This post is part of Robert Birming’s JulyReply, a blog connecting event.
I recently came across this post by Michael Harley: “Bloggers, can we make better titles for our posts?”
I started writing a reply in the post’s comment section but it quickly became way longer than I’d thought it would, and I’d be too embarrassed to be one of those people who leave a whole essay as a comment1. I turned out to have quite some thoughts on this so it’s a perfect opportunity for a blog post.
I understand where Michael is coming from, but in the context of indie blogging or personal blogs, I differ from his take. I think it all comes down to the intention of the blogger and that of the reader.
But first of all, a correction needs to be made:
I presume a blogger has submitted their RSS feed to Bubbles because they want people to read what they're writing.
Bubbles’ FAQ states that they draw from various blog directories, such as the Bear Blog Discovery. My blog is on Bubbles and I never submitted my blog; I only found out about it via Bear Blog’s analytics and I’m happy for my blog to be on Bubbles. According to the FAQ, the folks behind Bubbles do manually go through each one, and I truly appreciate that (more on this later).
Michael writes:
They're titled Week Notes, Week in Review, Weekly Links and the like. When I'm cruising Bubbles, I do not click weekly notes from randos.
Michael—and anyone—is certainly welcome to skip those, but so are others to choose to read those. I actually do click on those from “randos” every now and then and they’re part of the charm of the small web/indie blogging sphere for me. I like these round-ups because they feel so much like the antithesis of the current-day social media, which is mostly a capitalist machine filled with influencers, ads, AI and algorithms at this point.
With round-up posts, I get to actually read about genuine updates and notes from random people around the world—content that isn’t created specifically to gain traction or tailor to a certain algorithm or audience as most of these posts are written for the blogger themselves. I’ve genuinely encountered interesting blogs this way. It’s quite similar to exploring with Kagi Small Web in a way. Since Bubbles actually reviews every blog individually, clicking on a round-up/bucket post might lead you to a serendipitous discovery of your next favourite blog or the next blog post that makes you think. At the very least, you can know that if a blog is on Bubbles, it’s been vetted and it’s not just any random site; it should be a genuine blog so it’s an opportunity to take a look around.
I’ve also found comfort in casual, personal content that people publish. A parenthetical departure by Sylvia is one of the coziest personal sites I’ve seen and I’d go wander around when the mood is right2.
She references a fascinating blog post, “What is it about people who write Weeknotes?” that discusses why the author enjoys weeknotes from others. I like he way he puts it:
Weeknotes put us all on an equal footing. Everyone just had a week. What you noticed and how you spent the time and energy is what makes yours different.
I’m sure I’m not the only one but I started a personal blog on an indie blogging platform rather than WordPress, Blogger or Squarespace and the like because I’m writing primarily for myself and for my own enjoyment. This is my corner of the web and my self-expression. Sure, I’ve enjoyed having the occasional readership and being part of the Bear Blog community (of which I wasn’t aware when I first signed up), but when it comes time to create the title for a post, I write one that I like. Due to my background in writing, I enjoy taking the time to tweak the title until I like it, but I do that for myself, not for whatever feeds my posts might end up. Sometimes I’m lazy and use the first title that comes to mind, and I want to feel free to do that too.
The truth is, Michael raises a valid concern as a reader of feeds like Bubbles. At the very least, it’s good to be aware if your post will be pushed to a feed upon publishing and make a conscious decision. On Bear Blog, all posts and pages are pushed to the Bear Blog Discovery feed by default unless you configure it otherwise3. I specifically choose to hide my non-post content (such as my editorial style guide) from Bear Blog’s feed precisely because I don’t believe it’s worth being there. But who knows, though? Maybe if I had published it to a feed, someone who doesn’t know about editorial style guides could stumble upon it and find it interesting and even useful?
It’s all about being considerate when you share a common space with others.
Previous |
Reply via email. Subscribe to my blog via email or RSS feed.
…even though I’ve absolutely done that.↩
A short exchange she had with her husband, mentioned in one of her weeknotes, gave me a good chuckle. I immediately sent a screenshot to my wife and she said, “that’s us.”↩
To hide a post or page from the Bear Blog Discovery, put make_discoverable: false in the attributes section. Visit Bear Docs for official documentation on Bear Blog.↩
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理，仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。