Lily Star3d ago
Fedi.Tips

There is a Fediverse alternative to Substack called Ghost. It allows you to host blogs and newsletters in a very similar way to Substack, but it has much less problematic management and you can host your own Ghost-powered site if you want to.

Lots more info about Ghost in the guide at:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/ghost-blogs-and-newsletters-on-the-fediverse

Would also highly recommend the article by @molly0xfff which outlines the advantages of Ghost over Substack:

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

#FediTips #Ghost #Substack #Alternatives

Ghost: Blogs and newsletters on the Fediverse | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

Mar 23 at 7:43pmWeb
Show threadMark Wyner Won’t Comply 5d ago

@FediTips

The most important advantage being that you’re not supporting literal nazis. 😉

@molly0xfff

Show threadshac ron ₪‎4d ago
@FediTips “First things first, I needed a server for Ghost.” Welp,
Show threadFedi.Tips4d ago

@shac

You don't need to be techy to have your own Ghost instance, there are managed hosting providers offering Ghost which will do the technical stuff. I've linked to a couple of these in the guide.

Show threadGator 🐊3d ago

@shac Managed Hosting is available, including by the company itself if you don't want to bother looking for cheaper alternatives.

@FediTips

Show threadLou Reynolds4d ago
@FediTips @molly0xfff unfortunately these days substack is more of a video service that just a blog / newsletter. Wish we had a good alternative...
Show threadStrypey3d ago

@lou
> substack is more of a video service that just a blog / newsletter

Ghost already supports podcasts, if video isn't an option I'm guessing it's on the roadmap. If not, you can definitely host your videos on a PeerTube channel, and throw links into posts in Ghost, creating embeds that are just as good from a web reader POV.

Not sure how video could be sent by email, so sounds like SS is abandoning being a newsletter host, and following the standard VC pivot path.

@FediTips @molly0xfff

Show threadLou Reynolds3d ago
@strypey @FediTips @molly0xfff thanks, I understand that video can be embedded in posts, that isn’t what SS has done in the past year. They are now allowing creators to do livestreams and then afterwards also host the recorded steams for later viewing. I don’t believe we have anything like this currently in the OSS world. SS has blown up as a result. My point was saying ghost is a SS alternative may not really be true at this point.
Show threadStrypey3d ago

@lou
> They are now allowing creators to do livestreams and then afterwards also host the recorded steams for later viewing. I don’t believe we have anything like this currently in the OSS world

You may have missed my mention of @peertube, which does both of these things;

https://joinpeertube.org/

Also there's @owncast for livestreaming;

https://owncast.online/

Not sure if #GreatApe is still going to be a thing, but I IIRR that was intended to be a federated Twitch (@atomicpoet?)

@FediTips

What is PeerTube? | JoinPeerTube

A free software to take back control of your videos! With more than 600,000 hosted videos, viewed more than 70 millions times and 150,000 users, PeerTube is the decentralized free software alternative to videos platforms developed by Framasoft

JoinPeerTube
Show threadChris Trottier3d ago
@strypey @lou @peertube @owncast @FediTips I’m extracting myself from as many projects as I can.
Show threadLou Reynolds3d ago
@strypey @FediTips thank you and yes I am aware that these services exist but just because components exist does not make them packaged in a way that non technical creators can or will attempt to use them unfortunately. This is one of the key reasons so few have moved over here which is a shame because truly we need to help more creators find an off ramp from centralized SM. Saying ghost is a SS replacement is unfortunately not true at this point.
Show threadStrypey3d ago

(1/?)

@lou
> just because components exist does not make them packaged in a way that non technical creators can or will attempt to use them

Sure, this is true in the abstract. Have you tried PT or OC yourself as a publisher? What did you think? I've only tried PT as a publisher, but I'm pretty fussy about UX, and I found it pretty good.

@FediTips

Show threadStrypey3d ago

(2/?)

@lou
> Saying ghost is a SS replacement is unfortunately not true at this point

Doesn't that depend on what someone uses SS for? If they use it for a text+image newsletter as designed, then it is. Same if they use it for posting podcasts with newsletters as transcripts or shownotes, although @Castopod might be better (haven't tried it). If they use it to publish video then you're right, there are other tools for that.

Show threadStrypey3d ago

(3/3)

DataFarming platforms are designed as swiss-army knives at least partly to make them complicated and expensive to build or find replacements for. It's part of how lock-in works. If people want to avoid publishing for fascistern media;

https://berjon.com/fascintern-media/

... then they need to sit down with their community, evaluate their collective needs and what replacements can serve them, and move together;

https://disintermedia.net.nz/into-the-woods-we-go/

@lou

Fascintern Media

We are facing a coordinated international fascist movement that works with explicit backing from Moscow, Washington, and tech monopolies, and is propagating itself through its own media apparatus. Yet people who claim to side with democracy keep doing work to support Fascintern media because they misunderstand how it works. This needs to change.

Robin Berjon
Show threadLou Reynolds3d ago
@strypey @FediTips I am working with some top tier creators and I can tell you they are very very busy publishing content and have zero desire to have to cobble together a bunch of piece parts to wade into a smaller pond. If they can’t see how it is super easy to try AND can see a benefit to taking the step they won’t. Unfortunately without top tier creators participating the OSS world will remain non mainstream.
Show threadPetra van Cronenburg1d ago

@lou There's another alternative: https://mastodon.online/@NatureMC/116300565418718548

But it's not "Fediverse".

@FediTips @molly0xfff

Show threadhexaheximal4d ago
@FediTips Ghost is now slopware. I wouldn't recommend it.
Show threadStrypey3d ago

@hexaheximal
> Ghost is now slopware

Why do you say that? After shifting the Disintermedia blog to community-hosted Ghost I have a few grizzles, but overall I'm finding it a great improvement on the bloat of SS.

My grizzles with Ghost;

* hardcoded dependence on;

1) commercial email sender

2) one payments processor

* AP module has to be set up separately (how about a single Docker image that deploys both as an option?)

* no footnotes

#newsletters #Ghost

@johnonolan
@FediTips

Show threadhexaheximal3d ago
@strypey @johnonolan @FediTips Actively built with LLMs, see 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
Show threadStrypey3d ago

@hexaheximal
> [Ghost now] Actively built with LLMs

Jesus wept.

Added to the fediverse.party watchlist of apps doing that;

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediparty/wiki/watchlist+-+fediverse+apps+created+using+auto-generated+code.-

Please let us know if you learn of any others. For now there's a moratorium on listing any app on the site if the developers merge auto-generated code.

We hadn't got around to listing Ghost, for a few reasons (backlog, and the headscratcher of AP support being a tack-on module), so we won't for now.

#MOLE #AI #VideCoding

@johnonolan @FediTips

watchlist - fediverse apps created using auto-generated code

:milky_way: A quick look into Fediverse networks -

Codeberg.org
Show threadxrvs1d ago
@strypey @hexaheximal @johnonolan @FediTips would you count wordpress as fediverse software? it has agents.md, has copilot PRs, and also this thing
gutenberg/AGENTS.md at trunk · WordPress/gutenberg

The Block Editor project for WordPress and beyond. Plugin is available from the official repository. - WordPress/gutenberg

GitHub
Show threadStrypey1d ago

@xarvos
> would you count wordpress as fediverse software?

Kind of? We do list their AP plug-in on the dev tools page.

> it has agents.md, has copilot PRs

Jesus wept, another one? Do you know if the AP plugin is itself vibe coded? I guess @pfefferle would be the person to ask about this : D

@hexaheximal @FediTips

Show threadMatthias Pfefferle1d ago

@strypey @xarvos @hexaheximal @FediTips only because there is a CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md does not mean a project is vibe coded.

The ActivityPub plugin has also several agents/skills that ensure code quality, run phpcs or phpunit before code is commited and help with security audits!

Show threadhexaheximal1d ago

@pfefferle @strypey @xarvos @FediTips I can't even begin to state how stupid this is.

If there are LLM agent files, you sure as hell can't trust the project to not commit LLM code. It may not be entirely made with LLMs, but that doesn't change the fact that they took the stance of riding the hype train and therefore cannot be trusted to get off it.

Show threadhexaheximal1d ago

@pfefferle @strypey @xarvos @FediTips And also, even if we ignore everything else: Doing so is still enabling the large-scale exploitation being done by AI companies.

As I've said before: it is outright hypocritical to let the AI companies take your code (especially if it's copyleft!) and then happily use their models without thinking about the implications.

Show threadStrypey1d ago

@hexaheximal
> If there are LLM agent files, you sure as hell can't trust the project to not commit LLM code

It's a bit like noticing that a restaurant kitchen has a note on the wall, with instructions for how to add raw sewage to soup. It's not smoking gun evidence that any given soup served in that restaurant contains raw sewage. But you probably wouldn't order the soup all the same ; }

@pfefferle @xarvos @FediTips

Show threadMatthias Pfefferle1d ago
@strypey @hexaheximal @xarvos @FediTips don't you think a project with more than 10 years of experience and thousands of lines of code know what they are doing!?
Show threadDave Slusher - Tech Stuff1d ago
@pfefferle @strypey @hexaheximal @xarvos @FediTips Companies with 40 years of experience and tens of thousands of employees and a trillion dollars in market cap are doing extremely stupid shit with LLMs daily. Why do you think projects are immune to that just because they have a track record? Why do you think we should believe that?
Show threadMatthias Pfefferle1d ago
@geniodiabolico @strypey @hexaheximal @xarvos @FediTips Sure, but why would you assume it works the same in the other direction? Assumptions are always risky.
Show threadDave Slusher - Tech Stuff1d ago
@pfefferle @strypey @hexaheximal @xarvos @FediTips Are you asking why people assume there is LLM stuff in a project that has LLM stuff in it?
Show threadMatthias Pfefferle1d ago
@geniodiabolico @strypey @hexaheximal @xarvos @FediTips no, I am wondering why people assume that a project is "slop" only because of a CLAUDE.md
Show threadStrypey16h ago

@pfefferle
> don't you think a project with more than 10 years of experience and thousands of lines of code know what they are doing!?

If only takes one drop of shit in soup to make it shit soup. How experienced the chefs are at making soup and how much great soup they've made is neither here nor there. If shit is an ingredient used in a restaurant kitchen, however thoughtfully, people who know that aren't going to want to eat there. Sorry 🤷‍♂️

@hexaheximal @xarvos @FediTips

Show threadaxolotl solidario3d ago
@FediTips @hydroponictrash recently made the switch and posted about the hickups they encountered making the move.
https://kolektiva.social/@hydroponictrash/116280187624783954
Show threadPetra van Cronenburg1d ago

@FediTips For less technical people there's also a #EuropeanAlternative with seat in Germany and compliant to EU laws https://steady.page I use it for years for my newsletter/blog/instead of Patreon. Meanwhile you can also include audio files. It's simple: you only design your page and write. For creators earning money, you pay a certain % on your wins only. If you don't take money, it's free.
Looks like this: https://steady.page/en/naturematchcuts/posts

@molly0xfff

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