I'm incredibly late in saying it, but - thank YOU for what you do, Susan, and for popping over here to say hi. I'm really enjoying your new venture here on Substack. (I keep missing the Candlelight Chats, but I'm catching up with the replays right now.)
I just started reading your book, as suggested by Mike, and I can't address enough how much it is helping me as I navigate reverse culture shock from my calm, quiet European lifestyle to the Latinamerican crazy, noisy, intense family lifestyle. I just started reading it and I'm already so so grateful. 🥰 Thank you both!
So glad Mike Sowden is at the party! Shall we tell him The Quiet Life is a new name, but your newsletter has been pumping out consistent joy since January 2013? Naw.... Let him think he discovered gold. Everything is Amazing for him and awe is what we all need plenty of.
Ha! Everything is amazing because everything *is* amazing - but it's also amazing when you have nothing in your brain beforehand, which is the case with my damnfool self.
I subscribe to (too) many Substack newsletters, including many on both sides of this issue. I think Elle is reasonable. I don't trust the "everyone I don't like is a Nazi" mindset not to creep in. While I have found the minefield that political discourse has become over the past 8ish years or so as disturbing as the next person, I've come to believe that we suffer from silo-ing off ourselves, and that shunning and mocking those we disagree with is not the model for a healthy society. (The comment from Overtheblues says it better).
I think Elle is reasonable too, and I don't disagree with her argument that free speech is important. But Elle's open letter and the Substackers Against Nazis open letter weren't in direct contradictory opposition to each other - there's heavy overlap, but nobody would be saying that Elle is in favour of Neo-Nazism. Similarly, I think it's misleading to think that it's going to turn into "if I don't like your views, I'll call you a Nazi so you can get banned". That might be said by some folk, but it can't be acted upon because then it has to be justified. A respectful difference of opinion is not going to cut it. Anyway, Substack *already* moderates against hate speech, so in a way the "no moderation" argument is already null and void:
"Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition." - https://substack.com/content
Substack are pretty clear that there's a line between freedom of speech and hate speech. They'll argue over where it exists behind the scenes before they act on it, but according to their own rules, it exists! And that's what Substackers Against Nazis was about. It wasn't saying "let's ultra-'moderate' this place until everyone agrees with us", same way Elle's argument wasn't "let's allow all hate speech, and content rules be damned". It was saying "are openly white supremacist neo-Nazi newsletters an example of hate speech?" Substack's eventual answer was to ban some of the newsletters in question, so - yes.
So, I think there's plenty of nuance still to untangle here. I'm sticking around while that happens.
I need to express the idea that these days it is sooooo easy to be labelled 'Anti-Semite', 'Neo-Nazi', 'Far-right Extremist', 'Domestic Terrorist', 'Homo-or Transphobic' etc, for merely having an opinion that doesn't slot in exactly with the allowed narrative, that I really wonder about how productive it really is to play the 'We're above any reproach - because we are the right-thinking crowd' game. All people ought to be amenable to reasonable arguments for a particular viewpoint. If after considering all the points raised you still differ, you can still respect each other and agree to disagree. No-one espousing truly revolting ideologies will make any money from their writing unless others agree with them. If that is happening you are better off trying to debate their viewpoints than alienating and 'othering' them. After all, all the labels above are used to shame people for anti-social attitudes - so don't practice them yourself if you want to persuade anyone of your humanity loving stance.
I agree that throwing around generalisms and blanket terms like those is usually unhelpful and intensifies things (and usually both). Same goes for the term "woke", IMHO! Ideally it's always a case by case thing that focuses on the facts, rather than a war of ideological labels that gets nowhere because everyone's so entrenched. That said, if someone's avatar is a Nazi-style swastika and they're denying the Holocaust happened and saying non-white people are a 'problem that needs to be dealt with', that's textbook Neo-Nazism. I saw some of that on Substack (I now see that one I looked at has now been removed, which is good news) and it was pretty unambiguous.
Cheers, Israel! I think it very much depends on where you choose to go - switching to Ghost seems a bit more finicky than other options, but also more powerful and flexible when you learn what you're doing. However, their documentation is spectacular: https://ghost.org/docs/migration/substack/ And it's worth reading Platformer, which switched to Ghost and has talked about the process of doing it...
The most popular alternative I've seen is beehiiv, and it's worth reading a few of the newsletters who left Substack in recent months, to see how the transition went for them. One example is Garbage Day - there's a bit here about it: https://www.garbageday.email/p/hollywood-vs-attention-economy But also Phil Plait, Today In Tabs, etc. And also Hannah Raskin and Meg Conley, who have assembled their own post-Substack alternatives on their own webspaces.
Thank you for that deep insightful post. If you move away, I believe there are a few nice plattforms out there such as beehiv, convertkit etc. I really like what substack is doing in technical terms. We have so many tools, options and settings to chose from, to customize everything and also can reach many people over the substack app etc. Hope this all calms down again, because I really like this place, even if i "just" started compared to others on here.
Thanks, Tobias. If I ever decide to go, it won't be because of technical reasons, that's for sure - Substack is a marvel in that regard, and barring a few minor quibbles (I'd love to see them do autoresponder sequences so I can create a proper introductory series of emails for brand new subscribers) it's pretty amazing stuff.
Yes, thats a feature I would love to see too! Maybe thats the reason a lot are on convertkit etc. for that feature..for me it would also be a game changer. I guess the feature has already been requested?
On the topic of Star Gates, might I recommend you have a look at the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons. I recently reread them and they're stuffed with ideas, one of which is a galactic civilization powered by teleportation portals, which has the interesting effect of negating the idea of distance and creating some unusual city designs.
Yes! Ghagh, I'd totally forgotten. Nice catch, James. I've read "Hyperion" (which makes me a weirdo, because it ends with the story halfway told) and I've now got "The Fall Of Hyperion" racked up in my Audible queue, so...I think I'll have to report back and do a follow-up here. A summary of how science fiction handles the whole instantaneous travel thing is overdue anyway, as I was wanting to do it as a sequel to my recent "Space Is Very Big" newsletter, so - thank you, this means it's two birds with one stone!
I want to see it too! How would that work, with the curve of the Earth and everything? (I know from your Substack that you love what-if questions like this, so that's me asking, in the hope that you eventually run a Kickstarter to build it.)
Funnily enough, I just saw this via Phil Plait, which is somewhat related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LSyizrk8-0 Seems like even the best telescopes in orbit still fall quite a bit short in image quality...
Dec 29, 2023·edited Dec 29, 2023Liked by Mike Sowden
"You took a tree and sliced it really thin..." 🤣🤣🤣 thanks for that.
Those we don't call em "Stargates" are cool but gimmicky.
You mention your backup is all you need and it's in a shape where you can just drop it on another platform. That is not my experience looking at the backup export, it's single html files with zero formatting and the media is linked to amazon cloud servers and in the case of video or voice over that data is simply missing, also the text is riddled with truncated words and special characters due to an ASCII export error where some letters are not exported correctly ("Paul’s turmoil" should be Paul's turmoil // “Doctor Carter? Is that you?â€). They need to fix a lot of things before I would call their export a "backup." Right now it is not usable.
Thanks, Alexander - it seems you're right! I have a friend who moved from Substack to his own self-hosted option, and he reported having a bit of a job tidying up his archives in order to republish them over there. This is definitely a factor to be aware of - it seems it's usable, but not "out the box", it requires either a little or a lot of clean-up work. (I gathered that moving to beehiiv is a lot cleaner with far fewer errors, so I guess it's platform-dependent...)
Yeah, I wager it will be different from platform to platform regarding textual adjustments. However, the export does not contain any video or audio (article voiceovers, podcasts) and all my exported html files only contain text and images. Are you saying you have all audio and video exported for your posts?
As far as I understand, I don't! When I realised this, I started archiving my audio separately (on Dropbox) - and I don't have any video yet, but when I do, I'll start doing the same. If you're running a multimedia Substack beyond the basic text and images, this is certainly a good thing to be aware of. It's a bare-bones export.
Yep, I have all my bounced audios and videos backed up naturally, and something everyone needs to be aware of, back up your stuff. Substack goes down tomorrow, you have nothing. And since none of the audio/video is even linked in any of the exported html files a lot of extra work will be required to move that content to another platform. Maybe the various crawler scripts on Github could be an option to get a "full export."
Substack has many views, sort of the pubic square concept that no longer has any geographical point from which such can exist in today's digital world. I don't have to subscribe to anyone's views I don't want to. Perhaps in some ways it's not an entirely bad thing to be able to see what the people you don't like are saying. They aren't necessarily going to stop thinking those things just because your favorite platform kicks them off, nor is any thinking person going to think you support those ideas because you are using the same platform for your speech.
Ultimately, after today's obviously bad ideas are eliminated, whose to say that tomorrow's good ideas won't be the next target. One would have to trust those who are making such determinations far more than they deserve.
Thanks, Joy! Yes - I agree that kicking toxic folk off platforms doesn't "teach them" in any way. Often the opposite, if they end up with a persecution complex. However, there's a real ethical issue when you realise that, by way of subscription revenues, your subscribers are paying a platform that invites those people to make money off their work! It's tricky stuff, and I'm certainly not done with thinking it through. So far, I'm staying on Substack, but quite a few folk have decided to leave it, partly because they were losing paid subscribers who were making that ethical decision for themselves and choosing to unsubscribe. So it's had a very real impact for some writers, in terms of their income.
(I was also concerned about what would happen if, say, an openly neo-Nazi newsletter started publishing things under the guise of free speech that are outright banned in Germany and elsewhere, and the E.U. stepped in to block Substack from its citizens - meaning, I'd lose around a fifth of my own paid subscribers overnight! So far, not a scenario that has come to pass, and fingers crossed it never does.)
What a beautiful Exploration about something that makes us human... social connections. (And curiosity.) I do hope you're feeling better now.. greetings during Witching Week, from me, in the beatiful pine state (Maine)!
I'm more than a bit late in saying it, but thank you, Alicia!
You live in a beautiful part of the world - which I know from seeing it online, and I'll ignore what Stephen King's saying about it in the audiobook I'm listening to (Salem's Lot).
'Tis beautiful here, yes. It's eery how accurate his descriptions of the landscape and people are, though. There are parts of Maine that are definitely "Salem's Lot-ish." His home is about 25 minutes from us, in the city of Bangor—AKA Derry. "IT" is a wonderful city with an interesting energy about it... Enjoy the book!
Dec 29, 2023·edited Dec 29, 2023Liked by Mike Sowden
Mike, I'm so glad you're feeling better. R and R and make sure you maintain the upward curve!
I've enjoyed reading your output. I'm no science buff but you have the knack of offering a baited hook. I've learned quite a lot venturing down the rabbit-holes .
I do hope you don't leave Substack but I can understand the rationale. I'm facing the same thing myself, except that I'm a very low flier and my leaving would mean nothing to Substack.
I'm an introvert but LOVE interacting with kindred spirits and am keen to revive (and never lose) the art of letter writing - its part of my desire (not NY Resolution) for 2024.
I'm of an age where I can recall the utter romance of letter-writing - the choice of paper, inks, envelopes, stamps, style of writing and the importance of content. Then the thrill of going to the letterbox and posting, or going to one's own letterbox and taking out the letter, opening it and sitting for a few quiet moments, touching the paper that one's friend has touched, totally in the moment as one reads the words. Intimate and beautiful and worth saving for posterity. Beats emails hands down
Happy 2024!
PS: I'm on the island of Tasmania, Australia. 42 degrees south latitude.
Fun fact - I got curious, and I'm now reading a book called "The Stumpwork Robe". Heard of it? 😁(Enjoying it greatly so far.)
You've also reminded me how much I love writing physical letters, and how long it's been since I wrote one. That needs amending. Also, it has been *at least ten years* since I had my own fountain pen. That is a disgrace. So you've put me on a mission! Thank you, Prue.
I would love to write in fountain pen - it's on a wish list. Also the art of marginalia for the blots of which they'd be plenty! Those monks from medieval times really had senses of humour!
This resonated with me. I’m sort of the local stick-in-the-mud regarding online education, *especially* for majors courses. There’s just nothing like interacting with an in-person class.
Yeah, I feel the same way (not as a teacher, but as a student) - as lifechanging as the internet / virtual world has been for me personally, I never want to forget what it actually, truly is: sitting in a room, staring at a screen. Our minds may be going amazing places and doing amazing things as a consequence of doing that, but our bodies absolutely aren't, and that's always going to be a problem. Especially in human-to-human communication. We're designed for the real, and it seems we learn better that way, too.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like you might want have an in person meet up. It might be be the excuse you need to hit the road. As for Substack, I plan to hang out until it's clear that the Substack leadership hasn't listened and I'll give authors I enjoy time to move.
In-person meetups are the dream, yes! Would love to organise one properly, but I've done it on an individual basis for a while with many folk who have been passing nearby, and I've attended one Substack gathering in Edinburgh. But nothing beats the fun (and of course potential horror) of being face to face with someone you've been virtually chatting to, or, god forbid, reading the semi-deranged newsletter of...
And I appreciate you deciding to stick around for now, Joe.
Mike, EIA is one of the best things on Substack, and I’d hate to see you go elsewhere; still I understand if you do. I believe all this has gone way out of proportion, but that’s just one fool’s opinion.
1) I've already hesitated to subscribe to anyone here, partly because I'm APPALLINGLY broke -- or I probably WOULD have sent you money already -- but also because before the whole Nazi thing, Substack was already perfectly happy to host (& pay) people who would be perfectly happy to see all transgender people dead. Which. Is kinda also Nazis, if you think about it.
2) That portal is AWESOMETASTIC & I really hope the big town near me does one, which is pretty unlikely, because the big town near me has fewer than ten thousand full-time residents & is, also, on the generally not-rich side of things.
3) I wonder, for the in person vs. on screen thing, if they set up the screens & cameras so that the camera was, somehow, in the center of the screen. A problem with Zoom & similar, for many people, or so I've heard, is that due to the camera vs. screen placement, it's impossible to actually look someone in the eyes on screen. I understand that makes it harder to feel connected, for many people.
4) Relatedly, I wonder how many, if any, of the people in the above study were autistic. I ask this as an autistic person who quite often goes through entire in person spoken conversations -- enthusiastic ones! -- with people without anyone meeting anyone's eyes, because that can be twitchy-making for the lot of us here in this tiny cabin, on account of we're all autistic. (Nice part of all of us being autistic is none of us gets cranky at anyone else for avoiding eye contact.)
5) The approximate location of this tiny cabin is Mosca, Colorado. About two miles out of town, more specifically. Population just over a thousand, which probably doesn't actually count us. The 'big' town nearby is Alamosa. Both are in the San Luis Valley, the largest alpine valley in the world. I could go on with interesting local facts (& will happily do so if you wish) but also I thought you might enjoy poking around on wikipedia or similar on your own. Have fun!
1) I totally understand, and yes - there are indeed some really vile voices using Substack to peddle their hatred. Nevertheless I'm still here after this latest controversy, and I'm seeing how it shakes down. But certainly, those people who want transgender people removed from the world, or indeed anyone removed from the world, will never have a place in the comments or the community around my newsletter, whether it's on Substack or elsewhere. I am not (I would hope) one of the folk that think enabling hate speech is a necessary consequence of allowing free speech.
(Also, thank you for eventually deciding to give a paid subscription a go. I really appreciate your faith in me and I hope I can deliver the goods!)
2) As I understand it, the team that made the Portal/Stargate want to expand it worldwide - and they're not just looking at big cities. Maybe a letter to your local member of parliament might do something?
3) That's such a good point. Yes, that lack of eye contact has to be having an effect since it's so weird - imagine talking to someone IRL and they're looking over your left shoulder all the time. I haven't seen any studies done on this - there's plenty coming out about 'Zoom fatigue' which includes the pressure of feeling watched - https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/ - but not about the *lack* of direct eye contact. Hmmm. (At least what the study I cited did was compared like to like - it was differences in the behaviour of the same people in each case. So that's a reliable filter...)
4) Another great question! I knew a little of this (https://news.yale.edu/2022/11/09/why-eye-contact-different-autism) but hadn't considered the consequences. So I guess - since the lack of direct eye contact can be *more* comfortable to some people, that would show in a study like that as those folks being *more* engaged in a virtual environment where they don't have to look someone directly in the eye? Do you find you're less distracted or more distracted when on a Zoom call vs. chatting to someone in person?
5) That sounds fabulous. I just Google-searched, and - good grief. You have quite the location there.
2) oooooooOOOOOOOOOO, I'll have to see about doing that!
3) Ahh, like to like is a good way to reduce variables.
4) Hmm, I've only ever been on a few Zoom calls, but I'd say I'm more focused on them than in person? Although that might ALSO be because I _need_ to be more focused; in person chatting is nearly always easier for me.
5) I just put what you said through my handy-dandy British to American translator & I am GIGGLING. Yes, living here is certainly a whole Thing.
thanks so much for the warm welcome, Mike!
I'm incredibly late in saying it, but - thank YOU for what you do, Susan, and for popping over here to say hi. I'm really enjoying your new venture here on Substack. (I keep missing the Candlelight Chats, but I'm catching up with the replays right now.)
I just started reading your book, as suggested by Mike, and I can't address enough how much it is helping me as I navigate reverse culture shock from my calm, quiet European lifestyle to the Latinamerican crazy, noisy, intense family lifestyle. I just started reading it and I'm already so so grateful. 🥰 Thank you both!
So glad Mike Sowden is at the party! Shall we tell him The Quiet Life is a new name, but your newsletter has been pumping out consistent joy since January 2013? Naw.... Let him think he discovered gold. Everything is Amazing for him and awe is what we all need plenty of.
LOL re "everything is amazing for him" - it's such a charming quality.
Ha! Everything is amazing because everything *is* amazing - but it's also amazing when you have nothing in your brain beforehand, which is the case with my damnfool self.
I'm well aware, Georgia! 😁 I've been a subscriber of Susan's for years, so I was delighted when she brough the newsletter over to Substack.
I'm with Elle. https://www.elysian.press/p/substack-writers-for-community-moderation
I subscribe to (too) many Substack newsletters, including many on both sides of this issue. I think Elle is reasonable. I don't trust the "everyone I don't like is a Nazi" mindset not to creep in. While I have found the minefield that political discourse has become over the past 8ish years or so as disturbing as the next person, I've come to believe that we suffer from silo-ing off ourselves, and that shunning and mocking those we disagree with is not the model for a healthy society. (The comment from Overtheblues says it better).
I think Elle is reasonable too, and I don't disagree with her argument that free speech is important. But Elle's open letter and the Substackers Against Nazis open letter weren't in direct contradictory opposition to each other - there's heavy overlap, but nobody would be saying that Elle is in favour of Neo-Nazism. Similarly, I think it's misleading to think that it's going to turn into "if I don't like your views, I'll call you a Nazi so you can get banned". That might be said by some folk, but it can't be acted upon because then it has to be justified. A respectful difference of opinion is not going to cut it. Anyway, Substack *already* moderates against hate speech, so in a way the "no moderation" argument is already null and void:
"Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition." - https://substack.com/content
Substack are pretty clear that there's a line between freedom of speech and hate speech. They'll argue over where it exists behind the scenes before they act on it, but according to their own rules, it exists! And that's what Substackers Against Nazis was about. It wasn't saying "let's ultra-'moderate' this place until everyone agrees with us", same way Elle's argument wasn't "let's allow all hate speech, and content rules be damned". It was saying "are openly white supremacist neo-Nazi newsletters an example of hate speech?" Substack's eventual answer was to ban some of the newsletters in question, so - yes.
So, I think there's plenty of nuance still to untangle here. I'm sticking around while that happens.
I need to express the idea that these days it is sooooo easy to be labelled 'Anti-Semite', 'Neo-Nazi', 'Far-right Extremist', 'Domestic Terrorist', 'Homo-or Transphobic' etc, for merely having an opinion that doesn't slot in exactly with the allowed narrative, that I really wonder about how productive it really is to play the 'We're above any reproach - because we are the right-thinking crowd' game. All people ought to be amenable to reasonable arguments for a particular viewpoint. If after considering all the points raised you still differ, you can still respect each other and agree to disagree. No-one espousing truly revolting ideologies will make any money from their writing unless others agree with them. If that is happening you are better off trying to debate their viewpoints than alienating and 'othering' them. After all, all the labels above are used to shame people for anti-social attitudes - so don't practice them yourself if you want to persuade anyone of your humanity loving stance.
I agree that throwing around generalisms and blanket terms like those is usually unhelpful and intensifies things (and usually both). Same goes for the term "woke", IMHO! Ideally it's always a case by case thing that focuses on the facts, rather than a war of ideological labels that gets nowhere because everyone's so entrenched. That said, if someone's avatar is a Nazi-style swastika and they're denying the Holocaust happened and saying non-white people are a 'problem that needs to be dealt with', that's textbook Neo-Nazism. I saw some of that on Substack (I now see that one I looked at has now been removed, which is good news) and it was pretty unambiguous.
This is fascinating, Mike. I’ve been doing some reading on this topic recently.
Also, if you ever make that change off Substack, I would be curious to know the ins of that transition.
Cheers, Israel! I think it very much depends on where you choose to go - switching to Ghost seems a bit more finicky than other options, but also more powerful and flexible when you learn what you're doing. However, their documentation is spectacular: https://ghost.org/docs/migration/substack/ And it's worth reading Platformer, which switched to Ghost and has talked about the process of doing it...
The most popular alternative I've seen is beehiiv, and it's worth reading a few of the newsletters who left Substack in recent months, to see how the transition went for them. One example is Garbage Day - there's a bit here about it: https://www.garbageday.email/p/hollywood-vs-attention-economy But also Phil Plait, Today In Tabs, etc. And also Hannah Raskin and Meg Conley, who have assembled their own post-Substack alternatives on their own webspaces.
Thank you for that deep insightful post. If you move away, I believe there are a few nice plattforms out there such as beehiv, convertkit etc. I really like what substack is doing in technical terms. We have so many tools, options and settings to chose from, to customize everything and also can reach many people over the substack app etc. Hope this all calms down again, because I really like this place, even if i "just" started compared to others on here.
Thanks, Tobias. If I ever decide to go, it won't be because of technical reasons, that's for sure - Substack is a marvel in that regard, and barring a few minor quibbles (I'd love to see them do autoresponder sequences so I can create a proper introductory series of emails for brand new subscribers) it's pretty amazing stuff.
Yes, thats a feature I would love to see too! Maybe thats the reason a lot are on convertkit etc. for that feature..for me it would also be a game changer. I guess the feature has already been requested?
Hi Mike,
On the topic of Star Gates, might I recommend you have a look at the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons. I recently reread them and they're stuffed with ideas, one of which is a galactic civilization powered by teleportation portals, which has the interesting effect of negating the idea of distance and creating some unusual city designs.
Yes! Ghagh, I'd totally forgotten. Nice catch, James. I've read "Hyperion" (which makes me a weirdo, because it ends with the story halfway told) and I've now got "The Fall Of Hyperion" racked up in my Audible queue, so...I think I'll have to report back and do a follow-up here. A summary of how science fiction handles the whole instantaneous travel thing is overdue anyway, as I was wanting to do it as a sequel to my recent "Space Is Very Big" newsletter, so - thank you, this means it's two birds with one stone!
I still love this, but let's make one that uses a super-powerful telescopic lens and does the same thing, sans video transmission. I want to see this!
I want to see it too! How would that work, with the curve of the Earth and everything? (I know from your Substack that you love what-if questions like this, so that's me asking, in the hope that you eventually run a Kickstarter to build it.)
Funnily enough, I just saw this via Phil Plait, which is somewhat related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LSyizrk8-0 Seems like even the best telescopes in orbit still fall quite a bit short in image quality...
Mike, I did a little homage to this idea and your observation!
https://goatfury.substack.com/p/seeing-farther
also yeah, we'll fix all that stuff with close up telescopes with a gofundme. On it!
"You took a tree and sliced it really thin..." 🤣🤣🤣 thanks for that.
Those we don't call em "Stargates" are cool but gimmicky.
You mention your backup is all you need and it's in a shape where you can just drop it on another platform. That is not my experience looking at the backup export, it's single html files with zero formatting and the media is linked to amazon cloud servers and in the case of video or voice over that data is simply missing, also the text is riddled with truncated words and special characters due to an ASCII export error where some letters are not exported correctly ("Paul’s turmoil" should be Paul's turmoil // “Doctor Carter? Is that you?â€). They need to fix a lot of things before I would call their export a "backup." Right now it is not usable.
Thanks, Alexander - it seems you're right! I have a friend who moved from Substack to his own self-hosted option, and he reported having a bit of a job tidying up his archives in order to republish them over there. This is definitely a factor to be aware of - it seems it's usable, but not "out the box", it requires either a little or a lot of clean-up work. (I gathered that moving to beehiiv is a lot cleaner with far fewer errors, so I guess it's platform-dependent...)
Yeah, I wager it will be different from platform to platform regarding textual adjustments. However, the export does not contain any video or audio (article voiceovers, podcasts) and all my exported html files only contain text and images. Are you saying you have all audio and video exported for your posts?
As far as I understand, I don't! When I realised this, I started archiving my audio separately (on Dropbox) - and I don't have any video yet, but when I do, I'll start doing the same. If you're running a multimedia Substack beyond the basic text and images, this is certainly a good thing to be aware of. It's a bare-bones export.
Yep, I have all my bounced audios and videos backed up naturally, and something everyone needs to be aware of, back up your stuff. Substack goes down tomorrow, you have nothing. And since none of the audio/video is even linked in any of the exported html files a lot of extra work will be required to move that content to another platform. Maybe the various crawler scripts on Github could be an option to get a "full export."
Substack has many views, sort of the pubic square concept that no longer has any geographical point from which such can exist in today's digital world. I don't have to subscribe to anyone's views I don't want to. Perhaps in some ways it's not an entirely bad thing to be able to see what the people you don't like are saying. They aren't necessarily going to stop thinking those things just because your favorite platform kicks them off, nor is any thinking person going to think you support those ideas because you are using the same platform for your speech.
Ultimately, after today's obviously bad ideas are eliminated, whose to say that tomorrow's good ideas won't be the next target. One would have to trust those who are making such determinations far more than they deserve.
Thanks for the post.
Thanks, Joy! Yes - I agree that kicking toxic folk off platforms doesn't "teach them" in any way. Often the opposite, if they end up with a persecution complex. However, there's a real ethical issue when you realise that, by way of subscription revenues, your subscribers are paying a platform that invites those people to make money off their work! It's tricky stuff, and I'm certainly not done with thinking it through. So far, I'm staying on Substack, but quite a few folk have decided to leave it, partly because they were losing paid subscribers who were making that ethical decision for themselves and choosing to unsubscribe. So it's had a very real impact for some writers, in terms of their income.
(I was also concerned about what would happen if, say, an openly neo-Nazi newsletter started publishing things under the guise of free speech that are outright banned in Germany and elsewhere, and the E.U. stepped in to block Substack from its citizens - meaning, I'd lose around a fifth of my own paid subscribers overnight! So far, not a scenario that has come to pass, and fingers crossed it never does.)
What a beautiful Exploration about something that makes us human... social connections. (And curiosity.) I do hope you're feeling better now.. greetings during Witching Week, from me, in the beatiful pine state (Maine)!
I'm more than a bit late in saying it, but thank you, Alicia!
You live in a beautiful part of the world - which I know from seeing it online, and I'll ignore what Stephen King's saying about it in the audiobook I'm listening to (Salem's Lot).
'Tis beautiful here, yes. It's eery how accurate his descriptions of the landscape and people are, though. There are parts of Maine that are definitely "Salem's Lot-ish." His home is about 25 minutes from us, in the city of Bangor—AKA Derry. "IT" is a wonderful city with an interesting energy about it... Enjoy the book!
Mike, I'm so glad you're feeling better. R and R and make sure you maintain the upward curve!
I've enjoyed reading your output. I'm no science buff but you have the knack of offering a baited hook. I've learned quite a lot venturing down the rabbit-holes .
I do hope you don't leave Substack but I can understand the rationale. I'm facing the same thing myself, except that I'm a very low flier and my leaving would mean nothing to Substack.
I'm an introvert but LOVE interacting with kindred spirits and am keen to revive (and never lose) the art of letter writing - its part of my desire (not NY Resolution) for 2024.
I'm of an age where I can recall the utter romance of letter-writing - the choice of paper, inks, envelopes, stamps, style of writing and the importance of content. Then the thrill of going to the letterbox and posting, or going to one's own letterbox and taking out the letter, opening it and sitting for a few quiet moments, touching the paper that one's friend has touched, totally in the moment as one reads the words. Intimate and beautiful and worth saving for posterity. Beats emails hands down
Happy 2024!
PS: I'm on the island of Tasmania, Australia. 42 degrees south latitude.
Fun fact - I got curious, and I'm now reading a book called "The Stumpwork Robe". Heard of it? 😁(Enjoying it greatly so far.)
You've also reminded me how much I love writing physical letters, and how long it's been since I wrote one. That needs amending. Also, it has been *at least ten years* since I had my own fountain pen. That is a disgrace. So you've put me on a mission! Thank you, Prue.
Oh my God. Thank you.
I would love to write in fountain pen - it's on a wish list. Also the art of marginalia for the blots of which they'd be plenty! Those monks from medieval times really had senses of humour!
"tyranny of usefulness" is now part of my vocabulary!
Hooray! I rather like the phrase. I'm sure I've borrowed it from somewhere - maybe Jenny Odell. Read "How To Do Nothing" for a brilliant extended argument against hustle-culture usefulness: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/02/jenny-odell-how-to-do-nothing-attention
This resonated with me. I’m sort of the local stick-in-the-mud regarding online education, *especially* for majors courses. There’s just nothing like interacting with an in-person class.
Yeah, I feel the same way (not as a teacher, but as a student) - as lifechanging as the internet / virtual world has been for me personally, I never want to forget what it actually, truly is: sitting in a room, staring at a screen. Our minds may be going amazing places and doing amazing things as a consequence of doing that, but our bodies absolutely aren't, and that's always going to be a problem. Especially in human-to-human communication. We're designed for the real, and it seems we learn better that way, too.
Mike,
Reading between the lines, it sounds like you might want have an in person meet up. It might be be the excuse you need to hit the road. As for Substack, I plan to hang out until it's clear that the Substack leadership hasn't listened and I'll give authors I enjoy time to move.
In-person meetups are the dream, yes! Would love to organise one properly, but I've done it on an individual basis for a while with many folk who have been passing nearby, and I've attended one Substack gathering in Edinburgh. But nothing beats the fun (and of course potential horror) of being face to face with someone you've been virtually chatting to, or, god forbid, reading the semi-deranged newsletter of...
And I appreciate you deciding to stick around for now, Joe.
Mike, EIA is one of the best things on Substack, and I’d hate to see you go elsewhere; still I understand if you do. I believe all this has gone way out of proportion, but that’s just one fool’s opinion.
I appreciate the kind words, sir. :) Thank you. And as you can see, I'm still around.
1) I've already hesitated to subscribe to anyone here, partly because I'm APPALLINGLY broke -- or I probably WOULD have sent you money already -- but also because before the whole Nazi thing, Substack was already perfectly happy to host (& pay) people who would be perfectly happy to see all transgender people dead. Which. Is kinda also Nazis, if you think about it.
2) That portal is AWESOMETASTIC & I really hope the big town near me does one, which is pretty unlikely, because the big town near me has fewer than ten thousand full-time residents & is, also, on the generally not-rich side of things.
3) I wonder, for the in person vs. on screen thing, if they set up the screens & cameras so that the camera was, somehow, in the center of the screen. A problem with Zoom & similar, for many people, or so I've heard, is that due to the camera vs. screen placement, it's impossible to actually look someone in the eyes on screen. I understand that makes it harder to feel connected, for many people.
4) Relatedly, I wonder how many, if any, of the people in the above study were autistic. I ask this as an autistic person who quite often goes through entire in person spoken conversations -- enthusiastic ones! -- with people without anyone meeting anyone's eyes, because that can be twitchy-making for the lot of us here in this tiny cabin, on account of we're all autistic. (Nice part of all of us being autistic is none of us gets cranky at anyone else for avoiding eye contact.)
5) The approximate location of this tiny cabin is Mosca, Colorado. About two miles out of town, more specifically. Population just over a thousand, which probably doesn't actually count us. The 'big' town nearby is Alamosa. Both are in the San Luis Valley, the largest alpine valley in the world. I could go on with interesting local facts (& will happily do so if you wish) but also I thought you might enjoy poking around on wikipedia or similar on your own. Have fun!
Hey Kellan!
1) I totally understand, and yes - there are indeed some really vile voices using Substack to peddle their hatred. Nevertheless I'm still here after this latest controversy, and I'm seeing how it shakes down. But certainly, those people who want transgender people removed from the world, or indeed anyone removed from the world, will never have a place in the comments or the community around my newsletter, whether it's on Substack or elsewhere. I am not (I would hope) one of the folk that think enabling hate speech is a necessary consequence of allowing free speech.
(Also, thank you for eventually deciding to give a paid subscription a go. I really appreciate your faith in me and I hope I can deliver the goods!)
2) As I understand it, the team that made the Portal/Stargate want to expand it worldwide - and they're not just looking at big cities. Maybe a letter to your local member of parliament might do something?
3) That's such a good point. Yes, that lack of eye contact has to be having an effect since it's so weird - imagine talking to someone IRL and they're looking over your left shoulder all the time. I haven't seen any studies done on this - there's plenty coming out about 'Zoom fatigue' which includes the pressure of feeling watched - https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/ - but not about the *lack* of direct eye contact. Hmmm. (At least what the study I cited did was compared like to like - it was differences in the behaviour of the same people in each case. So that's a reliable filter...)
4) Another great question! I knew a little of this (https://news.yale.edu/2022/11/09/why-eye-contact-different-autism) but hadn't considered the consequences. So I guess - since the lack of direct eye contact can be *more* comfortable to some people, that would show in a study like that as those folks being *more* engaged in a virtual environment where they don't have to look someone directly in the eye? Do you find you're less distracted or more distracted when on a Zoom call vs. chatting to someone in person?
5) That sounds fabulous. I just Google-searched, and - good grief. You have quite the location there.
1) <333
2) oooooooOOOOOOOOOO, I'll have to see about doing that!
3) Ahh, like to like is a good way to reduce variables.
4) Hmm, I've only ever been on a few Zoom calls, but I'd say I'm more focused on them than in person? Although that might ALSO be because I _need_ to be more focused; in person chatting is nearly always easier for me.
5) I just put what you said through my handy-dandy British to American translator & I am GIGGLING. Yes, living here is certainly a whole Thing.