Testing out selective cross posting. Not that I plan to use it heavily.
@stupendousman What's your method of doing it? Adding accounts and then disabling the auto crosspost?
@pratik Yes basically. If I really want to cross post I guess I would have to do it on a post by post basis, hence I said I dunno if I will actually use it that much. Would've liked it as an option while posting itself.
@stupendousman Yup, in that case, the flexibility to choose your cross-posting is very limited in Micro.blog or at least has plenty of friction in terms of UI. Right now, all crossposting options are bundled under the main feed and are all or nothing. I wish those were broken up as separate options. So I could autocross post on Mastodon but manually crosspost on Bluesky.
@pratik Yep feels like a very half baked feature set but i guess there must not be that much demand for them to improve it.
@stupendousman Gluon is the only other decent third-party app, but yup, there are only 7Kish monthly active users on Micro.blog and people are encouraged to use other posting apps like MarsEdit, Drafts, Ulysses, iA Writer, etc.
@pratik Yeah did not like Gluon much either. I kinda like the very clean look of micro native apps (And possibly why Lillihub didnt stick with me either). 7k MAU is not bad actually for micro considering they value engagement over eyeballs. As long as the 7k keep coming back, the trajectory can only go upwards.
@stupendousman @pratik Enabled by default is intentional because we think it's the best for most people. Set it and not worry about it, and focus on the blog posts and less on the other networks. If that workflow isn't right for you, you can disable cross-posting and use the manual option.
@pratik @stupendousman I'm confused, is this because you aren't using the official Micro.blog apps? You can always disable Bluesky while posting, and then manually post it later.
@stupendousman Or they are fine with the 7K if it makes it a sustainable business? I see some concerns due to similar smaller blog hosting services (Scribbles?) that have sprung up and appeal to the same set of people. Micro.blog makes money from hosting, not the timeline engagement. I've seen a few people move their hosting to other platforms and keep their community presence active.
@help I agree about enabled by default, but can we separate out the destinations? I don't mind auto-crossposting to Mastodon, but not with Bluesky (or LinkedIn, Pixelfed, etc.) Right now, if I disable Bluesky from auto-crossposting, I can't manually cross-post either @stupendousman
@pratik If I'm understanding, you want to have some cross-posting destinations always disabled by default. That would add even more confusion, I think. Better to disable all cross-posting (not individually, but with the big "Disable Cross-posting" button) and then manually cross-post each thing.
@manton Not sure how that would be more confusing. It's something people would set up only once. I want to auto-crosspost to Mastodon but not Bluesky because I want to be selective in what I send to Bluesky. Under the current model, that's not possible. With what I am proposing, people who want to auto-crosspost to everything can still do it.
Also, as I noted in my post, there are differences in how the manual and auto-crosspost are implemented.
@pratik Working on fixing those differences, especially with Mastodon. The confusion comes from lots of different settings for essentially the same thing... We already have two separate "disabled" buttons (for the feed or for a specific services) and this would add a third state: enabled but not automatic.
We already have two separate "disabled" buttons (for the feed or for a specific services) and this would add a third state: enabled but not automatic.
In the current implementation, for the specific feed, it's more of a de-linking than disabling. So if the second state would instead be "disabled" i.e., without having us to reauthenticate with Bluesky, etc., that would be ideal. Not sure if I'm explaining correctly.
@pratik You're explaining clearly. I'll think about it, but my gut says that this is already one of the most complicated parts of Micro.blog.
@manton I agree it is complicated but also something that currently only Micro.blog does and does quite well, I might add. My nitpicking is mostly minor quibbles. Worst case, I don't cross-post on Bluesky which is not a deal-breaker (for me).
@pratik I’m going to revisit a sort of manual-only option next time we work on this, like when the Threads API is ready.