I find the Substack Notes functionality to be irritating and distracting in the long run, and try to avoid it. I’ve found several writers who are worth my time (and yes, you are one of them 😀), and that where I prefer to spend my time and attention. It also doesn’t keep me from discovering new writers - writers here tend to be generous with links to other newsletters that might be of interest.
I think you are wise, Cindy. I wish we could customize the app to turn off the Notes functionality from the interface. That would help cut down on the temptation to go into the Notes feed.
Every damn site or app has to have a news feed thing. The most vomitatious one I have ever seen is LinkedIn’s. Just a bunch of self-promoting babble from fake people trying to suck up to other fake people. Nauseating! 🙄
Thank you also for the kind words, I’m glad to be on your list of writers. 🥰
You and Cindy both seem to have a good handle on it. I wonder though if others have been sucked into the Notes thing more than actually reading articles? Seems like Substack has changed since Notes launched. It's much more fast-paced now, with less reflection and considering than before, or perhaps that's just my perception? 🤔
I don’t know, it depends on how you define free speech. For legal reasons, all of them have limits. So far, I have always thought of it as being one of the best, but is that going to change? I do not know. We shall have to wait and see, I guess.
I don’t have plans to move to another platform, but I have taken to publishing my content also on BMAC for my supporters there, but also to have it mirrored. I just have not had time to go back and put all the old stuff there as I’d have to do it by hand and it would take forever.
I too have found that notes sucks up tremendous time and brain space. My attention span has also been nuked. I hate it. I’m note sure what I can do to reverse that. Part of me thinks about getting a dumb phone and severely limiting my online activities.
Nov 20·edited Nov 20Liked by Morgthorak the Undead
not sure about effects of Notes. at least when it was first issued, it required using substack's "app" to view them on a phone... so I have never scrolled through the Notes at all, as I only use apps when there is no other alternative method to access something I want to.
web interfaces only, please.
even so, I spend entirely too much time every day reading substack articles. maybe I'm catching up on the news since I mostly ignored it between when I shut off the tv nooz in 1995 and when I decided I'd better pay attention to the wide range of alt-news sources regarding medical martial law etc in 2020?
I also have limited viewing access to musk's Tweeter platform, because I refuse to use a phone to validate an account there. and without an account signed in, one can only view top level posts and none of the comments. for several months I was also blocked from viewing top level posts too, but they reverted that lockout. fortuitously for me I've never been a big fan of viewing the Twits.
I guess Elon wants to force people to register. Seems kind of stupid to me since some people just don't want to make accounts. Nitter works if you use the Poast version:
Elon wanting Substack was something I knew about for some time, and I'll admit to my mind twitter is a waste of space. He'd have done better if he had tried to grab substack first, and meld twitter into it.
I really don't want Susbtack to fall or to become warped as I depend upon it for a great deal of feedback on my stories, and thanks to it have undertaken a great many revisions of my fiction and been able to meet a great many writers and editors and minds I wouldn't have otherwise.
The banning of Samara was dumb and I'm so tired of Substack doing this sort of nonsense, they definitely need an 'appeal' system in place if they don't already have one and gotta stop picking on Samara.
I don't think Elon keyed into Substack until after he bought Old Twitter. Still, there's nothing stopping him from mimicking Substack's model, but he chose to try to make writers pay to write articles and how many are going to do that?
I have no problem with Notes. I read my subscribed feed first. Then if I have time I'll peruse Notes. I have found many interesting stackers there. That's how I found you.
Well, that's good to know. Thanks for sharing it as it's helpful to know people are getting here from there. Perhaps it is a good thing then in some respects.
Regarding substacks and ownership - I agree with Kerry. I read Notes very rarely, because they take up my time. As for you personally and your writing - I personally find it very nice when I come across some of the writers I follow on substack quoting each other. So recently I came across you being quoted by one of the authors.
It's morning for me, it's night for you. Then I wish you a good night. And a pleasant awakening with a great song (we can understand this unwrite as: unwrite woke commies for the end of the time).
Thank you, my friend, I appreciate the kind words. Yes, it is evening here and I am going to bed. It has been a long day and I have tarried too long fiddling with backups and what not. Enjoy your day and sleep well when it is your time to do so again. Goodnight. 😴
Thought #1: On January 21st, There will be a historic peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine. Russia will get access to the Baltic and Black Seas, Ukraine will put Zelensky on trial for war crimes.
Thought #2, I heard all the communists scattered to Bluesky and have had people banned from that site. I wish the commies would just leave people alone. You would think the election would tell them that nobody wants them. If I were Bluesky, I'd become a free speech platform. As for Samara being banned, he's done nothing wrong. He's very outspoken in his conservatism. If Substack banned him, they need to stop being stupid. He was making them money.
Thought #3. Elon really needs to work up X into what he wants, rather than trying to buy other sites. Every site he buys bleeds.
Thought #4. Yes, notes is time sucker. I can get lost for hours reading notes. That being said, the home page isn't much better. The articles at the top don't seem to change, even when I've read them.
Substack is becoming sludge. I post my stories on Wednesday, work on my newsletter for Thursday and am bored the rest of the time.
Last thought: Computer GPS systems do the damndest things. They can take a straight route and put you into the lake. That's why paper maps win.
I hope you are right about Ukraine and Russia. I've long suspected Zelensky will end up like the guy from Romania who got killed by his own people, the last commie dictator of that country.
Yes, the woke commies are like roaches. It's hard to get rid of them and Bluesky has drawn them all like flies on a juicy piece of shit. I wouldn't even bother to set up an account there. I don't know why they bother, they already had mastodon to flee to from X. But everywhere they go, they ruin everything.
Elon is aggressive, and he wants what he wants. But he'd do better to reexamine X's article feature and think it through if he wants a piece of the Substack pie. Not that he needs it, of course, he's already so rich he doesn't know what to do with his money.
I am not bored with Substack, though I have been tired and my mind has been elsewhere. I cannot keep up with Notes very well anyway, so I think I will just take a break.
I agree with your other subs here that Notes is a thief of time for the most part, so I just click on inbox when I log in and the Notes listings disappear. I didn't even know that notes had "followers" instead of subscribers and that the two can be mutually exclusive! That sounds a bit like a Twitter wannabe thing then to me, but I am no expert as I hardly ever use Twtr/X. Those sound like huge mileages for your work, by the way - certainly by the standards of the average driver here in the UK, I think. But everything's bigger over there, I know :). No wonder you are knackered after a shift.
"If they can hurt Trump, they’ll risk WW3 to do it."
Everything I've seen about the neocons in power to date indicates to me that they honestly don't think there is any risk of WW3 from Russia. They believe that Russia is a paper tiger, still a "gas station with nukes," and will never go nuclear no matter what the US might do. Nor do any of them have any visceral understanding of what a nuclear WW3 would likely involve (unless they've read Annie Jacobsen's "Nuclear War: A Scenario" - https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-War-Scenario-Annie-Jacobsen/dp/0593476093 ).
Yes, this is delusional. No, they don't understand it is delusional. In the process of gaslighting everybody else, they've also gaslit themselves. The adults have not been in charge for a very long time. Now we have petulant children playing with matches in an ocean of gasoline. Fourth Turnings are characterized as existential for a *reason.* And all the components of that ultimate cyclic crisis are now firmly in place to bring about a full-blown nuclear exchange and an economic collapse - and while the first would be sufficient to guarantee the second, that's not the case for the alternative.
If we are very lucky, only the US financial and economic system will collapse. Either way, though, we will not emerge from the next four years unscathed.
I find the Substack Notes functionality to be irritating and distracting in the long run, and try to avoid it. I’ve found several writers who are worth my time (and yes, you are one of them 😀), and that where I prefer to spend my time and attention. It also doesn’t keep me from discovering new writers - writers here tend to be generous with links to other newsletters that might be of interest.
I think you are wise, Cindy. I wish we could customize the app to turn off the Notes functionality from the interface. That would help cut down on the temptation to go into the Notes feed.
Every damn site or app has to have a news feed thing. The most vomitatious one I have ever seen is LinkedIn’s. Just a bunch of self-promoting babble from fake people trying to suck up to other fake people. Nauseating! 🙄
Thank you also for the kind words, I’m glad to be on your list of writers. 🥰
No matter what Substack says, I think they're all leftists, so I'd always stay on my guard and make sure you have backup plans.
A good idea, I do have my content backed up. But I shall make a new backup right now so I have it tucked away if needed in the future.
Where'd you back it up if you don't mind my asking?
Just go into Settings and you can find the back up tool. You can put the file any place you want.
I skip Notes altogether. I come here to read articles. And twitter is just fine for short stuff and breaking news.
You and Cindy both seem to have a good handle on it. I wonder though if others have been sucked into the Notes thing more than actually reading articles? Seems like Substack has changed since Notes launched. It's much more fast-paced now, with less reflection and considering than before, or perhaps that's just my perception? 🤔
My question is whether Substack is a true free-speech platform. If it is, then woke commies can report something all they want; this isn’t Meta.
Tangentially, I’ve found a couple of woke commie pages on Substack and it boggles my mind as to how many subscribers they have.
I don’t know, it depends on how you define free speech. For legal reasons, all of them have limits. So far, I have always thought of it as being one of the best, but is that going to change? I do not know. We shall have to wait and see, I guess.
I don’t have plans to move to another platform, but I have taken to publishing my content also on BMAC for my supporters there, but also to have it mirrored. I just have not had time to go back and put all the old stuff there as I’d have to do it by hand and it would take forever.
I too have found that notes sucks up tremendous time and brain space. My attention span has also been nuked. I hate it. I’m note sure what I can do to reverse that. Part of me thinks about getting a dumb phone and severely limiting my online activities.
Notes is the mind killer.
It is hard to argue with your assessment. 😉
Especially since you are making it on Notes, Fab. 😉
Notes is noise, except comment responses seem to be logged there.
Yes, articles are listed there on our profiles. I don't mind that as I guess it means the article gets posted automatically or whatever.
not sure about effects of Notes. at least when it was first issued, it required using substack's "app" to view them on a phone... so I have never scrolled through the Notes at all, as I only use apps when there is no other alternative method to access something I want to.
web interfaces only, please.
even so, I spend entirely too much time every day reading substack articles. maybe I'm catching up on the news since I mostly ignored it between when I shut off the tv nooz in 1995 and when I decided I'd better pay attention to the wide range of alt-news sources regarding medical martial law etc in 2020?
I also have limited viewing access to musk's Tweeter platform, because I refuse to use a phone to validate an account there. and without an account signed in, one can only view top level posts and none of the comments. for several months I was also blocked from viewing top level posts too, but they reverted that lockout. fortuitously for me I've never been a big fan of viewing the Twits.
I guess Elon wants to force people to register. Seems kind of stupid to me since some people just don't want to make accounts. Nitter works if you use the Poast version:
https://nitter.poast.org/
Just type in the user name of the person and you can pull up their X page. Bookmark the page and you can then read their X posts whenever you want.
Here is Musk's Nitter page:
https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk
I very much appreciate you and am happy to be a paid supporter. Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much sir, it is much appreciated! 👍🏻
Vomitatious, a very good one, thanks. Re Notes, I much appreciate Biblical Man, Mike Donio, Gary Bolyer.
Elon wanting Substack was something I knew about for some time, and I'll admit to my mind twitter is a waste of space. He'd have done better if he had tried to grab substack first, and meld twitter into it.
I really don't want Susbtack to fall or to become warped as I depend upon it for a great deal of feedback on my stories, and thanks to it have undertaken a great many revisions of my fiction and been able to meet a great many writers and editors and minds I wouldn't have otherwise.
The banning of Samara was dumb and I'm so tired of Substack doing this sort of nonsense, they definitely need an 'appeal' system in place if they don't already have one and gotta stop picking on Samara.
I don't think Elon keyed into Substack until after he bought Old Twitter. Still, there's nothing stopping him from mimicking Substack's model, but he chose to try to make writers pay to write articles and how many are going to do that?
Very true and fair point about him not discovering it until afterwards
I have no problem with Notes. I read my subscribed feed first. Then if I have time I'll peruse Notes. I have found many interesting stackers there. That's how I found you.
Well, that's good to know. Thanks for sharing it as it's helpful to know people are getting here from there. Perhaps it is a good thing then in some respects.
Regarding substacks and ownership - I agree with Kerry. I read Notes very rarely, because they take up my time. As for you personally and your writing - I personally find it very nice when I come across some of the writers I follow on substack quoting each other. So recently I came across you being quoted by one of the authors.
It's morning for me, it's night for you. Then I wish you a good night. And a pleasant awakening with a great song (we can understand this unwrite as: unwrite woke commies for the end of the time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcgSncGvtA
Send greetings to all from Croatia.
Thank you, my friend, I appreciate the kind words. Yes, it is evening here and I am going to bed. It has been a long day and I have tarried too long fiddling with backups and what not. Enjoy your day and sleep well when it is your time to do so again. Goodnight. 😴
Thought #1: On January 21st, There will be a historic peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine. Russia will get access to the Baltic and Black Seas, Ukraine will put Zelensky on trial for war crimes.
Thought #2, I heard all the communists scattered to Bluesky and have had people banned from that site. I wish the commies would just leave people alone. You would think the election would tell them that nobody wants them. If I were Bluesky, I'd become a free speech platform. As for Samara being banned, he's done nothing wrong. He's very outspoken in his conservatism. If Substack banned him, they need to stop being stupid. He was making them money.
Thought #3. Elon really needs to work up X into what he wants, rather than trying to buy other sites. Every site he buys bleeds.
Thought #4. Yes, notes is time sucker. I can get lost for hours reading notes. That being said, the home page isn't much better. The articles at the top don't seem to change, even when I've read them.
Substack is becoming sludge. I post my stories on Wednesday, work on my newsletter for Thursday and am bored the rest of the time.
Last thought: Computer GPS systems do the damndest things. They can take a straight route and put you into the lake. That's why paper maps win.
I hope you are right about Ukraine and Russia. I've long suspected Zelensky will end up like the guy from Romania who got killed by his own people, the last commie dictator of that country.
Yes, the woke commies are like roaches. It's hard to get rid of them and Bluesky has drawn them all like flies on a juicy piece of shit. I wouldn't even bother to set up an account there. I don't know why they bother, they already had mastodon to flee to from X. But everywhere they go, they ruin everything.
Elon is aggressive, and he wants what he wants. But he'd do better to reexamine X's article feature and think it through if he wants a piece of the Substack pie. Not that he needs it, of course, he's already so rich he doesn't know what to do with his money.
I am not bored with Substack, though I have been tired and my mind has been elsewhere. I cannot keep up with Notes very well anyway, so I think I will just take a break.
I agree with your other subs here that Notes is a thief of time for the most part, so I just click on inbox when I log in and the Notes listings disappear. I didn't even know that notes had "followers" instead of subscribers and that the two can be mutually exclusive! That sounds a bit like a Twitter wannabe thing then to me, but I am no expert as I hardly ever use Twtr/X. Those sound like huge mileages for your work, by the way - certainly by the standards of the average driver here in the UK, I think. But everything's bigger over there, I know :). No wonder you are knackered after a shift.
"If they can hurt Trump, they’ll risk WW3 to do it."
Everything I've seen about the neocons in power to date indicates to me that they honestly don't think there is any risk of WW3 from Russia. They believe that Russia is a paper tiger, still a "gas station with nukes," and will never go nuclear no matter what the US might do. Nor do any of them have any visceral understanding of what a nuclear WW3 would likely involve (unless they've read Annie Jacobsen's "Nuclear War: A Scenario" - https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-War-Scenario-Annie-Jacobsen/dp/0593476093 ).
Yes, this is delusional. No, they don't understand it is delusional. In the process of gaslighting everybody else, they've also gaslit themselves. The adults have not been in charge for a very long time. Now we have petulant children playing with matches in an ocean of gasoline. Fourth Turnings are characterized as existential for a *reason.* And all the components of that ultimate cyclic crisis are now firmly in place to bring about a full-blown nuclear exchange and an economic collapse - and while the first would be sufficient to guarantee the second, that's not the case for the alternative.
If we are very lucky, only the US financial and economic system will collapse. Either way, though, we will not emerge from the next four years unscathed.