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Dear Facebook,

We need to talk.

You and I have been together for a long time. I wrote blog posts, you provided a place to share them. For years that worked. But lately you’ve been treating my posts like spam — my own blog links! Apparently linking to an external site on my Page is now a cardinal sin unless I pay to “boost” it.
And it’s not just Facebook. Threads — another Meta platform — also keeps taking down my blog links.

So this is goodbye… at least for my Facebook Page.
I’m not deleting my personal Profile. I’ll still pop in to see what events are coming up, and to look at photos after the balfolk and festivals. But our Page-posting days are over.

Here’s why:

  • Your algorithm is a slot machine. What used to be “share and be seen” has become “share, pray, and maybe pay.” I’d rather drop coins in an actual jukebox than feed a zuckerbot just so friends can see my work.
  • Talking into a digital void. Posting to my Page now feels like performing in an empty theatre while an usher whispers “boost post?” The real conversations happen by email, on Mastodon, or — imagine — in real life.
  • Privacy, ads, and that creepy feeling. Every login is a reminder that Facebook isn’t free. I’m paying with my data to scroll past ads for things I only muttered near my phone. That’s not the backdrop I want for my writing.
  • The algorithm ate my audience. Remember when following a Page meant seeing its posts? Cute era. Now everything’s at the mercy of an opaque feed.
  • My house, my rules. I built amedee.be to be my own little corner of the web. No arbitrary takedowns, no algorithmic chokehold, no random “spam” labels. Subscribe by RSS or email and you’ll get my posts in the order I publish them — not the order an algorithm thinks you should.
  • Better energy elsewhere. Time spent arm-wrestling Facebook is time I could spend writing, playing the nyckelharpa, or dancing a Swedish polska at a balfolk. All of that beats arguing with a zuckerbot.

From now on, if people actually want to read what I write, they’ll find me at amedee.be, via RSS, email, or Mastodon. No algorithms, no takedowns, no mystery boxes.

So yes, we’ll still bump into each other when I check events or browse photos. But the part where I dutifully feed you my blog posts? That’s over.

With zero boosted posts and one very happy nyckelharpa,
Amedee

You can now follow my blog from the Fediverse!

If you are part of the Fediverse—on Mastodon, Pleroma, or any other ActivityPub-compatible platform—you can now follow this blog directly from your favorite platform.

Thanks to the excellent ActivityPub plugin for WordPress, each blog post I publish on amedee.be is now automatically shared in a way that federated social platforms can understand and display.

Follow me from Mastodon

If you are on Mastodon, you can follow this blog just like you would follow another person:

Search for: @amedee.be@amedee.be

Or click this link if your Mastodon instance supports it:
https://amedee.be/@amedee.be

New blog posts will appear in your timeline, and you can even reply to them from Mastodon. Your comments will appear as replies on the blog post page—Fediverse and WordPress users interacting seamlessly!

Why I enabled ActivityPub

I have been active on Mastodon for a while as @amedee@lou.lt, and I really enjoy the decentralized, open nature of the Fediverse. It is a refreshing change from the algorithm-driven social media platforms.

Adding ActivityPub support to my blog aligns perfectly with those values: open standards, decentralization, and full control over my own content.

This change was as simple as adding the activitypub plugin to my blog’s Ansible configuration on GitHub:

 blog_wp_plugins_install:
+  - activitypub
   - akismet
   - google-site-kit
   - health-check

Once deployed, GitHub Actions and Ansible took care of the rest.

What this means for you

If you already follow me on Mastodon (@amedee@lou.lt), nothing changes—you will still see the occasional personal post, boost, or comment.

But if you are more interested in my blog content—technical articles, tutorials, and occasional personal reflections—you might prefer following @amedee.be@amedee.be. It is an automated account that only shares blog posts.

This setup lets me keep content separate and organized, while still engaging with the broader Fediverse community.

Want to do the same for your blog?

Setting this up is easy:

  1. Make sure you are running WordPress version 6.4 or later.
  2. Install and activate the ActivityPub plugin.
  3. After activation, your author profile (and optionally, your blog itself) becomes followable via the Fediverse.
  4. Start publishing—and federate your writing with the world!

New blog layout

The blog has a new layout. Some of the most important changes:

  • Much smaller logo. The logo was taking up waaaaay too much space.
  • The thumbnails have a shadow on the main page.
  • I hope that the font is easier to read. I might tweak this later.
  • Less clutter in the sidebar!
  • The social links have moved to the Contact page.
  • The top menu is rearranged a bit.
  • The blog archive displays the full article, not just an excerpt.
  • Infinite scroll! I don’t know yet if I like it, I might change it later.
  • The blog archive has 2 columns. Again, I’m not sure about this, might change it later. Feedback is welcome, leave a comment! I changed it to single column, that’s easier to read, especially on mobile.
  • The most recent post is displayed full width.
  • On individual posts the thumbnail image is now the background of the title.
  • I’m still not entirely happy that the author is shown at the bottom of each blog post. I’m the only author here, so that’s useless, but I have not yet found how to remove that. EDIT: fixed with some extra CSS. Thanks for the tip, Frank!

Do you have any suggestions or comments on the new layout?

Hello (again) world!

Het werd stilaan wel eens tijd om iets te doen aan de blog die in de lappenmand lag. Normaal gebruik ik Drupal voor websites, maar fsck it, deze keer wil ik alleen maar een simpele blog. Dus WordPress. Sorry Dries, ik ga niet met een kanon op een mug schieten.

In de komende dagen ga ik uitzoeken hoe ik blogposts kan migreren van Drupal naar WordPress. Desnoods is ‘t copy/paste van de Wayback Machine.

Nu ook met Drupal!

Uit een irc-log van 2007:

23:39 < Amedee> en, zou ik ook eens drupal installeren op m'n eigen site? ik ben bitweaver een beetje beu
23:52 < Digi-God> Amedee: wat is er mis met vim?
23:57 < Amedee> Digi-God: dat is schuurpoeder
Day changed to 07 feb 2007
00:37 < Amedee> et voila, 't staat er
00:37 < Amedee> morgen nog wa verder rondneuzen in dienen drupal

Op 7 februari 2007 ben ik dus officieel begonnen met Drupal. Van de blog in Bitweaver, of die daarvoor in TikiWiki, heb ik geen archief meer.