of recent times has in fact come from blogging.
• Blog Engines and IndieWeb Controlling Upstream. Brad Enslen wants to see a turnkey CMS solution provided by the IndieWeb, amongst others, as opposition to even the likes of WordPress. It is certainly an idea worth considering, especially if we’re going to be serious about avoiding behemoth-driven monopolies of the web in the future.
• Micro.blog Help redesign. Paul Robert Lloyd has submitted his proposal for an overhaul to the official Micro.blog Help pages. You can see his thinking behind the design, and leave a comment on GitHub.
• Multiple Tab Organisation. Mozilla released update 64 for Firefox and it includes a feature I have long wanted: the ability to manipulate multiple tabs at once.
• Kiko: System. Kahlil Lechelt is moving his personal blog to Micro.blog and along with it has posted the edits he made to the Kiko theme.
• People First microcast. John Philpin’s first foray into the world of podcasts has well and truly launched, with episode 1 now out.
• People First newsletter. Speaking of John and his People First endeavour, he is also launching a newsletter.
• Your Turn to Roll is the new theme for Critical Role and it is 86 seconds of nerd joy. 😍

This is the last issue of the year. For The Weekend will be back in 2019.

Enjoy your weekend!

A few things for you:

• Big Data versus Humanity. Brewster Kahle wrote this in February but it has become even more relevant with each passing day. We shouldn’t forget those who built the frameworks of our digital world, not when they’re still talking about it today.
• Frustrations at the IndyWeb conference. Dori Smith thinks those involved with the IndieWeb ought to reach out to Tumblr users in particular, and it makes perfect sense. Up until the past few years Tumblr remained unique within the silos as it continued to embrace blogs, RSS, and the like.
• Micro.blog milestone: first year open to the public. Manton Reece has maintained and continuously improved the various aspects of the platform, whilst the community has proven that you do not need to have your hand held by a closed, hostile system to have an online life.
• Algorithms Don’t See. Speaking of the Micro.blog community, Patrick Rhone is a frequent contributor with gems such as this piece in which he succinctly underlines why an inhuman approach to curating the web is simply not good enough.
• The web in 2018 (original link) is a brilliant gif shared by Andy Bell. Website UX being sacrificed for cheap ad rates and lazy marketing has clearly been no solution at all to the challenges of the modern web.
• A Small Hymn in Praise of My Body. Annie Mueller is another member of the Micro.blog community, and yet another person whose words are worthy of reading by anybody. This post has taken residence in my mind and I don’t think it’ll be going anywhere for some time yet.
• Why write about lunch? Why yes, Brent Simmons is on Micro.blog. Huh, funny that! In this short posts he hits a number of great points in answering the stated question.
• Are there any rules? Another great question from yet another member of the Micro.blog community. Luis Gabriel Santiago Alvarado has gradually returned to blogging over the past year and with posts like this it’s easy to see why. You can answer his question, if you like.
• Pretty Damn Futuristic. Jeremy has found, like me, AirPods to be pretty damn good. Especially when used within the Apple ecosystem.
• Randall Munroe’s excellent comic immediately came to mind the moment I came across the latest news about Google Hangouts and Allo.
• The True Size is an excellent web app to help you keep check of your mental model of the world, made by James Talmage and Damon Maneice who were in turn inspired by The West Wing which in itself is often a very good thing indeed.
  • h/t Chad Moore
• Populism and Today’s Social Tech vs. Blogging. Brad Enslen is hitting out of the park again with his thinking on the web, starting with this first part of a series.
• Indieseek Directory. Speaking of Brad, he is building a directory of his own to which you can link or even add its search to your site. Efforts like this are how we rebuild the web and move it away from the centralised, silo behemoths.
• MetPublications is the archive created by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, with which you can access decades worth of publications on art history for free.
• Advent Calendar of Compliments. Mandaris Moore is doing a great thing for the holiday season, with yet another brilliant contribution to the Micro.blog community. You can talk to him about it on Micro.blog!
• Critters Unplugged is a phenomenal gathering of Critical Role cosplayers. Just look at all of that colour. 😍
• A teacher welcomes her students into the classroom in the best way possible. I both love this idea and will 100% steal it.
• NEW. CRITICAL. ROLE. INTRO.
• NEW. DRAGON. AGE. TRAILER.
• NEW. AVENGERS. TRAILER.
• PUSHEEN. CHRISTMAS.

Enjoy your weekend!

I have been taking notes for this wishlist for some time. Two things have stopped me from writing it up and posting:

1. Time and energy. I have spent more of it on making other things, being a believer in the idea that the best position from which to criticise is that of creation, or put another way: I feel much more comfortable writing a critique-based wishlist for Micro.blog now that I’ve significantly increased my exposure to working on different projects.
2. Frankly, Manton, Jean, and John have all worked their arses off to improve Micro.blog in a variety of ways. Not only have I been able to remove items from the list but I have also been exposed to ideas for Micro.blog I had not previously come near to thinking about.

Now here I am, not only more convinced of just how right the entire idea of Micro.blog truly is – after all, it’s not just about Micro.blog but the potential in ideas similar to the platform insofar as sharing the same ideals – but also newly motivated to attempt to make a constructive contribution. As such, here is the list:

(Note: I have published three posts around this subject, all of which play a part in the list. Links: Quick list; Needs; Thoughts)

• Comprehensive support of features centred around accessibility;
  • Easier alt tags, VoiceOver support, and a robust editor are some of the necessary pieces to making Micro.blog as accessible as possible.
  • Some improvements were recently made on iOS.
• Thorough user moderation;
  • The ability to control as much of your timeline as possible is essential to making Micro.blog a viable space in which people can comfortably invest their time and energy.
  • Earlier this year the web and Mac apps gained muting and reporting tools.
• Multi-account support on the web.
• Keyboard shortcuts;
  • ctrl+enter to post, etc. The lack of these options on the web is jarring, especially in a post editor.
• Mentions;
  • When replying in a thread, you ought to be given the option to reply-all or not.
  • Autofill when typing a username.
  • Autofill has come to iOS, when creating new posts.
• Editing replies;
  • Even if there was a limit applied via time and/or length.
• Conversations;
  • Some form of threaded replies is needed.
  • Links to replies go to the actual reply.
• Better responsive design;
  • On the web it should be possible to make the browser window smaller without cutting off parts of the site.
• Dark mode.
• humans.txt;
  • An option to set this as a special page aligns perfectly with the web-centred philosophy around which Micro.blog was built.
• IndieWeb support;
  • Like
  • Repost
  • Selected entry (for quoting)
  • Emoji link share – this is available in Omnibear, as a custom alternative to Like.
  • IndieWeb support has improved greatly throughout the year.
• Feedback;
  • When taking an action there should be better, more obvious feedback from the site.
  • For example; taking you to your reply once it has been posted.
  • This has improved throughout the year.
• Cross-posting per post;
  • A version of this exists on iOS.
• Hosted;
  • Theme editing – some way to connect owner of blog to theme controls when they are browsing the site.
  • Improve performance of saving changes to pages, posts, and the theme.
  • Drafts – the ‘Preview’ feature is good but the ability to temporarily save posts would be fantastic.
  • Greater variety of payment plans.
  • Either an expanded trial or limited posting ability for free accounts.
  • A free test blog on which you can preview changes to pages and themes, and send out posts but they never make it to the timeline.
  • Discounted bulk blog subscriptions. (I am unashamedly biased towards this, heh.)
• Help;
  • Add search. This has been mitigated by the recently improved homepage but over time a search box will become necessary for most people.
  • Further additions from other sources – ex: this ‘pins’ post from Manton – which has already happened a little.
  • Make sure the breadth of blog-centred web is covered.
  • For example: self-hosted WordPress, hosted WP, multisite WP, shared hosting WP.
  • WP has the potential to lack compatibility due to different hosts implementing their own version for whatever reason.
  • Micro.blog should, even if gradually, cover more and more of this ground until everything is up-to-date and quickly updated whenever different versions of WP are updated.
• Broadly;
  • Where possible, all of these updates should be available to third-party apps.
  • The web MUST be the canonical version. App-centric approaches are in direct opposition to any substantial support of the open web, especially when they are Apple-only efforts, mostly due to the cost barrier.
  • This year has seen a lot of improvements to the web app, which is great! Long may it continue.
  • Example of Apple-centric approach: the Micro.blog home page for logged-out visitors has a screenshot of the Mac App.

There might be things I’m missing but there is one glaring omission; Android. I have mentioned the Apple-heavy support of Micro.blog but not listed Android, or any other platform. The reality is an official Android app is all but impossible in the current circumstances, whilst third-party efforts are ongoing but appear to be particularly difficult to implement; this is of course not at all exclusive to Micro.blog but remains a fact even so.

Windows and even Linux support have also been spoken about by developers but for now the web is the answer for those of us outside of Apple’s ecosystem, and I believe some of the items on my list would further soften the blow that is a lack of cross-native app support.

• • •

Micro.blog recently hit the first year of public release and it is fair to say it has come a long way in those 12 months, let alone the progress Manton has made from the earliest days of the Kickstarter project. I for one have found just the right place for my life online, to such an extent that I now begrudgingly use the mainstream silos of the web for work and do everything I can to avoid them in a personal context. For that reason and that reason alone I have spent plenty of my time on the timeline, my hosted site, my new photoblog, and Today I Learned.

And, like Micro.blog itself, I’m just getting started.

What do you think? Do you have your own wishlist? Here are some links for getting involved if you want to do more:

• Contribute to Micro.blog on GitHub
  • the Issues repo includes feature requests
• Join Micro.blog on Slack