I keep bringing up "Webmentions" in the context of             discussing the sociable web and             advocating for more

A Non-Technical Intro to Webmentions

submited by
Style Pass
2024-10-29 22:30:10

I keep bringing up "Webmentions" in the context of discussing the sociable web and advocating for more people to adopt more social technologies on their websites, but I always run into a wall: there's no good place to link people to so they can understand more about what that means. All the existing explanations I've found are deep in the weeds of how Webmentions work on a technical level, which isn't a very helpful place to start for people who just want to post.

I want to fill that gap with this post, and give people who don't know the ins and outs of HTTP a working understanding of what Webmentions do and how to get them up and running for your site. To that end:

That's it! At it's core, it's just that simple. If a website supports Webmentions, you tell it "Hey, here's the URL of a page with a link to you", it double-checks that the link actually exists, and then it does what it pleases with that information.

Leave a Comment