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💬 Replied to: Dear IndieWeb, it may be time to start considering the user, not just the technical spec.

“I’ve been working on a series of walkthrough posts that outline how to IndieWebify a Wordpress site. I presumed the initial setup would be fairly straightforward because a) I have a vague idea of what I’m doing, and b) a suite of plugins already exists. Boy-howdy, was I wrong. (ಥ﹏ಥ)
I’ve…”

I definitely agree with you, Eli! I was wondering out loud with a half-baked thought just yesterday about how we could help ease newer “generations” into the IndieWeb. Where you are coming from the technical side of things, I was thinking more about the on-boarding process and not expecting people to read swathes of documentation to get started. Having read your post I realise both need to be worked on (in tandem?)

I couldn’t hand over even a working WordPress + IndieWeb installation to my partner and expect her to have a good time using it. I’m trying to bring her round to the idea of moving to her own site, because she’s so frustrated with the social media giants, but the tools just aren’t accessible to her level yet.

What has been built so far in the IndieWeb is amazing. I’ve not been this enthused about having my own website – or what it’s capable of – in years. But I’ve been building on the web for 20+ years; I’m impressed by the technology because of my understanding of it, and I’m the sort of user who can work past the rough edges when I need to — in fact, part of me enjoys the tinkering aspect. On reflection, I might be the worst person to be evaluating how this stuff can be made more usable and accessible for someone who wants it to “just work” as smoothly as the existing options 😅

So I guess the question then becomes – who is best placed to help with this, and how do we bring them on board (if they’re not already)?

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💬 Replied to: a post

“That’s exactly what the Indiewebcamps are about. I’m thinking of trying to set one up in Düsseldorf – outside of the regular yearly one organized before Beyond Tellerrand – Nobody said there can only be one bootcamp a year. At these events we’ll get together and focus on solving our Indieweb adaptation issues and gathering feedback on how to make the experience easier for non-tech folk.”

I did think while I was writing that there was likely some overlap between what I was thinking about, and the (mostly) offline activities like IndieWebCamp and Homebrew Website Club. However, I’m talking about reaching people who are unlikely to ever attend such a meet-up. To use the IndieWeb Generations definition, I’m thinking about the 3s and maybe 4s in my network. And they might be people I only have a connection with online. I guess where I was going with it was more about seeking a way to engage and coach these particular users into their first steps, rather than relying on them to work through a guide or documentation. (There is still very much a place for more documentation!)

Admittedly it’s still only a half-baked thought, and I’m sure smarter people than me have already thought this through 😃

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💬 Replied to: From Following Posts and Blogrolls (Following Pages) with OPML to Microsub Servers and Readers

“Continuing to extend the pathway from easily following websites to having them in your social reader.”

BoffoSocko

Thanks for consolidating this in one place, Chris. I caught snippets of the series and conversation between you and Ton in my Reader, but didn’t go back to search out everything. Now I have a concise place to go to when I have some time to read everything 😃

For my own part, my Links page is powered by the old WordPress Links Manager. I had no idea that had an OPML import function – that would have saved me hours of manual entry! I also didn’t know it could generate an OPML file for import elsewhere. “Today I Learned.”

In the last couple of weeks I’ve thought about creating a special page on my site to aggregate all of my Bookmark-type posts into one place. Similarly, I could create a custom “Kind” for Following, and aggregate those in a single place. Neither option would have their own automatic OPML file, but using a Kind does allow for a specific Feed for each type. It would allow for the full range of post meta to be added to each type too. The Post Kinds plug-in generates archives for each Kind, but I’m thinking a custom page would allow me to play with the presentation a bit more.

It’s something for me to experiment with at the least!

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💬 Replied to: a post

“”

I’m using Granary for my Twitter feed too. I think I briefly tried the Instagram integration, but didn’t really dig into it. I’ll take another look tomorrow morning 👍

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💬 Replied to: What the crowd made of Apple's $1000 monitor stand

“What the crowd made of Apple’s $1000 monitor stand,Apple announced the long-awaited modular Mac Pro yesterday. It’s expensive, starting at $5000, but the faithful wanted some truly pro equipment and they got it. Even the 6k monitor to go with…”

Boing Boing

I thought I heard a gasp/incredulous laugh from the crowd when the monitor stand price was revealed… I’m glad I’m not the only one who picked up on it! As good as the monitor might be, having the monitor stand cost a grand – or even the $200 for a freaking VESA mount adapter – is probably going to transform it into a meme.

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💬 Replied to: Christina "I Am Sadly not at WWDC" Warren on Twitter

““I’m sure devs will complain but as a user, I’m glad to see this. https://t.co/IZYBcGVDPV””

Twitter

Yeah, I’m OK with this too.

One thing that seems to be getting glossed over in the linked thread – it’s only mandatory to include the option, if the app offers other third-party logins. If you have your own login system then you do not have to add anything. That… seems reasonable?