I migrated from Mastodon to Micro.blog. Here's what worked well, and where I have problems: mitchw.blog
@MitchW Mastodon does support links. It doesn't support turning text into a link, but freestanding links like this one to my own blog (https://reasonablyliterate.com) work fine.
@MitchW If your client supports it well and your server instance does, you can send HTML formatted posts to Mastodon that preserve most basic formatting, similar to Bluesky. It’s just that most clients don’t support authoring that way and many strip parts of the HTML that come in through those AP posts. It’s pretty weird, and a great example of how Mastodon != ActivityPub (but neither does Micro.blog = ActivityPub!).
Although when I had Facebook it was great for comments and traffic (I do not like to paste native content leaving people to interact with it on FB itself), I also found it wasn’t the interaction/engagement I wanted. FB was too attached to who I know, from various points in my life, and my interests. It was easy to give up for posting to (and therefore, entirely) once I realized that.
No, Mastodon clients just generally linkify things if it includes the http:// or https:// prefix.
@jsonbecker Interesting regarding HTML-formatted posts and Mastodon. I have not found that Micro.blog cross-posting supports HTML with Mastodon.social, but perhaps I’m wrong about that?
> Although when I had Facebook it was great for comments and traffic (I do not like to paste native content leaving people to interact with it on FB itself)
… meaning you prefer to post links to your blog on Facebook, rather than cut-and-pasting into Facebook?
I like to post things in native content on social media, where possible. This is often difficult due to Mastodon/BlueSky length and formatting limitations. Lately I find it not worth the effort to fight with Masto and BlueSky on this.
> I also found it wasn’t the interaction/engagement I wanted. FB was too attached to who I know, from various points in my life, and my interests. It was easy to give up for posting to (and therefore, entirely) once I realized that.
This is precisely why I do like Facebook. It helps me keep in touch with people I know — although lately the people I know from, as you say, various points in my life, are rarely on Facebook, or have quit it entirely. Instead, I use it to communicate with people I have known from online forums over the past 30 years. Many Usenet, CompuServe and GEnie refugees on Facebook and not elsewhere, as well as folks from the very early days of Twitter and Facebook itself, who have come to feel like friends to me over the years.
@elithebearded @nitpicking Oh, yes but Mastodon clients don’t do href links, which is what I’m talking about.
>Interesting regarding HTML-formatted posts and Mastodon. I have not found that Micro.blog cross-posting supports HTML with Mastodon.social, but perhaps I’m wrong about that?
Cross-posting does not– it uses the native API. But on the ActivityPub side it does. The point being, Mastodon supports HTML enclosures from AP sources, but it’s API/standard setup poorly supports that.
>… meaning you prefer to post links to your blog on Facebook, rather than cut-and-pasting into Facebook?
When I had to, yes, because I didn’t really want a “Facebook post” I happened to write elsewhere, but a blog post people could comment on.
@MitchW Thank you for sharing, this is very interesting. I am tempted to migrate everything to Micro.blog, but haven’t been brave enough yet, in part because Mastodon gives me more choices in clients than MB. Also, while I can live without reposting and favoriting, they’re a big part of Mastodon culture, so I hesitate to give that up. All that said, the idea of aggregating conversations on MB, Mastodon, and Bluesky in one place is definitely attractive. Really appreciate you sharing your experiences.
@SteveSawczyn I’m glad you liked the post.
You can connect Masto and Bsky to Micro.blog and receive replies from both services on MB.
I think of the Fediverse as a city and Mastodon and Micro.blog as different neighborhoods. I just moved from one neighborhood to another. I didn’t leave the city.
@MitchW curious as to the ethics in copying posts from one service to another without express permission.
@vrsimility I don’t see a problem with it as long as the post is public. It is widespread practice. If I have reason to think the original poster has a problem, I don’t repost.
@MitchW That’s a fantastic way to look at it. I do wish their were a way to have auto-complete for mentions and such, but I realize that some client will likely implement it eventually.
@MitchW I actually did the same today. Thanks for your post. I was not aware that I can merge my accounts.
@MitchW I knew where you were going, because I had a similar experience. I have an account for reading and my microblog for responding because of the limitations you mentioned.
@marti_abernathey I’ve gone back to Mastodon. Juggling two ActivityPub accounts proved to be too much hassle.
@MitchW understandable, witness the lateness of my response lol. This is so close to being IT, but not yet.