Any way to discover long-form blog posts?

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I’m pretty new to micro.blog and have been trying to use it as a more traditional blog instead, which I know is not really the point of this place but it is sort of supported.

One thing I’ve only just realised is that long-form content, which is what I’d like to read, is not included in the Discover timeline. At least I can stop experimenting with where to put the emoji in mine, now that I know it won’t work!

Long-form is also given second class treatment in the timeline itself, which probably answers my question for me, but just in case I’ve missed something:

Does micro.blog provide any way for me to discover other long-form blogs on the platform? Or is the focus here entirely on short posts, and longer ones are hidden away like a shameful secret? :sweat_smile:

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Hi, and welcome…!

I’m replying from the angle of a blogger who does both short content and longer posts. I believe you’re right, the Discover only shows the short micro posts. Technically, I think it’s possible to include long posts’ summaries (which you can do when writing a long post), but I don’t think I’ve seen those.

I think the intention with Discover and the feed is to imitate what other social platforms do (Twitter when Micr.blog started, Bluesky, Mastodon, etc.) and provide that familiar feel on purpose. Long posts, even with a summary, might not fit into those short, quick bursts of communication.

I don’t know if I agree that long posts are “second citizens.” I can see why it may look this way, but we have a lot of features on the platform that are meant to help and increase the experience of writing long-form posts - the categories, pages that work with RSS feeds from other sites (on my blog, my reviews of movies - which are long form - are automatically added), the capabilities of summaries, categories, a place to upload pictures and include them embeded in the post with descriptions, and of course plenty of plugins and themes built around the blogs. Sure, all of those exist on other platforms for long form too, and I do think MB can do better in terms of promoting long-form posts in a way - still, MB is unique in that it offers both.

All of that said, it doesn’t help you to find long-form post blogs, which is one of the reasons you’re here, so maybe I can be a bit more helpful with some tips that helped me along the way.

First, plenty of folks on Discover who write short posts also write long posts. If you follow them, you should see the long-form posts as well (summaries or just the first paragraphs on the feed).

Second is definitely word of mouth. Some folks (myself included) have blogrolls on their blogs; at other times, you tune in on a “conversation” in the feed, and those are usually comments to long-form posts, where people discuss things more at length.

Then there are carrorated lists outside of MB, usually aimed at RSS readers (RSS is the way to follow these blogs, and MB now offers a built-in reader, Inkwell). I often save those articles with MB’s bookmarks to respond later, which also helps.

I hope some of this helps. What do you usually like to read? Maybe I can suggest something, or someone else can. The community here is definitely helpful with these sorts of things :slight_smile:

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Long form posts show up with links and optionally a summary in the timeline. They are deprioritized for featuring in Discover.

Some of us, myself included, support having a separate RSS feed on our blogs that only have “macro” posts. But Discovery is a challenge regardless of post type IMO.

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Thanks both. I do follow a few people I found through Discover, but I follow them from Mastodon instead since that’s where my short form feed is. I tend to follow blogs through RSS, but have to find them first.

The timeline comment was because I read this thread, which goes off in various directions but the crux is that long-form posts are also treated worse in the timeline view and this is apparently on purpose and unlikely to change.

Which is fine, it’s not exactly a large audience here and I’m not bothered about my own posts being seen. It just would’ve been nice to have a way to find other blogs on here to read myself! But I will live :smiley:

(If anyone does want to give recommendations I enjoy blogs from fellow fibre crafters, makers in general, gamedev stuff and also interesting travel blogs to live vicariously through)

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Since that post was made, summaries that are visible in the timeline were in fact added, though not stylized post content with images etc for long posts. So I think there have been some improvements (and I don’t fully agree with Havn’s characterization!).

That said, yeah, discovery is hard. There have been attempts with Discover and Recommendations, though I think they both kind of don’t get there.

If we shared more interests, I’d be sharing some blogs with you! Manu’s series, People and Blogs, is ending soon, but has lots of great interviews from people who have blogs, and all the interviews include like 5 recommendations and I’ve found it’s been a great way to discover new blogs.

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Since we’re talking recommendations, I just updated my blogroll recently ( 🥁 Blogrolls ). I don’t think I have arts and crafts specifically though… two bloggers that come to mind: https://cygnoir.net and https://micro.rousette.org.uk. They don’t write that often these days (I like to keep my blogrolls to people who write around once a week at least).

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Just a quick comment here: I want to do a lot more for long-form posts this year. We just launched our RSS feed reader Inkwell, and more long-form discovery will fit perfectly with it.

We started asking for suggestions for a new section of discovery called “slow reads”, but it is taking longer than I hoped to get this finished. More suggestions welcome.

micro.blog/account/slowreads

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I didn’t know this link existed. Can it be embedded somewhere in Discover, so folks who go to the Discover section see it? Maybe with a link saying “do you have a suggestion…?” that sort of thing.

In the past Micro.blog favored posts with ALT in the images for Discover (and then I think it was reinforced, especially after these descriptions were added as an automatic option via AI). Maybe we can do something similar for longer posts, with summaries (which can also be created by AI). Is it hard to implement?

As for Inkwell, and this is probably more complicated - an option to export the feeds to the Recommendation list on blogs, some sort of an integration. So I can automatically recommend the RSS feeds I subscribe to, with the option to edit those before I publish them.

You asked for suggestions :sweat_smile: