With the introduction of my blogroll, my morning routine has changed without me having planned it. By displaying the latest blogger posts there by fetsching them while the site is build once a day, I start reading there instead of in my standard feed reader feedly. I no longer subscribe to the 40 blogs currently on my list, but use Read You as a blogroll reader in case I miss something.
But there’s one thing that drives me crazy when I read the posts of my favourite bloggers: As good and entertaining as they write, it’s sometimes difficult to give them feedback on their articles!
Some have a comment form, others rely on webmentions, including the display of reactions from Mastodon and other platforms, for example, and still others offer no interaction options with their posts at all, but are limited to links to their social media channels or newsletter subscription forms.
I am absolutely not a fan of comment forms anymore, since the Fediverse and the IndieWeb have taken off in recent years and allow every website operator to provide feedback channels … Keyword Webmentions, Mastodon-Replies, etc. Who knows where form data such as name, email address and website, which is often mandatory, ends up? It doesn’t matter whether the operator has built the comment form themselves or uses Disqus or similar. Having to provide such information is simply no longer necessary today and I therefore avoid it.
I have now analysed the 40 blogs in my blogroll with regard to the interaction possibilities with the posts, whereby multiple answers are possible:
| No | Interaction possibility under the article | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Comment Form | 10 |
| 2 | Contact Me Link | 1 |
| 3 | Like Button | 1 |
| 4 | Webmention Form | 2 |
| 5 | Display Webmentions / Reactions | 9 |
| 6 | Social Media Sharing | 3 |
| 7 | Follow Me Links | 19 |
| 8 | Syndication Links | 2 |
| 9 | Nothing | 9 |
On the other hand, many of these bloggers have syndicated their posts (at least most of the time) on Mastodon, to draw attention to their article:
36
90% of bloggers therefore theoretically offer the opportunity to react to the article via the syndicated post on Mastodon and just around 22% even provide corresponding reactions such as likes or replies (mostly as webmentions) under the post [4]. But only 5% link from their article to the syndicated post [8] … and I don’t understand why!
Even if you don’t know the POSSE principle (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere), propagated by the IndieWeb movement, it still makes sense to set a reference to your own work on another platform by linking on the original … after all, we’re talking about the web here and the link is still its most powerful tool. After all, not everyone uses Mastodon as a gateway for browsing and reading, but often it is the website via which articles are accessed initially. Keyword: RSS feeds!
Best-Case scenario
I read about a new post via a provided website feed and I open the page to read it. I find below the text a list of reactions already received and a link to the syndicated Mastodon post that people have reacted to. As a Mastodon user, I click on it, am redirected to the post and also respond with a like or a reply. This reaction is also displayed under the post shortly afterwards.
My current scenario with 85% of my blogroll
I find out about a new post via my blogroll, open the page and read. I open the blogger’s profile via the Mastodon link and start scrolling until I find the post in which they have promoted the article and respond with a like or a reply.
If there are a few days in between and the blogger is an avid Mastodon user, it can take a while … and often I just give up and don’t give any feedback. Wasted potential.
Raising potential
The ones who make it easiest for me personally and fulfil the best-case scenario are Robb Knight and Jeremy Keith, at least with his notes. Somewhat out of the ordinary is Ryan Barrett whose website does not need syndication links because it is itself part of the Fediverse. Matthias Pfefferle at least shows a link called Reply on the Fediverse in his list of existing reactions, which leads to the reaction, which unfortunately does not lead any further with contributions without reactions.
I myself place the links to the syndications under every article, every note and every photo, even if this means a bit more work after publication because I have to write the links manually in the frontmatter of the post. But for my readers, a reaction is usually just a click away, because I see a post on my website as the starting point for communication. I don’t just write for myself, but also for you and it’s nice to see when a post elicits a positive reaction or even criticism and perhaps a conversation develops from it, which helps me to make progress. That’s why I consider the reactions as part of the post and, like some of my favourite bloggers, display them below the text. Tools for this are bridgy and webmention.io, at least for the Mastodon syndications. Other platforms do not yet offer Webmention support or even an interface to retrieve the reactions, but in the future I would like to connect at least those that do.
Conclusion
I would absolutely welcome it if all website operators started to think in circles and it became irrelevant from which direction I came across a blogger’s written thoughts. Everything is linked and referenced to each other and thus enables barrier-free communication.
See the original post on kiko.io: Exploit the feedback potential with syndication links