post

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A post is content published at a permalink, usually with an explicit published date in contrast to a named page, or the act of publishing that content, typically publicly, sometimes to a limited audience or even privately like a draft.

A post can be:

A discreet piece of content (perhaps a note or an article) — see also posts
The act of creating the aforementioned content
- Also used elsewhere, e.g in the microcopy of notifications: "posted a comment", "posted a photo"

Why

Main article: why post

Why post something? The answer is likely to be very personal, much more so than the general question of why IndieWeb.

Asking “why post” can make you question something you were going to post, can redirect you from posting something on a silo to instead posting on your own site, and can motivate you to post new things that you may have not previously considered posting.

How to

How to post

"Open your text editor and write a blog post without overthinking it." - gRegor Morrill: Hello, 2018!
Participate in National Blog Posting Month
Pick a 100 Days Projects that resonates with you, and just start posting something small every day (maybe start with a "7 Days Project" and see how you feel after a week)
Twelve Blog Post Writing Tips From 2012 - tips for both short and longer form posts. A few of them (see post for full list) - Tantek Çelik
1. Single topic post
2. Tweetable post title
3. Summary opening paragraph
4. Put tangents aside
5. Quotable ~~Tweetable~~ sentences
6. Local text editor
7. Lists are nice
Literary Hub: “Write a Sentence as Clean as a Bone” And Other Advice from James Baldwin
...

How to parse a post

For web developers who are writing code to find and process posts, e.g. to implement a social reader, here are some pages that describe how to discover posts and their aspects, and display posts from elsewhere such as those received via Webmention:

And how to:

Find info to display a post as a comment

What to post

Main article: what to post

You can post about anything you're interested in, at any time: the personal web is a space of freedom.

Sometimes, some people want to post more, but they lack inspiration.

For specific examples of what to post see:

what to post

Brainstorming

Why post

Why you (might want to) post, see:

why post

Why post positive things

Tantek Çelik five reasons here: https://tantek.com/2018/357/t3/five-reasons-post-positive-things-promptly

Why not to post

Perhaps even document thoughts on why you might not post:

Avoiding self-promotion. Some alternatives:
- post promoting others's good work instead or first
- post something for a community (like an indie event for a community meetup like HWC)
...

Why Post See Also

2019 IWC Berlin2 session: Why post photos

Why post on a company blog

Apparently to recruit employees.

https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1444337534759149574
- "One of the smartest decisions we made at @Cloudflare was recognizing that the primary purpose of our blog was attracting employees, not attracting customers." @eastdakota October 2, 2021

What to post next

Have too many things or drafts to post and not sure what to prioritize posting next or in what order?

Tantek Çelik:
1. post things for the future first, RSVPs, events, and other posts like announcements that will positively impact the future, and bring people together constructively in the future
2. post things from that day, per https://tantek.com/2018/364/t1/sixth-reason-post-positive-things-promptly
3. post previous drafts of positive things oldest to newest from the past week or month, per https://tantek.com/2018/364/t5/post-that-day-then-date-time-previous-week-month

Tantek Çelik:
- capture first, edit & publish later: https://tantek.com/2023/365/t1/capture-first-edit-publish-later

What else to post

See if any of these resonate: (or add your own when you find sources of inspiration to post)

Jot down ideas for posts, no matter how incomplete; could just be a word or fragment. Use a text file, notepad, or whatever is easiest for you. Re-visit the list periodically and expand those into posts.
Anniversaries of projects or activities you started/joined and have kept up with
- publish on the day of or within a few days of the anniversary date
- provide a highlights or a brief summary of what you did on the subject in the past year
- link to previous years's post(s) on the subject
- (good incentive to implement on this day to help remind you of anniversaries!)
...

Posting to Support Open Source

Open Source communities should encourage contributors to post for a variety of reasons.

Category:PostType
posts
Why post: 2019-10-29 Brent Simmons: You Choose
Brainstorm why post: Get memories of something topical (like a discussion event) out of your head so you can focus on other things. Especially if you (or anyone!) does not have any notes about the event!
blog post
To-do: split why post into its own page, it’s worth its own definition and expansion
2022-07-12 Publishing your work increases your luck / For every snarky comment, there are 10x as many people admiring your work.
create a separate page for why post, and include content like that article ^
https://twitter.com/broderick/status/1575187542411968514
- "It's time that advertisers and big entertainment companies accepted that everything on the internet is just posts and that pre-internet ideas about different media types being "worth" more or less just isn't true anymore.
  https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-podcasting-world-seems-real-tired" @broderick September 28, 2022
Brainstorm for what to blog: check what past blog posts you published on this day, and consider writing an update as a new post, especially for particular anniversaries like 1, 5, 10 years afterwards, and then add a link at the top of the old post to the new post
garden the #Brainstorming and See Also sections for links and content to incorporate into the main article content, or move to why post or what to post