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This makes me wonder if I should be writing on substack. I currently use a static site generator and host with netlify[1]. This is great because it is simple an

This makes me wonder if I should be writing on substack. I currently use a static site generator and host with netlify[1]. This is great because it is simple and I have complete control over the site. But at the same time I can’t see when people visit my site and there is no comment section. I rely or external forums like HN, lobsters, and Reddit to have a discussion. And I have no way of knowing when my content gets shared because I can’t see the traffic. But my purpose of writing is the same as the authors, to find like minded people and have a discussion with them. It’s kind of cure for intellectual loneliness. [1] https://coredumped.dev/ https://coredumped.dev/

chubot 3y ago
A few years ago it was Medium, and to me it seems like most of the Medium content has "rotted" now ... Substack does look better, but not sure if it's sustainable
- tonystubblebine 3y ago
  I would love for you to keep an open mind. Medium changed a lot last year and still has a lot more room to go. A lot of the content mill and clickbait has effectively gone, either disincentivized or removed from recommendations. That made room for great stories to come back. (Still a subscription though because that’s the way to get out of the attention economy)
kentrf 3y ago
I've got the same setup. SSG and free tier on Netlify. The only "free" metric is bandwidth usage. I paid for stats for a while, but it was depressingly low. But I'm chugging along for myself, like a public notebook.
zorr 3y ago
When you don’t care about the discussions being in the public record the comments don’t necessarily need to be integrated in the blog. I have my email on my personal site and when an article reaches the frontpage on HN I usually get some emails related to the post.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Same. I don’t want my website to be a distribution channel. The last thing I want is to be managing visitors to my home. I’ll let the distributors do their thing to pass my content around and I’ll own/manage my own content on my homepage.
rpastuszak 3y ago
My approach is to prioritise notes over comments (or use comments as abstracts of future articles): https://untested.sonnet.io/Instead+or+writing+a+comment%2C+write+a+post+and+link+it https://untested.sonnet.io/Instead+or+writing+a+comment%2C+w... Substack is neat, but I'd prefer a nice, self-hosted alternative. (or POSSE - "Publish (on your) Own Site, SyndicateElsewhere").
- dfreire 3y ago
  I see what you did here :)
kkyr 3y ago
You might want to look into using giscus[1] for a commenting system on your blog. All it needs is a public GH repository to host the discussions, after which you simply embed a script into each blog post, and visitors will be able to leave a comment using their GH account. [1] https://giscus.app https://giscus.app
mminer237 3y ago
You could use client-side comments like Disqus.
- KiloCNC 3y ago
  I don't really know what to say about Disqus, it always felt like something in the design of its interface was a bit off-putting. For me, Privacy Badger always blocks the embed and I think people from privacy-conscious circles would definitely avoid loading it. I (somewhat) recently saw a post[1] from an author I like that sent me down the rabbit hole and it seems like Disqus also tends to inject ad scripts into the websites that host it (which, honestly, makes some business sense because they are a for-profit and not a lot of people are using their non-free plans). In that same article, it was also mentioned in an edit that Giscus[2] seems like a viable solution. In my eyes, it really looks like it's the best client-side comment library out there and when I start my blog I'll try to use it for comments. [1]: https://www.supergoodcode.com/adventures-in-linking/#first https://www.supergoodcode.com/adventures-in-linking/#first [2]: https://giscus.app/ https://giscus.app/
ipaddr 3y ago
You could throw google analytics to handle stats.

chubot 3y ago

A few years ago it was Medium, and to me it seems like most of the Medium content has "rotted" now ... Substack does look better, but not sure if it's sustainable

tonystubblebine 3y ago
I would love for you to keep an open mind. Medium changed a lot last year and still has a lot more room to go. A lot of the content mill and clickbait has effectively gone, either disincentivized or removed from recommendations. That made room for great stories to come back. (Still a subscription though because that’s the way to get out of the attention economy)

kentrf 3y ago

I've got the same setup. SSG and free tier on Netlify. The only "free" metric is bandwidth usage. I paid for stats for a while, but it was depressingly low. But I'm chugging along for myself, like a public notebook.

zorr 3y ago

When you don’t care about the discussions being in the public record the comments don’t necessarily need to be integrated in the blog. I have my email on my personal site and when an article reaches the frontpage on HN I usually get some emails related to the post.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Same. I don’t want my website to be a distribution channel. The last thing I want is to be managing visitors to my home. I’ll let the distributors do their thing to pass my content around and I’ll own/manage my own content on my homepage.

rpastuszak 3y ago

My approach is to prioritise notes over comments (or use comments as abstracts of future articles): https://untested.sonnet.io/Instead+or+writing+a+comment%2C+write+a+post+and+link+it https://untested.sonnet.io/Instead+or+writing+a+comment%2C+w... Substack is neat, but I'd prefer a nice, self-hosted alternative. (or POSSE - "Publish (on your) Own Site, SyndicateElsewhere").

dfreire 3y ago
I see what you did here :)

kkyr 3y ago

You might want to look into using giscus[1] for a commenting system on your blog. All it needs is a public GH repository to host the discussions, after which you simply embed a script into each blog post, and visitors will be able to leave a comment using their GH account. [1] https://giscus.app https://giscus.app

mminer237 3y ago

You could use client-side comments like Disqus.

KiloCNC 3y ago
I don't really know what to say about Disqus, it always felt like something in the design of its interface was a bit off-putting. For me, Privacy Badger always blocks the embed and I think people from privacy-conscious circles would definitely avoid loading it. I (somewhat) recently saw a post[1] from an author I like that sent me down the rabbit hole and it seems like Disqus also tends to inject ad scripts into the websites that host it (which, honestly, makes some business sense because they are a for-profit and not a lot of people are using their non-free plans). In that same article, it was also mentioned in an edit that Giscus[2] seems like a viable solution. In my eyes, it really looks like it's the best client-side comment library out there and when I start my blog I'll try to use it for comments. [1]: https://www.supergoodcode.com/adventures-in-linking/#first https://www.supergoodcode.com/adventures-in-linking/#first [2]: https://giscus.app/ https://giscus.app/

ipaddr 3y ago

You could throw google analytics to handle stats.