So, this micro post is kind of a big deal for me. In spite of it’s casual nature, it’s actually the first micro post I have published on my site. My goal is to use my personal site for all of my content first, and distribute this elsewhere. They call it PoSSE (publish on site, syndicate everywhere).

It doesn’t automatically publish on my feeds yet, but it will someday. I have a few different ideas on how I can accomplish this, ranging from a full blown API implementation, to something much simpler like mastofeed. It does not muddle up the RSS feed, but in the future I plan on setting it up so that people can subscribe to micro content via RSS.

I don’t think I want to use something like ActivityPub because I want to be able to use the accounts to interact with other people, which there isn’t an easy way to do that with WordPress. But, maybe it’s worth it? I’m really not sure. I don’t want to confuse people by having multiple versions of myself on the fediverse if I can help it, and I fear that setting this site up with ActivityPub will create a conflict with my actual account.

I’m publishing content using JetPack, so I can publish content quickly on my phone. The trick is I’m using good old fashioned post formats, and the prose block, along with a small bit of sneakily processing to convert hashtags into tags for this content type. I talked a bit about this approach here. It works alright for now, but I really wish there was a better WordPress integration than what Automattic offers, here. They still don’t support custom post types, and it forces me to format everything as a single post type, and that’s pretty damn limiting compared to what it could be.

If I could actually use a custom post type in Jetpack, I could set up a template in the post type, enforcing limits on what blocks can be used for that post type, and actually create a formal block for a single post in a thread, make attachments feel native, and a lot more.

But, it seems, this is as good as it gets. And for what it’s worth, it’s not so bad. Even manually posting, the process looks like this:

  • Open JetPack
  • Create a new post
  • Set the post format to “aside”
  • Insert a verse block into the post
  • Create my micro post, adding hashtags
  • Threaded content simply becomes another verse block inside the same post.
  • Publish
  • Copy/paste text context across social platforms

For now, this is going to be my process when I publish content on social, I think. I’ll work to refine it as I go, and who knows? Maybe someone will find me and want to work together on something to make the experience accessible for everyone. I’d love to contribute to such an endeavor.

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