I’m trying to understand when my posts are added to the Micro.blog timeline. I think this is simpler than I’m making it but I want wanted to be sure.
In the Micro.blog web interface, at top the Account > Feeds page it states the following:
These feeds should contain posts you wrote. When someone follows you, they will see posts from all of these feeds in their timeline. If you have an external blog such as WordPress, you can add that feed below.
Beneath that, a user has an option to add a source. I am using a Micro.blog hosted account an my intention was to only display posts with the category “blog” on the Micro.blog timeline. I added the following feed:
Question 1
There is an existing help topic (see Own posts in timeline) that suggests to me that specifying this source will ensure that only those posts in the “blog” category will be displayed on the timeline. Is this accurate? If not, is there a way to specify which posts are displayed on the timeline? For the sake of clarity, I don’t mean to distinguish between longer posts (that are only linked to) and shorter posts (which are displayed in full).
Question 2
I have a Fediverse username that I created in the Micro.blog interface under Account > ActivityPub. Do the timeline display rules for Micro.blog also apply to those posts?
If my questions have incorrect assumptions or if this is answered elsewhere already, thank you for kindly correcting me or directing me elsewhere.
Yes, that is correct. Your timeline is the sum of all feeds listed on the Edit Sources & Cross-posting page. If https://microblog.willtmonroe.com/categories/blog/feed.json is the one and only feed there, those are the only posts that will show on your timeline.
Please note, though, that if you’ve had other feeds configured in the past, your timeline might still show posts from those old feeds. You will have to manually remove those old posts from your timeline if you don’t want them there.
In addition to posts from the feeds you add to the Edit Sources & Cross-posting page, replies you make will also show on your timeline.
The short answer is no, Micro.blog’s timeline display rules do not apply to other places on the web. It’s up to every single Fediverse software out there to decide how they want to present posts. Often, though, you can expect posts to show up similarly to how they look on the Micro.blog timeline.
Thank you for that detailed response @sod. I’d like to rephrase Question 2 just to make sure that I’ve asked it clearly (and so that I know what I mean!).
Assuming that https://microblog.willtmonroe.com/categories/blog/feed.json is the one and only feed on the Edit Sources & Cross-posting can I assume that Fediverse software will be limited to just the posts in that blog category? In other words, if I post something that only belongs to another category (e.g., it only has the category photos and not blog) will it show up in those other Fediverse software feeds?
Yes is the answer to your first question, and no to the second. Another way to put it: what people using fediverse software will see is a reflection of your Micro.blog timeline, not your blog.
Just one clarification (also to clarify for myself) for this:
if I post something that only belongs to another category (e.g., it only has the category photos and not blog)
These posts also will NOT appear on the Micro.blog timeline but only on your blog. However, if you specific, the RSS feed for these posts can be made available to your readers to read via a third-party feed reader.
Thanks for this discussion, everyone. I’m not sure that we’ve ever articulated this part of the timeline and fediverse integration. The summary here is exactly right: the fediverse sees what is on the Micro.blog timeline.
Another way to think about it is that Micro.blog is two things: blogging and the social web. The fediverse is tied to the social web part.