Mastodawn

LautreG, souvent dans la Lune Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff
Ghost have many external dependency, using a lot of CDN too. Same with local self hosting.

https://www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-self-hosted-ghost

@lautreg

The article by @molly0xfff covers the process of self-hosting and the advantages of it it:

It's not perfect but it's much, much better than using Substack. Much more ethical, much more freedom, much cheaper overall.

Migrating from Substack to self-hosted Ghost: the details

I migrated Citation Needed from Substack to self-hosted Ghost. Here is exactly how I did that.

Citation Needed

@molly0xfff @FediTips

Use Ghost is the new 'install linux'. I have yet to find a well written guide to setting up a ghost install.

@molly0xfff @FediTips

Every guide I see to setting up your own Ghost install ...

https://youtu.be/G7Do2tlYLhs

Leslie Claret's Monologue on Donnelly Nut Spacing (Patriot) HD

YouTube

If you don't want to do any techy stuff, you can use a managed hosting service, I link to them in the guide:

Cloud68
https://cloud68.co/managed-hosting/ghost

Ghost.org
https://ghost.org

It is really easy to use managed hosting, you don't need to install anything.

There are also official instructions for a manual self-hosted install:
https://docs.ghost.org/install

Ghost

Independent, professional open source publishing.

@FediTips

But I want to host my own ghost install. I just want to do it without learning a foreign language.

Which language do you want the instructions to be in?

@FediTips
Plain English.

If you don't want to get involved in technical language, you can use a managed hosting service like the ones I listed. They do all the installation and other techy stuff for you 🙂

@FediTips yes, but they also charge monthly fees which I'd like to avoid

The costs of managed hosting are quite low, generally about 5-10 euros a month including the actual hosting service plus them doing the techy stuff for you.

They charge monthly fees because they're hosting the site for you. Hosting sites costs money in maintenance, labour and electricity, so they do have to charge in order to make it a sustainable service.

Nick (Alatar the Blue)Feb 9

The ghost documentation is some of the clearest technical documentation I’ve seen in my 25 years of managing IT “things.” That said - it’s technical documentation, and absolutely assumes that you have technical knowledge.

If it’s above someone’s current technical abilities to run and install something, that’s not a bad thing - but it does leave you with (roughly) two options:

Acquire technical knowledge. There are loads of people in the world that will happily help interested parties do this, assuming the interested parties are willing to learn and not just “do it for me.”

Pay a trusted service for their knowledge (hosting). There are loads of options there, from various cloud providers to paying an individual to host and manage on your owned hardware; each comes with varying degrees of cost vs. liability, but in all cases you’re paying for someone else’s time (both directly spent to manage your service and historically to learn how to do so).

I absolutely agree that, “just install ghost” has become the new, “just install Linux.”

@FediTips

@faduda @FediTips @alatartheblue

George B Feb 9

I think one issue is that so many online services have offered a "free tier" for so long that it's almost become an expectation

@FediTips @alatartheblue @gbargoud

I don't want it hosted on ghost. I want it hosted on my own server. I don't expect that to be free, I just need it to be something I can do without a compsci degree.
And as long as it isn't, there's going to be a limit to uptake, and eventually someone will come along with a simple plug-and-play alternative

Nick (Alatar the Blue)Feb 9

@faduda @FediTips @gbargoud

Hosting on your own server is inherently not plug and play, and requires technical knowledge.

The “plug and play” solutions are companies providing a service to do it for you.

@FediTips @gbargoud @alatartheblue

Okay then, let me rephrase.
Ghost should not be any more complicated than wordpress, yet I can run the former but not the latter.
That's a documentation issue. I've pretty much given up trying with Ghost at this point, after several attempts. It looks like a great idea, but it is impenetrable. If you don't build it for civilians, they won't come.

@FediTips @alatartheblue @faduda

George B Feb 9

I don't know if you saw this but WordPress added an ActivityPub plugin a couple of years back: https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/

ActivityPub

Connect your site to the Open Social Web and let millions of users follow, share, and interact with your content from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and more.

WordPress.org

@gbargoud @alatartheblue @faduda

Ghost and WordPress have some overlap but they are intended for slightly different purposes.

Ghost and Substack are mainly aimed at journalists, writers and independent publications who sell access to their blogs and/or newsletters. It's like a sort of cross between a blog and a Patreon.

WordPress is a more general blogging and website platform, and not as geared towards selling subscriptions to publications.

Gerard Cunningham ✒️Feb 10

@FediTips @gbargoud @alatartheblue

Thanks for all this, it is appreciated.

@faduda @alatartheblue @gbargoud

You can do this on your own server if you use a managed hosting service.

That's how I run my own Mastodon and PeerTube, the hosting company does all the techy stuff for me and I pay them a monthly fee.

This is as simple as it gets, because the hosting company also fixes it if there's a bug and constantly updates it if there are new versions released, all without being asked.

@FediTips @alatartheblue

Like I said, it's the Linux problem. Docs isn't ux

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Feb 9

@yogthos i always think of you when I read this since you have a substack. Are you considering leaving or do you have reasons not to switch? I dont assume its technical knowledge. 😉

Yogthos Feb 10

@haui This is basically true for every for profit run publishing platform. Just look how quickly bluesky started accommodating nazis.

However, substack also hosts Jason Hickel, Gabriel Rockhill, Chris Hedges, Aaron Maté, Caitlin Johnstone, Jonathan Cook, Ben Norton, Kit Klarenberg, etc.

From The Guardian’s perspective, the real problem is that they and their peers can no longer control the narrative as well as they used to.

I think the value of the platform is its reach.

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Feb 10

@yogthos
Thanks for the insight. I'll check out the folks you mentioned as well. :)

Arthfach 🐻Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff Good lord I wish people would move off Substack. One account in particular (Law Dork) - he's wildly popular and just funneling cash to these Nazis ... it blows my mind as to WHY.

The Casual Critic Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff
There's also @write_as and @writefreely , but I realise it's more of a niche offering 🙂

Alex Chapman (moved to new account)Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff CC @tayarndt as I follow her newsletter thing and she uses Substack for that, yeah no what the hell if platforms aren't getting rid of people who are actively promoting Nazi stuff and denying the Holocaust then screw those platforms. And to Taylor sorry I had to bring this to your attention but this is a big issue and I wasn't sure if you knew about this situation with Substack.

Taylor Arndt Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff Substack because it’s cheap it’s easy to use and they market stuff I don’t get hardly any reach if I made my own sight

Eliza MB Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff

I'm not a creator on substack but I used to follow a few free accounts.
I unsubscribed but I want to go further - ppl still link to substack in my TL and I was hoping to filter those mentions out. Filtering on substack.com doesn't seem to work - is there a technical reason that domain wouldn't be picked up or is it something else?

@OneInterestingFact

Possibly because a lot of Substack accounts are using custom domain names so the substack.com domain doesn't appear in their links?

Eliza MB Feb 10

@FediTips maybe some are but not in the ones I’m mostly seeing

Greg Ray Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff I can't access the Substack writers I used to read. Substack is demanding I upload my biometric data to some creepy Yank third party corporation.

Big Belgian Bopper 🔻🐸Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff @jaykuo

KatandPeaches Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff

Mark Whybird Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff
@godpod this is the main reason I have not actually opened a paid subscription to your excellent work.

hexaheximal Feb 9

@FediTips @molly0xfff Ghost is less bad, but it isn't a great choice either now: https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/blob/main/AGENTS.md

Ghost/AGENTS.md at main · TryGhost/Ghost

Independent technology for modern publishing, memberships, subscriptions and newsletters. - TryGhost/Ghost

GitHub

zoe

Feb 10

@FediTips @molly0xfff Ghost unfortunately has one huge issue: It is unable to use regular SMTP servers. They are actively blocking this feature because "google would block such sites"

The fact that I would not care if google blocks me does not interest anyone there, so I really can't recommend it if the dev team acts like that.

Justin Feb 10

@FediTips
Some of the initial funding for substack was by Techno-Fascists so do with this what you will.
@molly0xfff

Cloudslave Feb 10

@FediTips @molly0xfff it’s all too complicated for me. I dunno.