Publish Once, Syndicate Nowhere

[n3verm0re]

This has been getting some attention today:

A peasant woodland

Relevant to the discussion around syndication here.

[fLaMEd]

@manuelmoreale

Auto publishing what are essentially notifications on platforms you’re not active on, that to me is spam.

Yup, I agree with that.

@manuelmoreale

Because you’re not participating to any conversation that might happen. You’re also not providing actual content.

Yup.

@manuelmoreale

But if you post a link to your post on Mastodon and you’re also active on mastodon engaging with people that’s totally fine imo.

This is what I do. I use EchoFeed to share my posts to Mastodon and chat with whomever decides to drop a reply to it.

I’m not a fan of those that share absolutely everything to Mastodon though… Watched this movie, listened to this song etc…

[manuelmoreale]

@jsonbecker

I think you’re comparing a non-logged in or first run experience against the actual one.

Well yes, I even said that: “if I subscribe I can probably (maybe?) work my way towards a timeline that’s curated”

But it doesn’t change the point I’m making: there is a fundamental difference between a post on a blog and a post on a social platform. A post on a blog doesn’t have a way to be spread around on its own without other people acting on it. The same is not true for a post on social media.

@jsonbecker

This happens all the time when other people post your links on social sites, in a newsletter, or in a blog post.

I mean, sure, if someone else grabs my content and post it on social media it can go viral but that’s beside the point I’m making. If I write something on my blog now, it will be delivered via rss to the people who are subscribed to it and that’s it. It doesn’t have a way on its own to be spread around.

People have to act upon it and put it on an algorithmic platform themselves in order to give it a chance to go viral and be spread around. But that’s not something I can control.

If you find the spam definition offending in some way that’s fine. We can call it digital noise if you prefer. I don’t think spreading my content around helps the overall situation when it comes to content consumption which is why I decided to leave that game.

But again, I have no problem with other people doing it. I have no issues if people want to post every single one of their posts on social media, I have no issues if they want to post automatically on all social media platforms. More power to them. I’m on none of those platforms so I couldn’t care less.

I just think this is not a winning model but again, I’d be happy to be proven wrong because at the end of the day I want to see the social aspects of the web thrive while now, for the most part, everything seems to be a big dumpsterfire.