Recently a friend posted a link to the “unlinkyourfeeds” manifesto.

Here’s the argument:
___________________

Daisy-chaining your social networks together and repeating content (e.g., retweeting) is wrong.
It results in

a) friends having to read your comments multiple times or
b) making an ass of yourself out of context, and
c) making the internet a noisy and confusing place.
___________________

I was taken aback. You see, I don’t individually post status and blogs to my separate social sites. I worried, “am I part of the problem?”

First, if you think I am being part of the problem, feel free to e-mail me and let me know what I’m doing wrong and why it’s a problem. I will take appropriate action. If you can’t figure out how to e-mail me, you’re not enough of a friend for me to respond to your opinion.

OK.

I am what marketing people call an “early adopter.” I am a member of more social networks that I can usually remember: MySpace, Plurk, Xanga, LiveJournal and Blogger are some, not to mention the usual Twitter and Facebook sites. I was distressed about the fragmented and inconsistent electronic public trail I was leaving, and the whole business was becoming a huge time suck.

Then I revamped my personal website, including a blog and status feed. Nirvana, I thought. Now there is one place that contains my thoughts, both short and long. But what of friends on social sites? Would they take the time to find me in my own personal website? Doubtful.

I figured out ways of posting to many of the sites simultaneously, with the idea that my thoughts would show up where my disparate friends chose to view my musings. That way they need not “convert” to my preferred format nor need they fear they are missing my feed.

In my quest for the best way to update all my blogs and statuses simultaneously, I stumbled on ping.fm. I muse once, ping.fm publishes at multiple sites.

This is different from the daisy-chaining cacophony. Each post (blog or status) is “handcrafted,” if available on multiple channels. After a brief and embarrassing experiment with trying to use codes to adjust “grammar,” I now post plain English.

There are negative aspects of my current method and the fact that I filter out most newsfeed:

1) My comments are disconnected from the cause du jour. I risk saying I like round on a day when all the world favors square. If feed A is obsessing about triangles and feed E is twittering about trochoids, then I am orthogonal to the conversation of those communities. In other words, I may look like a fool.

2) A friend who responds via service from which I don’t get e-mail updates will not get a response. I may look like an uncaring twit.

3) Plain English means I rarely include hyperlinks and urls. I may seem inconsiderate.

3) If I post more frequently than acceptable for a particular site, I look like a bore.

4) If I post less frequently than usual for a particular site, I get lost in the cacophony.

5) If I still used codes, I would look like an insensitive [bleep].

But here are the positive aspects of my current methods and policies:

– My thoughts are my thoughts. They are self-contained and meant to last more than one news cycle. A bit autistic of me, perhaps, but so be it.

– I am putting my thoughts on a site you already visit. While I may not spend a lot of time following that site (and seeing your comments), I have relieved you of the need to conform to my preferences.

– I post when I have a thought I want to share. If you lose me in the clutter of other comments and want to follow me in a manner not possible using your preferred network, you can visit my website (megstout dot com) and see what I’m up to without listening to banalities I might otherwise post just to keep my feed in your sites.

– You will probably never be “overwhelmed” by my public feed because I will not post information that could endanger my security or the security of those I care for. So you won’t be getting information (e.g., updates every five minutes) that could invite a thief or stalker (I’ve had one) to harm me or mine. Comments about events will be post facto. Long gaps caused by travel are interspersed with long gaps solely due to “not posting.”

Dear friend, I understand your concerns. I examined the reasons for my behavior. I am content that what I’m currently doing. As you are my friend, and we do correspond in private fora, we can continue the detailed nuances of this conversation elsewhere.

Tags: Writing