Some New Site Features to Report

Hey folks, I just wanted to update you on some things I’ve launched recently at the ol’ dot org. (RSS reader folk, you’re going to have to click through to the actual WWW to see these…don’t be scared, you can do it.)

1. Last month, I added the ability for members to fave comments, to see comments they’ve posted and faved, and the ability to sort comments in threads. You can read about those features here.

2. Image zooming. If you click on images in posts (on the Embroidery Journaling post or the Eadweard Muybridge image at the top of this post), the image will zoom to fill the browser. Clicking it again will shrink it again. (Oh and I’m testing a feature that does the same thing for videos.)

3. For the Quick Link URL cards/unfurls, I’m displaying the embedded video instead of a cover image. For example, see this post about the special overalls that Finnish university students wear.

4. I refreshed the design of the newsletter a little bit and added a link to the comment section of each post. Because HTML email is a pain in the ass, it doesn’t look/work quite how I want it to yet, but it’s getting there. More tbd.

5. And the best for last: I can now pull Bluesky & Mastodon posts into comment threads in the form of reposts. You can see it in action in the posts about Meta’s Free Speech Grift, HTML: the Most Significant Computing Language Ever Developed, and The Truth About January 6th. I’m using it to collect noteworthy direct comments to my posts on those platforms but also a curated collection of posts and links that I think are particularly relevant to particular posts. So far, it’s been such a quick & easy way to pull in more information and voices around a topic.

Inspiration for this feature came from social media (retweeting, etc.) but also from the original reblog concept developed by Jonah Peretti, Mike Frumin, and others at Eyebeam while we were all there. Their software was the inspiration for Tumblr’s reblog feature, Twitter’s retweet, and Facebook’s share. Going back to the source (and the linkblogging & feedreaders that they were inspired by) is a useful reminder that these sorts of features aren’t just available to Twitter & FB. And in fact, we’ve let social media sites pull in so much content & activity from the open web…it’s time to start pulling back a little.

Right now, reposting is something only I can do (*rubs hands together diabolically*) but I might open it up to others after I iron out a few kinks and if there’s interest. It only works with Bluesky & Mastodon rn, but I’m going to add email (for threads like this) and Threads, although after this bullshit, I may not bother. Anyway, this feature was on the original roadmap for comments and I’m so glad I found the time to finally make it happen.

Ok, that’s all for now. As always, let me know in the comments if you have questions, comments, concerns. ✌️

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