Cross-posting unchecked by default?

Is it possible to add a cross-posting option to Micro.blog but have that option unchecked by default?

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Nope. Manton and I have gone back and forth about this. Hence I’ve to use hacks/services like Echofeed to ensure I don’t (accidentally) crosspost something to the wrong network.

My thinking on this is that if an option is unchecked by default, it will be easy to forget and then wonder why nothing was cross-posted. Having it always on by default but letting you opt-out per post is the most consistent, in my opinion.

Sounds fair but then why not present a screen like this before you hit Publish? Crossposting has been the defining feature of Micro.blog but it may not be for too long [one more example].

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An extra prompt like that would add friction to posting. I’d rather the design be about posting to your blog, with the cross-posting as a secondary thing, not the main purpose.

I get that it seems like a minor thing to refocus the UI around cross-posting but I think everything should start with the blog. It’s why Micro.blog exists.

It wasn’t very long ago that we didn’t even have the checkboxes, though, so things do change sometimes.

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I realize this will be different for different people, but the service that gives me the most angst where cross-posting is concerned (and the one that I feel builds a good use case for allowing unchecked by default) is LinkedIn: If I write an article, I likely want to cross-post it, but I don’t want status updates to show on my more professional LinkedIn timeline. Worse case, I write an awesome article and forget to enable the cross-posting option, I can always share the link out once I realize the mistake. IF I cross-post by default and forget to turn it off though, I might post a bunch of irrelevant content to LinkedIn and that’s much harder to undo since people in my professional network will have already seen it. I realize there’s probably no perfect answer, but wanted to put this use case out there as I do think there is value in allowing cross-posting to be off/unchecked by default, ideally on a service by service basis.

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Thanks. That’s a good point. LinkedIn does feel a little different. Now that we have editing of cross-posting for draft posts, maybe we need to loosen this setting a little. I’ll think about it.

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Exactly. The opposite is much worse.