For something quite as old as POSSE (its first incarnation predates Facebook and Twitter, around 2004), I am always surprised how little it has caught on, even among the most fervent of “anti Big Tech” advocates.

In short, POSSE means to post to your own site (POS) and then syndicate that content into other ecosystems (silos and not, SE) for anyone else to have access to [^1].

POSSE explained.

This site is a POSSE site. It is not meant to be read like a blog, more perused (mostly by me) as the digital version of a Victorian Steam Punk alchemist’s study. Stacks of notes, books, and arcana, unsorted, waiting to be read but mostly forgotten. Some notes, marked on this site as being evergreen, will grow and be tended to. Others, such as POSSE versions of #Fediverse posts or quick data dumps for talks, just sit there. Stuff that will most certainly be outdated might be marked with a 🍁 red leaf. But don’t count on it.

Summarizing my reasons (the long and short is linked above), I want to keep ownership of my thoughts and works. By posting here first, I have a traceable chain of ownership, Silo TOS be damned. POSSE also preserves URL, which Silos never guarantee. Take, as a huge negative example, the sordid tale of Quora. Once a shining beacon of “better than good” knowledge exchange and civil discourse, the site first went down the shithole of monetized assholery and then decided to lock its formerly open content behind pay- and signup-walls. POSSE saved my over 12k answers on that site.

Don’t be like me. Don’t write into Silos first. Write on your own site, then syndicate. Be a Victorian Steam Punk Alchemist.

Ways to POSSE #

  • WordPress and ActivityPub Plugin - write on your site, federate into the Fediverse.
  • Micro.blog - write on your site, syndicate to Twitter and the Fediverse.
  • Known - write on your site, syndicate to Twitter, Facebook, and the Fediverse.
  • Bridgy Publish - a Swiss Army Knife of POSSE, the mother and matriarch of them all.
  • IFTTT (payware) - if this, then that. Allows actions on RSS feeds and other API.
  • Manual - write locally, then post to Silos.

POSSE made easy with 11ty #

Every page on this site is written in Markdown. I write them in Drafts 5 and Obsidian, followed by two scripts grabbing them and syndicating them to my account on medic.cafe. An example of this can be found here (German 🇩🇪).

Markdown’s open and text based format means, that it’s super easy for me to grab the content and syndicate it. No noodling with databases or API needed (well, the Mastodon side aside).

TODO: At some point I’ll write a handy guide on how to do this, and maybe publish this site’s scaffolding somewhere.