When we launched Micro.blog, we got pushback on the lack of likes and reposts and follower lists and trends and global firehouse. Now eight years later I’m confident our approach is an important niche on the social web. We absolutely do lose customers who drift away because of lack of engagement. So be it... www.manton.org

@manton Love this approach Manton and appreciate your vision and discussion around these topics.

@jagibson Thank you!

@manton This is why I’m here. Appreciate and respect the approach and the willingness to discuss it and possibly change if it makes sense.

I think we are all better and mentally healthy due to Mantons approach on Micro.blog.

@manton There is a variant that I’d like to see on Micro.blog as I already shared on the help forums… a way to expose some counters only to the author, not the public. As an author / blogger, I feel that it is a reasonable expectation to know who’s following me and how many of them are following me. Providing a silent “kudos” or “like” is the next level but less desirable because people already can say that with a reply (which is better than a single buttont too easy to click!).

@manton Agreed. What I will say that engagement is wholly dependant on what you put in as well, always has been. If you engage there is every opportunity for others to engage, but it definitely is not as easy or prone to going nuclear as on the other platforms.

@numericcitizen @jasonekratz Personally, I disagree. I like not knowing. If I’m not mistaken, that could be accomplished by adding any established Mastodon instance instead of a personalized one to your account?

@jasonekratz I was thinking of Micro.blog only.

@birming I was thinking about followers on Micro.blog, not the fediverse.

@numericcitizen Ah, I see. Same for me there, but I do understand if some users want it.

@jasonekratz @numericcitizen @manton In my previous reply, I didn’t understand you were talking about MB counts. Even though I can understand if some users would like to have that, I still prefer not having it. If it ever gets implemented, I’d prefer it to be a plug-in (if thats’s even possible) for those who wish.

@manton I agree with this too, and I find something like Tinylytics or whatever is good for figuring out “did anyone look at this” if you REALLY care haha

@jasonekratz @numericcitizen @birming @manton couldn’t you export your followers and check that way? Not the most straightforward solution, but it’s a means to an end, maybe?

@kev I don’t see how…

@jasonekratz oh yeah, you’re right. My mistake.

@manton The real power of micro.blog is the blog hosting side of it. We can have “kudos” within posts and if we really want likes and reposts, the other power of micro.blog is the ability to automatically #POSSE.
People also mention #hashtags? They may not link in the micro.blog timeline, but they work on my blog, and they work in my POSSE’d content.