Among all this chatter about ‘spam’ on the timeline from supplemental activity elsewhere on the web, I wonder if my GoodReads ‘Read’ posts and Letterboxd ‘Movies Watched’ posts are also considered spam by others. I hope these are few and far between.

@pratik I haven’t noticed yours feeling spammy. I think frequency has an impact on how bad things feel. A few days ago someone was posting this kind of thing ~1/hour and I hated it and unfollowed them. Maybe they didn’t realize it but it went on for >24 hours. I personally don’t get much out of the posts that just say something like “I read title and gave it 3 stars”. I mean, what was it about? Is 3 stars good or bad from you? But I guess others like seeing them and if they aren’t frequent I can easily skip over them utilizing my special “grey cells” filter. Make sense?

@chrispederick Yes, I've seen your aggregated posts. Those are quite cool but I'm afraid if I decide to do it that way, I may end up not doing it at all. For now, I think 3-4 books a month and likewise for movies is hopefully not too much clutter.

@ronguest I hear ya. The "check -in" posts are the ones that I get bugged at too. Re: just ratings on books or movies, I think I've liked it when I saw them from others. I've even discovered some via such posts so didn't think it would be considered "spam". I just hope people reach out before they decide to unfollow but if they do, I guess that's their prerogative.

@pratik I don’t think yours are annoying. I enjoy those kinds of posts so long as they aren’t coming in massive quantities or at the exclusion of everything else.

More generally, I think what’s important is that your blog makes you happy. Ppl can always unfollow. 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Cheri Thanks for the vote of confidence. And I agree about the purpose of your blog is to make you happy and that involves sharing what you think is important. I’ll still be considerate and not sharing a lot of what I love 🤗

@pratik You’re a very considerate person. 🙂

@Cheri @pratik @ronguest @chrispederick Everything in moderation, right? :-)

I also have not noticed anyone’s reading/watching/listening/etc, or even Link, posts being a problem, because they aren’t overwhelming. Everyone I follow usually has maybe a couple a day max, or a week more likely. Once in a blue moon someone goes on a check-in spree, but among those I follow, it’s usually over as quickly as it began. (I get more annoyed by my own reply-spamming of the Timeline than by anyone’s “supplemental activity” posts!)

More generally, I think what’s important is that your blog makes you happy.

This, very much this. Put whatever you want on your blog.

But at the same time, I think it’s important for people to be intentional about what they share from their blog to any given community where they participate. (Simply thinking about it, like you’ve done, is enough, but in some places people might want to only syndicate a specific blog category, or manually reference a post on their other blog, or whatever. I automatically syndicate only “Status” category posts—which is set by the M.b app—here, and have to manually choose to include any other types of posts I write, which I usually, but not always, syndicate.)

@smokey some good points. links in my social m.b timeline syndicate from my pinboard, but only if i tag them a certain way on pinboard. some of my pinboard links don't go into my social m.b timeline.

but: "I think it’s important for people to be intentional about what they share from their blog to any given community where they participate." m.b is my blogging platform, and EVERYTHING i post via m.b to go on my blog also goes into my timeline. sometimes i'd like to post things straight to my blog without them also appearing in my social feed. (i wonder if @manton has considered allowing this? it would be a huge benefit for those of us using m.b as our blogging provider...)

@tones Yeah, that is one of the disadvantages of an M.b-hosted blog compared with an external one.

I think it is possible at this point to awkwardly simulate that by removing your main feed from the subscriptions and adding a category feed, and tagging every post you do want syndicated to the Timeline with that category—but a way to tag something as excluded would be simpler.

@Cheri +1 :)

@smokey I agree with much of what Smokey wrote but the post and the thread on micro.blog smacked of one group of people - insiders - deciding for a much larger community.And what do you say if the person has read this post, considered what you to say and the response is:"There's no rule against posting everything I do to the timeline. So I am doing it because it's my mine and you don't get to tell me how to be."Community norms are why I have self-hosted on WordPress for nearly 15 years. What happens is that early participants of the community think they can dictate behaviour and expectations to later participants.They develop a "this is my community, and this is how we behave" mentality, which I find no different than the IRL conversation a white/Christian community have with non-whites/non-Christians who are moving in. The "we don't do that here" conversation.The disadvantage of community norms is that people stop questioning the purpose of the "norms" and whether they are still relevant for themselves or the community. And this often means that they stop thinking for themselves.Manton has already spelt out how to behave on his platform. It's his platform, his house, and his house rules. I see nothing in there that excludes posting as often as one wants on any topic that one wants so long as his guidelines are met. His instructions are the only norms I care about.Live Your Life for You, Not to Please Expectations.Share:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Like this:Like Loading...Related