Lately I have been struggling deciding if I want to keep posting to my Micro.blog. There are parts of my life that I often want to write and post about, and even though I don’t necessarily want them private, I don’t want to share them on a public timeline. How do others handle this?

@indw I often start writing in something like iAWriter, then decide once I’m done whether I’m going to put it in DayOne or online. Sometimes the “bigger” version goes into DayOne, and I cut it down a bit to what I am willing to say publicly for my blog.

In the end, while I’m quite conscious that what I publish is public, I put 0 thought into what’s on the timeline versus my website. If it’s on the web, it can be read. People who follow me can do so on various timelines, RSS, or just visiting my website. I don’t control who reads, I just control what I write. And I don’t publish something to be read, but I do publish things that I won’t mind others reading. Everything else is in DayOne.

@jsonbecker that seems like a really good strategy. Thanks for your time in responding.

@pratik that’s an interesting thought that I hadn’t considered. Thanks.

@indw I have thought about this a bit: see stephen.irons.nz/2023/08/0... Essentially, I think about each thing I write about, why I am writing it. This affects where I write (paper journal, private group messaging, blog) and how I publish (mostly governed by the 'where I write' consideration.

@pratik @indw that's sort of what I'm doing, though I'm doing it by category. Currently everything I've posted has gone to both, but I have a separate timeline category so if I ever decide to diverge, I'll just not check the timeline category and then it won't go to the timeline

@pratik can you help me learn how to do that?

@kashura Micro.blog > Account > Under Feeds click on Edit Sources and Cross-Posting . Delete the first feed (should be something like kashura.micro.blog/feed.json). Be sure to copy it some place in case you want to re-add it.

@anniegreens @indw That’s better since it keeps the option of posting to the timeline available. But then you’ve to keep thinking whether to cross-post or not before you post anything

@anniegreens @pratik Good call. One downside is that you have to do it by RSS instead of JSON feed.

@indw I wrote about something similar not too long ago on and asked this question as well.

I don't think there's an a finite solution here. I think the balancing act is part of the writing. Good things are often personal and harder to write or publish.

@pratik Thanks a ton!