I’m a geek, and a software developer. I want to be close to my peers, wherever they meet online. If this means reactivating former social media accounts, so be it. Therefore, I’m implementing POSSE, again 😕

In January, I made the decision to delete my Twitter account. Prior to this, I also deleted my Facebook account. I remained on LinkedIn and on Mastodon. Note that I still have a Twitter/X account, but it’s been there only to prevent username squatting, and all my followers and posts are gone.

Now, 9 months later, I have to reconsider. My Mastodon experience has been good, actually, except for the tiny little problem that many from the Scala community aren’t there, or from the Java or Kotlin community for that mater. And, for example, I really wanted to see Scala Days news. I missed the conference, sadly, but I can still tune online. In fairness, engagement has been going down across the board, communities now being fragmented. The age of centralized social media is over, people going back to Internet silos. Which is probably good, but this means more effort to connect.

I also dislike my Mastodon presence for some of the same reasons I disliked Twitter and Facebook, although at a much smaller scale: I still see triggering posts, making me worry about shit that doesn’t matter. It’s still a waste of time. It’s still dumb and angry. Maybe the real problem is me, and being “extremely online” isn’t good.

What I really want to do is to:

• Work on interesting stuff;
• Write on my blog about it (which is making me less stupid, not more);
• Connect to people that I like, and that share my interests, regardless of their chosen platform;
• Always link to my website for anything that I want to communicate into the void.

This strategy is called “POSSE: Publish on your Own Website, Syndicate Everywhere” (archive). I hope it works this time, as it wouldn’t be the first time I try it. Unfortunately, I often have weak moral principles or the attention span and the strong will of a child 🤷‍♂️

Cheers,