@manton We need to be able to add pictures/screenshots to a reply! Can you please add that?

@brucegodin We’ve discussed this a few times and will likely revisit it in the future, but for now I think the lack of images makes the timeline cleaner and easier to read. On Twitter, replies with images tend to overload convestations with joke meme replies.

@manton @brucegodin I agree with Manton. Replies on Twitter gets overloaded with GIFs and unnecessary images. I prefer the conversation here - besides, you can add a URL if you think an image is really necessary.

@brucegodin what @rom said

// @manton

@manton I understand the concern with replies being overrun with gifs like Twitter but I do not want to post funny gifs, that is not at all why I want to be able to post photos.

I want to be able to add informational photos/graphics/screenshots like charts, polls, graphs, numbers etc and tweets that help illustrate a point a thousand times better and easier than text in a conservation I am having with someone. As an simple example I am often talking with someone about EV’s and I can’t even share a picture of a new Tesla, I would have to use a link, that is very clunky, and disruptive to the conversation IMO. The photo would be seamless!

I assume you can’t just not allow gifs since they are just like photos/jpegs I assume.

I will have to resort to breaking the thread and use a new post with an @ mention to share a supporting photo/graphic.

It likely goes against the ethos of MicroBlog but I really want private messages/conversations/DM’s on here! Unfortunately I will have to use old school email when I want to have private conversations, which is always!

@brucegodin I agree. It’s frustrating that I have to make a screen shot, upload to micro.blog, then copy/paste a link into a reply. What’s that adage about a picture being worth a thousand words?

@khurtwilliams Exactly!

@brucegodin It’s enough to drive one to drink!

(I sometimes cheat and use a markdown URL to a hosted image when I really want an image in a reply, but I wouldn’t want it to be an easily available feature because I’m 100% convinced it’ll be over-used and the entire timeline will be overrun by reaction gifs. Not by you maybe, but certainly by others).

@jack It sure is. Thanks for the tip! 🤐

@jack It worked! Thanks! Annoying that I have to do the upload step first but a good work around at least for now.

@jack I won’t 🤐

@jack PS Markdown is awesome!

@brucegodin @jack Too late, I spied on y’all. 😏

I actually like the idea of hosting images elsewhere and linking to them in micro.blog posts, because it gives us more flexibility re: where and how to host our non-textual media.

The downside, that it’s clunky to use, we could patch with better tooling (like a small app or script that bundles uploading an image, grabbing its URL, and sticking it in a draft post we could edit and upload to our micro.blog feed…) 🤓🖥

@danj Insert spy gif here 😉

@brucegodin @manton fwiw, I agree with both requests.

The second one, in particular, strikes a chord since I can see no way of privately communicating with someone even to pass an email address. Given the growing use of AI-based crawlers harvesting personal information and knitting it together, this seems like a significant drawback to me.

@brucegodin ::whispers:: I sometimes fire up Icro to add images to a reply.

@jean Good tip! Thanks!

@the Good point! I was honestly more thinking about just having a completely private conversation between me and another person. As opposed to public, where anyone can chime in if they want.

Again this may go against the community ethos of MicroBlog but I kind of equate it to having a one on one conversation with a friend somewhere in public and a random stranger jumping into the conversation with their unsolicited two cents. People are awesome and really nice on here but still I am not a fan honestly. Same reason I would never have comments open on my blog or website.

It would be awesome to have an option to choose if a conversation is private or public. Like the new option on Twitter that lets you limit replies.

I may likely be in the minority here being very private, very introverted, and bordering on being anti-social. Also very low bandwidth lol

I didn’t really think about or consider the privacy and private info angle. But that is important and needed and would be a good upgrade I think.

Truly private secure messaging is another beast entirely I think though and would be quite the undertaking I assume. Understandably I think Manton may be weary of the huge burden and responsibility of keeping people’s private info and conversations private and secure. Might not be in his vision for MicroBlog. Might have to rely on third party secure messaging apps for that.

@the @brucegodin One work-around for DMs now that we have help.micro.blog is that because it’s based on Discourse, it has its own private messaging. It does require someone to have signed in first, though. (The usernames are automatically the same as on Micro.blog.)

@manton Very interesting! I will have to check that out! Thanks for the tip!

@JMaxB Great idea! Love it!

@manton That sounds promising. So do I need to log into a Discourse server as “the” or am I missing something?

@the I went to help.micro.blog and I think it logged me in automatically because I was logged in the MicroBlog already. Couldn’t figure out how to DM though. Could be a workaround in the short term but I would still prefer to have private messaging in Micro.Blog

@brucegodin I was apparently able to login using the DiscourseHub app (after a diversion into Discord which was not what I wanted!). Also unclear to me how to do the equivalent of a DM. Soon I hope!