Many comments to this week’s edition of @cygnoir’s always-excellent Week Notes talk about how they no longer post for the community but only for their blog. This sentiment was also expressed in response to one of my posts earlier this week. But whenever someone new joins or wants to join Micro.blog, one o... microblog.pratikmhatre.com

@pratik one quick question, how do you enable the "Like" on your MB theme? 🤔

@numericcitizen I'm quite sure it's @vincent's excellent @tinylytics kudos feature.

@jarrod @numericcitizen Yup.

@pratik I think there’s a distinction between “not posting for the timeline” and not being a part of a community.

@jsonbecker Yes, I get that but the two are correlated, no? Since the community is so focused on the timeline.

@pratik It's a good question. I chafe at the idea that it's not different. I conceptualize the timeline as a feed reader in that it is not built to serve the kind of community building purpose you would see on a forum or Discord server. I always come back to the Brent Simmons quote:

[Micro.blog is] what you build when you believe that the web itself is the great social network.

There is something unique about Micro.blog, or a few things. I'll keep thinking about this and maybe write my own post as I am able to articulate it better.

Perhaps the best analog for how I use Micro.blog is to think of it as a modern LiveJournal. Maybe that's what I should have said on @cygnoir's post, that I treat the timeline like a LiveJournal friends page.

@pratik I’ll subscribe! Hope it’s compatible with @Mtt theme!

@numericcitizen I’m using the free version, FWIW. And it’s a built-in feature in @Mtt’s Tiny Theme

@numericcitizen It’s built in to the theme and utilizes a Tinylytics for Tiny plugin. See it in action on my blog.

@pratik not really. I post because I have something I want to write about that I’m saying publicly and isn’t something I decide needs to live in my journal only. I make sure that post shows up lots of places people might find me or my site and follow along with what I right. I don’t worry too much about who sees what where— I am one person, and my blog is a personal blog for me, not a topical site. Engaging in the community is more about how I do discovery, where I reply and how much, putting time into tooling or being a part of things. If I cared a lot more about my audience, I’d only blog in a way that helped me measure and understand a lot more about that audience.

@KimberlyHirsh yes this! And I’m 100% on the Brent Simmons quote. Micro.blog is my web host that makes it easier to participate in the social elements of the web without having to build a lot of that myself or enter a world that doesn’t want my website to be a website but instead wants my content to be a part of their service.

@pratik @cygnoir Some fascinating ideas in these posts & comments. I wish this was not such an unique place, but one of many that we could join in with with our RSS feeds. I've been part of a few communities built round a specialised RSS reader, found them very positive experiences. micro.blog stands out because it smooths out some bumps as you can discuss in the reader.

@Mtt cool!

@jsonbecker I’ll let @KimberlyHirsh write more as she said before clarifying my thoughts. I think there’s much to unpack when a feed reader is presented as a community centered around a timeline. Hence my correlating the two.

@pratik ultimately, my larger point in this ongoing conversation is that all of these things can be true, and your mental model should serve you. I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong way to think about this, just explaining my own mental model that serves me and seems to greatly reduce some of the frictions that seem to not be serving you.

@jsonbecker To belabor the point, I was commenting on this statement in @cygnoir’s post:

Micro.blog was never meant to be an online community; it was meant to be a blogging platform that happens to have a shared timeline.

I had a related realization earlier that Micro.blog is basically a blogging platform and a feed reader (timeline) but both equal. The timeline serves as a community which is offered as a major attraction for someone considering a place to blog. But as we things shaping up, both are not equal and by a lot. And maybe that’s fine. Just not what we were made to believe.

@numericcitizen You only need the Tiny theme one. Make sure your theme is up to date too.

@Mtt theme is up-to-date (latest plugin). Removed the Tinylytics official plugin, kept the other one. Same. No “kudos” button on individual plus post. 🕵️‍♂️

@Mtt could this be because I made changes to the “post” theme file to set a different icon for hashtags?

@numericcitizen Do you have a custom theme installed?

@Mtt yes. Looking into that.

@Mtt got it. Retrofitted your code into my custom single.html. Works!

@numericcitizen Awesome!

@numericcitizen there is no official plugin for Tinylytics as such, however both @Mtt and @jimmitchell have been working with me on getting these out for both Tiny Theme and general usage ✌️❤️ Awesome plugins and themes. Glad you got it to work at the end though 👍

@pratik @jsonbecker I wouldn't recommend waiting on me. I don't know how long it will be.