🌱 how to comment
Despite my blog generally looking like Craigslist with night mode, it now supports comments thanks to an open source protocol called webmentions. You write your comment wherever you’d like: whether that’s your own blog, Facebook, Tumblr, or a post-it note on your fridge. As long as it has a URL, it’s fine. Then you come to whatever post you want to comment on, paste the URL into the little form at the bottom of the post and hit send. And bam! It goes straight to an RSS feed on my phone.
It’s a nice system for a few reasons:
1. It allows you to write wherever.
Whether you’re on Twitter or TikTok, Facebook or IPFS, you can comment. You don’t need to trust me with your data, you don’t need to sign up for a new service. You don’t need to remember another log in. Just say what you wanna say wherever you normally say it. And then come tell me about it.
2. It allows me to read wherever.
Again. Whatever silo you post to, I don’t have to make an account there. I don’t have to track notifications in 5 different apps. It’s just one feed on my phone! And then I can decide where and if to respond. Maybe I’ll link to your comment on my blog. Or maybe I’ll come respond to your tweet. It gives us flexibility to use the tools we’re used to using and still communicate.
3. It’s slow.
Most content creation sites optimize for speed. The fewer clicks, the most content that’s created. This is true when your goal is to maximize created content. But my goal is not to maximize created content. It’s to think out loud and learn from people’s responses, if they come. And I suspect when it comes to quality, slow is better.
Related to:
Every post on this blog is a work in progress. Phrasing may be less than ideal, ideas may not yet be fully thought through. Thank you for watching me grow.
person