@maschavdw ha, I’ve had similar thoughts about multilingual (French, for me) micro.blogging. At one point I thought we could maybe use flag emojis to encourage cross cultural discovery, but I think most of us end up writing in English. Not sure it’s a great thing though.
@maschavdw Meet @ton, who is (I think) the only Dutch microblogger I follow here (though there are several others I’ve seen in passing). I think he wrote a post at one point relaying his thoughts about choosing Dutch vs English.
@seishonagon I see more German in my Timeline than anything else non-English, though I think I’m following more French than Germans :-P
I think the fact that so much of the conversation is in English gives an overweighted perception of the Anglocentricness of the community, which is a vicious cycle. It’s great to have a lingua franca for building cross-cultural/transnational connections in the community, but there are drawbacks to that, too :-(
We do need something for discovery, but at the moment, aside from adding language to one’s About text, the best option is probably just to post in one’s native language more often…. // @maschavdw
@maschavdw why not do both here? Personally, it’s fun to read outside of English when possible. And given the way many here accent posts w/pics, sometimes that could be a means to stitch what a text-translation cannot.
Plus, for as much as I’m a fan of Dutch-ways, can’t read a lick of it. Would love to practice passively in reading here 🤫
@smokey @maschavdw I may end up getting a French-only m.b account.
Representativity (language-wise, but also geographical, economic, or really any type of grouping) is a huge issue, probably tangent to the “discoverability” issue that’s being discussed in another thread.
To “own your data” indie-web wise, you need agency: access to the knowledge, understanding of the issues, time to act on them, money to buy your domain ... If you lack any of these, then you’re prey to whatever Google/FB analogue swims in your corner of the web sphere.
@maschavdw Multilingual blogging...I started in English because it was the only way back then to connect to professional peers. Later I blogged in both Dutch and German on separate blogs, as I saw it as different audiences/contexts. English always remained the main thing. These days I've decided that it's my blog, so I can write in any language I want. On my blog I have mostly English, but occasionly Dutch and German. Like you I use WP, and have categories for the different languages. That way I can offer a category page with only Dutch or German postings. My entire WP feed goes to microblog, but on my WP site I don't show all things on my front page.
To “own your data” indie-web wise, you need agency: access to the knowledge, understanding of the issues, time to act on them, money to buy your domain ... If you lack any of these, then you’re prey to whatever Google/FB analogue swims in your corner of the web sphere.
Sadly, yes, and that remains a thorny problem. Micro.blog is a step in the right direction (by at least reducing the burden of the first 3, though in exchange for increasing the burden of the latter). It feels like the IndieWeb is about 5 years behind where we need to be now on the ease-of-use side of things, and the monetary cost isn’t really on the radar yet. I keep reminding myself Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it’s no less frustrating….
@seishonagon Sorry for my very late response. I totally didn't expect any replies... I understand your hestitation about blogging in English. When writing in a different language, the language I use will not be as rich as when I write in my own language. And it's not always easy for non-natives to participate in a thourough discussion. But though the translation tools are getting better and better, I doubt if they will pick up all the right nuances. Maybe I should just try that more often to experience it :)
@kgfuglsbjerg I understand what you say about 'writing about things you care about in your own language' and I somewhat agree with you. While I often notice the difficulties of expressing myself in English, I value it more to be able to share my thoughts with others who have similar interests, who can be found more easily by writing in English. Since I'm only using micro.blog for a few days now, I'm not sure if it's more about sharing experiences or about discussing topics. I thought it was more about sharing, but now I find myself discussing a lot ;-) For the latter, I think the English language is used best. and 'sharing experiences' might be best in our own language.
@Avancee Haha. I think I'll stick to English for now, but I'll link to my blog posts which are written in Dutch, so you can practice your Dutch by reading those ;-)
@ton Thanks for you thoughts about multilingual blogging. A few years ago I posted a few times in English on my personal blog, but then I noticed that it was one of the reasons that kept me from continuing my blog. So I switched back to Dutch. I also thought about using the categories and I kept the category for English posts, but I just found out that no posts are linked to that right now... Funny, I had the same thought ('It's my blog...') when I switched back to Dutch. Here on micro.blog, where I'm sharing with a more international audience, I like to blog in English. It's just easier, although it's not always easy to find the right words :) I'm not sure yet how I will use micro.blog combined with my own blog and especially in combination to Twitter. I actually want to have more online conversations and I still love Twitter for that, although I'm not very good at using it myself :)
@maschavdw For a while I had a specific category in my WP blog, microblog, which using RSS I posted to Micro.blog. Now it's just the entire thing. Responses automatically come back to my blog. Twitter is similar: I post to Twitter directly from my WP blog, and responses on Twitter get shown as comments on my blog. So I can have entire micro.blog / twitter conversations from WP, and without visiting micro.blog or Twitter. In practice I still do both.
@ton Yes, I thought about that too: using a category and RSS to post to Micro.blog. I also like the combination that you created with WP, micro.blog and Twitter. Great to have all responses in one place too. I guess you use some plugin to also get the twitter replies back to your blog?
@jasonekratz it’s not “just” the money, in the same way that “poor” and “broke” are very different states. The “digital divide” fault lines are different than for older markers of inequality, but they still exist. And I insist, Fb’s model is to prey on those who are on the wrong side of those particular tracks.
@maschavdw I use Webmention and Brid.gy to get things back from Twitter, and the Bridgy plugin to send things to Twitter. Webmention also is what connects micro.blog back to my WP blog.
@ton Ah thanks! I had already been looking at Bridgy, but wasn't sure if I should use it. I also installed Webmention, via the IndieWeb plugin. By coincidence my first micro.blog via Webmention was posted at the same time as your reply :-) I'm not sure though if I like the format (title & url), because the title will often be in Dutch.