xges23h ago
Cat Hicks

The big news in the Hicks-Juavinett household is that Ashley just started a newsletter 🥰 🥰 🥰

of note that choosing ghost was not a small choice, because every SINGLE popular science author in her network insisted she HAD to be on substack, so she is starting with a serious penalty in not benefitting from her large existing network all on substack who would have promoted this newsletter across their many science reader audiences. I hope we can get it to flourish 🫶

https://graymatter.ghost.io/the-limitations-of-neuroscience/

My first PubMed search and the limitations of neuroscientific explanations

In the case of something as wonderfully complex as who we love, it’s unlikely we’ll find it staring back at us on an MRI, a genome sequence, or our own hands.

Gray Matter
Mar 24 at 3:21pmWeb
Show threadDavid Weir1d ago
@grimalkina Yay for not choosing Substack!
Show threadThird spruce tree on the left1d ago

@davidjamesweir @grimalkina indeed yay for no substack.

However am I missing something? you can make a link from a substack to a ghost article right? Or is there the concept of an in-ecosystem "boost" that is being missed out here?

Show threadCat Hicks1d ago
@tezoatlipoca @davidjamesweir there are large within-ecosystem boosts here, especially in that substack authors recommend each other's newsletters and posts so you can tap into other people's audiences with those network effects, it is one of the biggest reasons you can grow a readership far more quickly on substack than anywhere else (iirc; I am not an expert never had a substack, but that's the chatter in the writer groups)
Show threadDavid Weir1d ago

@grimalkina @tezoatlipoca
If I understand correctly one can enable Fediverse integration on Ghost so we could subscribe to the newsletter and boost things here, too. Or am I getting things mixed up?

Is that something that she definitely ruled out? I mean, Fedi can be as toxic as any other social media so that would be totally understandable.

Show threadCat Hicks1d ago
@davidjamesweir @tezoatlipoca ooh I will bring it up to her! Thank you. She's just far less on ANY social media than I am and so easy integrations is probably a good move regardless :)
Show threadDan Sugalski1d ago
@grimalkina Props to Ashley for resisting the call of substack -- I know it's hard but it's so problematic that I'm glad she opted out.
Show threadCat Hicks1d ago
@wordshaper it's really interesting how specific the conversation about the problematic stuff -- not a single person across the science writer groups she's part of seems to have heard of any of it. Substack has really established market dominance
Show threadDan Sugalski1d ago
@grimalkina It's impressive how much they managed both the dominance and the management of their platforming the vile -- not even like Cloudflare's casual acceptance of doing that, but keeping it so most folks apparently don't even know it's a thing they do.
Show threadGrant16h ago
@grimalkina Hicks-Juavinett household dual-handedly keeping my RSS feed from obsolescence