On the possible end of my big blog, and my difficulties in getting the help I need to keep it alive. I’m starting to think that I don’t have the knowledge base to keep writing on the open web.
@ayjay So many people have moved to social-media platforms in the past decade that the only people still on the open web are people who know more than I do, and I am struggling with the techies' usual lack of patience with anyone who knows less than they do. I am really concerned that I will lose ayjay.org and blog.ayjay.org.
@ayjay I hate how ill-equipped the open web is with this issue.
One of my biggest concerns with Micro.blog is that it remains much too inclined to favour "People Like Manton" aka tech-confident and tech-endowed folks who don't bother Manton much as he struggles to cover the customer support role.
There has been a lot of help on MB from the community, with voluntary work plugging some gaps. After nearly seven years here I can say with confidence that so long as this continues to be the case that the aforementioned dynamic will not shift to a significant degree.
I hope, Alan, that Manton can find the ability to help you. I'll happily continue to read your stuff no matter where you host it but I do think MB would continue to benefit greatly from your presence.
@SimonWoods I expect to be here! But as I said in an earlier post, I also don't want to lose the 15 years of tags I have at blog.ayjay.org, which connect ideas to one another in ways I (and at least some readers) find useful. I'm confident that Manton wants to help if he can, which at least is an improvement over my other hosting provider -- they can't wait to be rid of me.
@ayjay I’ve often felt the same as you describe. The baseline assumption of technical ability is beyond me, despite the fact that I’m considered pretty technically literate in my day job.
I hope all goes well! You have a loyal audience that will follow your writing wherever it ends up.
@ayjay I'm certain we could get your posts imported to pika.page with tags, and our platform is decidedly non-technical. Part of that compromise is you wouldn't land there with the same template. We could help you get your colors and fonts to start and we might be able to work with you on the rest over time. Feel free to email me at barry@goodenough.us if you want to explore things–I have a considerable well of patience.
Regardless, I hope you get things sorted. Sorry this has been such a pain!
@ayjay Just as a proof of concept, I copy-pasted your latest 4 posts here (note that we don't have a "stream" homepage view as of yet): ayjaytest.pika.page
Then I applied your background and text colors using the custom theme option. From there it starts to get a little technical as I added some CSS to try to approximate what you have on your current site, including the fonts and letter/line spacing. We could hone in on the CSS for you to get you to the colors and fonts that are acceptable.
The post view itself looks pretty close! (Aside from the blockquotes, which I'm sure we could figure out.) ayjaytest.pika.page/posts/changes-ahead
@bjhess This is all impressive! -- but I'm not looking for a new blogging platform right now. I need to sort out all my domain issues and then I can think about other things.
@ayjay Okay! I wish you luck as we all greatly appreciate your "big blog" and want it to continue to exist wherever works best!