This is a summary curation of prior posts of mine on why post, what to post, and how to post, as well as some bits I wrote on the #IndieWeb wiki. This post assumes you already have a blog — if you don’t have one and wonder why you should, that’s a different blog post.
If you have a blog and ever feel stuck about why you should post, what to post next, or how to write your post, hopefully this post will help get you unstuck.
These reasons, topics, and techniques help me create, expand, edit, publish, and update more posts, sooner. Choose the ones that resonate for you, ignore the rest, and publish what else works for you on your personal site!
Why Post
There is a whole wiki page on the topic:
* https://indieweb.org/why_post — which could use some gardening
Here are a few specific reasons why you should post:
* Wean yourself off social media. Post to your own site instead of social media. If you already post on social media, into someone else’s garage^1, then you already have reason enough to post. So post on your own site first, and optionally syndicate^2 to that silo, only if you have friends who still use it to read posts.
* Search everything you write. Do you post long comments or issues on GitHub? Do you post on public mailing lists? Post such things to your own site, so you can more easily search everything you’ve written on a topic. Then post a copy to those external destinations.
* All the reasons to own your data: https://indieweb.org/own_your_data
What to Post
There are so many things to post about! This is obviously highly personal. Here are a few that I use myself:
* Post positive things promptly: https://tantek.com/2018/357/t3
* … from that day first: https://tantek.com/2018/364/t1
* … in time order: https://tantek.com/2018/364/t5
* Make and share lists. People like lists
* Post to learn in public, and pass on what you learn
How to Post
I have spent a lot of time thinking about, trying, and iterating on different methods and techniques for starting, expanding, completing, publishing, and updating posts. These are a few of the techniques I use:
* Use a local text editor
* Capture first, edit & publish later: https://tantek.com/2023/365/t1/
* Do something positive (in-person), then post about it: https://tantek.com/2018/002/t1
* Single topic post
* Short and to the point. Edit and remove anything distracting from the main point.
* Quotable post title
* Summary opening paragraph
* Put tangents aside
* Quotable sentences and multi-sentence paragraphs
* Subheadings help cluster related paragraphs
* Use a footer for updates, terminology, previous posts, additional reading, and citations.
* Move definitions, citations, etc. to the footer unless including them inline either provides little risk of distraction or significantly helps reading flow
* Use footer sections: Previously, Post Glossary, References, Additional Reading
* Check your references
Each of these points could be its own blog post. There are many more whys, whats, and hows. See more on these pages on the IndieWeb community site:
* https://indieweb.org/why_post
* https://indieweb.org/what_to_post
* https://indieweb.org/how_to_post
Add your own to each, and/or help organize them!
Glossary
mailing list
https://indieweb.org/mailing_list
own your data
https://indieweb.org/own_your_data
post footer
https://indieweb.org/posts#Footer_sections
silo
https://indieweb.org/silo
social media
https://indieweb.org/social_media
References
^1 https://tantek.com/2023/001/t1/own-your-notes
^2 https://indieweb.org/POSSE
This is post 29 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
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