Feedback : Comment user flow from own site → micro.blog

[JoeCotellese]

I ended up on @jean site from Micro.blog. I love the “Conversation on Micro.blog” button underneath the post.

It’s simple to click and I can then leave a comment on MB. First a question, is that a plug-in or do I need to code that directly into my theme?

Now a comment. I think this might be a good path to acquiring new users. If someone stumbles upon a site, wants to leave a comment they click through to Micro.blog.

The logged out experience on a post in Micro.blog should have a “Reply” button that will then have a simple signup form + reply. This might lead to more new users.

I guess one way to find out if that is potentially worth it is if you have analytics on the number of people that land on a post that are not current users.

[pratik]

@JoeCotellese

First a question, is that a plug-in or do I need to code that directly into my theme?

Yes, it is.

@JoeCotellese

The logged out experience on a post in Micro.blog should have a “Reply” button that will then have a simple signup form + reply. This might lead to more new users.

I think @manton is working on this but more users might also mean more spam so have to strike a balance. There are other options for now.

[sod]

Yes, as Pratik already mentioned, that’s my plug-in Conversation on Micro.blog. You have to decide where to put the button in your blog’s layout, so some tinkering with a custom theme is needed.

There are instructions on the page Pratik linked to. Let me know if you get stuck, and I will try my best to help you.

[plumey]

I know this is an old post, but I haven’t seen anything more recent and figured I would reply instead of making a new post.

I am doing so because I would love if my friends and family on Facebook could have a free account and then be able to reply quickly. Right now I feel like I am on a little island and I’d love for them to be able to leave a comment quickly.

[Havn]

All the pieces for what you want (and I want as well) are there - we just need a little glue to put it together. And I actually wrote a bit with Manton about this today, and he said he has planned to implement the glue.

Let me explain:

I don’t think Micro.blog will, or needs to, be the thing where people can make free accounts to give quick replies. I think Mastodon is better suited for that, and is already there.

And people can give quick replies with Mastodon (and similar services) on MB posts today. Here you can see one of my long posts via Mastodon:

Hitting that reply button is exactly what you want - but the “missing glue”, is that getting to that button is way too hard.

Because there’s no way to link to that place!

The only way to get there now, is either to follow the Fediverse username and get the post in the timeline, or find it by going straight to the account within Mastodon.

But Manton shared that he had planned on making Micro.blog links possible to “Open in Mastodon”! That would lead to the possibility of a button underneath blog posts that sends you to the place in the image above, so easy commenting through Mastodon. And I think that’s the best solution for what you want.

And still it wouldn’t remove this button!

It would just make it easier to combine Micro.blog and Mastodon comments in one place, and make the latter much easier to collect.

[plumey]

Thanks for the reply!

Mastodon is still majorly complex for non-techies, like my mom or my wife, who just want to reply. I can’t expect them to find a mastodon server they like, find a mobile app that works with that server, then connect that app with that instance, and then figure out the whole federated/local timeline thing, when all they want is to be able to follow me and potentially others in my immediate family. If they had a free micro.blog account, they just go get the micro.blog app, which is easy to use and much simpler than any mastodon app.

I get what you’re saying, but this solution would be much more complex for the average non-techie user.

[Havn]

You’re making it more complex than it needs to be, and really is.

This is the first screen you get in the offial app now:

And if they have iOS, you could give them Mammoth, as that has even better on-boarding. They have made making it easier to get started with the Fediverse, their main priority.

They wouldn’t need to know there are other apps or other servers (but every server works on every app).

No one bothers with the local/federated timeline - so I wouldn’t tell them about that either. (Most apps bury them anyway.) The only thing that matters is the Home timeline, that just has what you’ve chosen to follow.

So, it’s just “Download app, create account, follow”. Not much more complicated than Micro.blog…

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice with free Micro.blog accounts! But I don’t think MB want that hassle (not from your family, but you know ) - and Mastodon is really close to what you want. Especially if you guide them just a tiny bit.

[simonwoods]

@Havn

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice with free Micro.blog accounts! But I don’t think MB want that hassle

To be clear; from the homepage:

I hope Manton continues to improve Micro.blog more than Mastodon or anything else. Good support for free accounts and improvements to commenting on blogs are much more worthwhile than continuing tech support on behalf of Mastodon developers.

[plumey]

What happens to the comments when the mastodon instance I cross post to goes down? Does MB retsin them? Are they federated elsewhere and still function?

[Havn]

Would you look at that! I just assumed that wasn’t a thing, since, @plumey asked like he did. However, as they would only be able to comment on posts with that user (non-techies won’t “connect to external blogs”), I still think a Mastodon user could be more fitting.

(My emphasis. )

@simonwoods

and improvements to commenting on blogs are much more worthwhile than continuing tech support on behalf of Mastodon developers.

Micro.blog has several selling points - both from a user and business perspective. And one of them, is how well it plays with other services, both through ActivityPub, cross-posting, apps like Ulysses, Webmentions, etc. (I would never be a paying MB customer without this.)

I’d say making it easier to “collect” Fediverse comments (which it already supports), is part of “improvements to commenting on blogs”. And it’s well within Micro.blog’s wheel house, and not “improving Mastodon” or "tech support on behalf of Mastodon developers. Remember, what we’re talking about here, is making Micro.blog links better to open on the Fediverse. I’d say that is “improving Micro.blog”. And I think it also just happens to help solve Plumey’s wish as well.

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@plumey

What happens to the comments when the mastodon instance I cross post to goes down? Does MB retsin them? Are they federated elsewhere and still function?

Cross-posting to Mastodon, and Micro.blog’s ActivityPub support are two different things - and I was talking mostly about the latter. Let me explain (again ):

I have both a Mastodon user
@havn@mas.to
and my Micro.blog user is accessible through the Fediverse, with
@micro@havn.blog.

I was talking about your family getting Mastodon accounts to follow your Micro.blog user directly - not your Mastodon account which you cross-post to.

Because, if they follow directly, they would get the “proper” Micro.blog post into their timeline - and if they commented, the comments could be displayed on your blog (if you want it to). But when you cross-post to Mastodon, it’s like copying and pasting the content of your post - and that creates a totally separate post. Do you see the distinction?

Let’s say my parents are on Mastodon, and
@mom@mas.to follows @micro@havn.blog and
@dad@mas.to follows @havn@mas.to

If I cross-post, my mom would get the “proper” post and my dad would only get a copy - and the they wouldn’t see each other’s comments. And only my mom’s comment could be displayed on my blog. So I like the idea of prioritising the “one true post” over making many copies that don’t “know about each other”.

So that is why it could be beneficial to have people follow @micro@havn.blog directly instead.

[simonwoods]

@Havn Nah, you’re just making assumptions that this is good for the business of Micro.blog. For all we know, strengthening Micro.blog-hosted commenting is much better for business. I have seen a number of people voice strong opposition and concern with how exposed Micro.blog can feel to Mastodon with its Twitter-like model and Twitter-like users.

A good example would be how you, a Mastodon proponent, are replying to a Micro.blog user by pushing on them the task of getting their family to join Mastodon just so they can comment on their posts. Javier specifically asked about replying on their posts. As far as we can tell there is no interest in attempting to involve their family in making posts of their own, at least not to begin with. As such a free account is a good place to start and doesn’t come with the negative baggage of Mastodon or any other such service.

Let’s also be clear about something else: Conversation.js exists and Manton has spoken on multiple occasions about improving it. This is one of many reasons that Micro.blog does not need to lean so heavily on external platforms for improving comments.

Also, you spoke about “non-techies” not getting involved with external blogs. Meanwhile, you put in the work for that guide to different workflows for federated-connected interactions. Here’s how it works for those of us who don’t bother with that stuff:

• Make a MB account →
• Reply to posts on the timeline.

Seems simple enough to me.

[Havn]

Hey - I’m all for enhancing Micro.blog features! And everything I’ve written has been about improving Conversations.js (by making it easier to gather all comments there). My sense has just been that MB doesn’t want to be this broad/accessible thing. It’s mostly a paid service, that seems fine allowing other services to fill out what it doesn’t want to be itself. ^[1]

I wouldn’t call myself a Mastodon proponent per se. Heck, I’ve made several post with suggestions for MB because I wanted to ditch my Mastodon completely!

But I am an ActivityPub (and other open standards) proponent - with the idea of producing stuff on the platform/service where that is best, and people being able to consume/comment from the platform where that is best.

Micro.blog smokes Mastodon in terms of publishing content. But currently Mastodon is much better at consuming and making small comments, and MB doesn’t seem very interested in closing that gap. And that’s perfectly fine! (See first paragraph.)

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If I want my mom to follow my MB account to make comments, she could either:

1. Create a Micro.blog account
2. Follow me
3. Get my posts in her timeline, and write comments (that gets sent to Conversations.js)

or

1. Create a Mastodon account.
2. Follow me
3. Get my posts in her timeline, and write comments (that gets sent to Conversations.js)

I don’t see a big difference in complexity.

And I don’t see many pros for going the free Micro.blog route - neither for the users or MB (as they wouldn’t become paying members).

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1. I’m usually chastised, on this forum, for wanting Micro.blog to implement stuff - this is the first time it’s for the opposite. ↩︎

[jsonbecker]

@plumey

I am doing so because I would love if my friends and family on Facebook could have a free account and then be able to reply quickly. Right now I feel like I am on a little island and I’d love for them to be able to leave a comment quickly.

Honestly, if my main use was this, I’d probably just add Disqus or something to your blog. Or I’d use premium and have my family on my newsletter so they could email a reply. But I also think there’s basically no chance at getting people to use a new service or even go to your website to comment versus being in a platform they spend a lot of time on. I’ve had 0 success pulling people into stuff I’d prefer to use, which is why the email newsletter is probably best.

[aeryn]

Just popping in to mention there is a Reply by Email plug in. In case it helps. Which my Mum used last night, which was a nice surprise. There’s no way she would sign up for anything to leave a comment. So it works well. And of course it’s a private email, nothing shows up on my post.

[aeryn]

I do think there could be more information to signed out users.

It might be nice to give visitors the impression they can easily leave a reply with a free account. They’ve clicked the “Reply on Micro.blog” button on a hosted site. So something encouraging and friendly, and clickable would be nice.

Maybe?

[pratik]

The ‘Reply by Email’ would be the best solution here. Not sure if I or my family want their comments public. My mom usually had just one kinda comment - Great writing even when it was not

[plumey]

@Havn

I was talking about your family getting Mastodon accounts to follow your Micro.blog user directly - not your Mastodon account which you cross-post to.

Thanks for making that distinction.

This has been a really good conversation. I understand the points about friction for people who are just used to their current app, and there’s a lot of truth to that.

I had considered Disqus but wanted to see other options first, and what makes me rethink that is that on FB I can limit who sees my posts and some of the friends and family posting would probably not want their comments on the open web.

So for now I’ve enabled the email link and I’m planning on sharing some links manually to FB to see how that goes. And I do really like the idea of the newsletter, especially given the new options in Premium to create a blog with family-specific stuff.