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March 2026
posted on 03.30.2026

IndieWeb Note vs Article Distinction

The IndieWeb specification formally distinguishes two written post types based on structure, not length:

  • Article: A post with an explicit name (title) property. Usually has multiple paragraphs, subheadings, blockquotes. What most people call a "blog post."
  • Note: A post with no name property or an empty string name. Short, unstructured plain text. The equivalent of a tweet or toot.

The distinction matters for Post Type Discovery, the algorithm IndieWeb clients use to determine how to render a post:

if post has "name" property:
  if name != content (first N chars):
    → article
  else:
    → note
else:
  → note

This means a titled, categorized, tagged post with multiple paragraphs is an article by IndieWeb definition, even if you call it a "note" on your site. The IndieWeb "note" is specifically the titleless micro-post.

Other recognized post types: photo, video, audio, bookmark, reply, repost, like, checkin, rsvp, event. All defined by which microformat properties are present, not by an explicit "type" field.

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