I like Substack. I use Substack, though I have always felt that the ‘Hamish’ side of the show is very opinionated about what we as writers should be allowed to do.
Just listened to ‘the’ Chris Best/Nilay Patel interview. He came across, like Hamish, a nice chap but definitely out of his depth.
The parallels between the two services (microblog and substack) seem very clear.
One is a newsletter service that has an ability to offer a blog, the other is a blog service that has an ability to offer a newsletter.
Both are software services that empower ‘the writer’.
one offers a communal timeline, whilst the other (now) offers a communal timeline.
The biggest difference is that substack is very high profile, micro blog continue to fly under the radar.
Which has me asking …
I wonder how Manton would answer the question Patel asked of Best?
@pratik @JohnPhilpin We are clear about hate speech in our guidelines and we do close accounts that violate them.
@jean I will have another read later. Certainly Chris Best and the peeps at Substack have their ‘statement of clarity’ and still he couldn’t / wouldn’t answer Nilay on the podcast.
.. and while I understand you would - and do - kick off the spam / free accounts that ‘break the rules’ … have you ever kicked off a paying account?
To be clear - likely all very theoretical since micro blog is well below the radar, but it highlights how ‘clarity’ on MicroBlog, takes work and iterations - and you can even break the rules and not know 😬.
@JohnPhilpin @jean I started to reply — I hope I’m not butting in! — and got carried away into a full blog post (you know, unlike those other times when I don’t ramble on and on 😅).
@JohnPhilpin @pratik As @jean said we do disable paying accounts if we have to, although I hope it will continue to be rare. I actually wrote about a specific case of this in my book chapter banning users. (Not updated yet for Elon’s Twitter.)
@SimonWoods A+ for taking the time to write a separate post. 😇
Micro Camp is coming up May 19-20 and there will be an opportunity for community discussion. This also makes me think we could hold some “office hours” on a regular schedule.