Preface

This is an experiment – a working document I’m posting now and plan to update. I want to try a relatively quick post of the kind I’d do on Facebook but with the ability to update it in response to feedback on my own thoughts.

I’m trying to cross-post on Substack as Editing "The Poster's Dilemma" - Substack, and the first lesson is that formatting and, more to the point, embedded links are lost! For now, those who want links will have to click through to https://rmf.vc/ThePostersDilemma and I’ll manually first the headers. I also have to post from the online (OneDrive) version to avoid the hyphenation problems.

I have tried to maintain a document that points to my posts, but I haven’t been good at maintaining it. I periodically try to catch up and can use feedback if there is interest in it.

The Posters Dilemma

I’m trying to figure out the most appropriate medium for posting and having discussions. I also have my own site, which I’ve treated as a more formal site as of late. I’ve posted columns and other curated work and have been using Facebook for more off-the-cuff posts in hopes of expanding on them into full essays. The main value of Facebook is the ability to have conversations.

I’ve also used Medium, but more for publishing than having conversations, and I have my own site for that. I do some cross-posting on the IEEE site and CircleID.

More recently, I’ve done some posting on Mastodon and LinkedIn. Plus, lots of mailing lists – both public and private.

Each has its purpose, but one theme is that conversations are ephemeral, and I’m trying to build up a body of work while also encouraging conversations because I want to learn from others as well as trying to understand what is not understood. Writing gives me a chance to think things out because I first have to explain the idea to myself and then to others. That requires that I establish a context – a requirement that limits my audience. To address this, I try to write at multiple levels so the pieces are at least approachable.

Alas, providing background references doesn’t work very well. More to the point, a good essay requires many hours or days. That’s the virtue of Facebook, I can get some quick thoughts out and tell myself I’ll follow up later.

So, this post is an experiment – an initial post that I hope to revisit and expand upon as my understanding improves and as I respond to feedback.

Posting on my own site has the advantage of my being able to use the tools I’ve built up over the years, such as using the full power of Microsoft Word for writing while using my own tools to turn such writing into well-formed HTML (unlike native Word🡺HTML tools that try to preserve the accidental properties). But that also creates a maintenance burden and takes time.

Updates

27 March 2023

Discovered that it is very difficult to upload sources to Substack and that they don’t have an API.

So, the search continues. The real problem is not the posting but leverage communities. I can post here but the discussion is the problem.