FAQ – Social media presence
Channels
WORG’s social media presence is plain and taciturn.
Because, daftly, all the work goes into making articles rather than promoting them.
But it exists.
https://www.pinterest.fr/writeupsorg/illustrations-im-glad-i-got-done/
Reposts some recent WORG illustrations. Mostly the ones I most worked on, and with an emphasis on “full view of the character standing against a stark white background” shots.
Discord
Some folks on our crew are there.
Work group
It used to be a Majordomo, then a Yahoo! Group. Such adventures, much evolution.
A backstage, mostly e-mail-based DC Heroes TTRPG discussion/work space. Writeups pre-publication and comments, rules discussion and questions, bits of quiet chatting. No CHUDs.
Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/writeupsorg
There’s next to no content there. But it’s convenient for people who already are patrons on Patreon and want to support WORG.
RSS
https://www.writeups.org/feed/rdf
For true-blue nerds who still use RSS clients, we have an automated feed. More about that in the next section.
We ❤ it
https://weheartit.com/writeups_org/uploads
It used to have the exact same shots as on Pinterest. But it seems to have died circa 2022. Another one bites the dust.
•••
Social media graveyard
Social media is increasingly unusable, especially if you don’t pay. It’s part of a dynamic Cory Doctorow called “enshittification” . So we’ve had to pare down some of our presence.
https://www.facebook.com/Writeupsorg-135805366442534
This page was set up as a courtesy for Facebook users, and solely maintained via an automated poster. I *abhor* Facebook, and I don’t think there are free, reliable autoposting plugins left. So this page is now discontinued.
https://www.instagram.com/writeupsdotorg/
For a little while I posted WORG pictures there. But posting on Insta with damaged hands is awful, so I stopped doing that. If somebody feels the urge of running a fan account, LMK.
Tumblr
https://writeups-org.tumblr.com
The same bot that feeds Facebook fed Tumblr. It made sense while it was free, but paying for this would be absurd.
https://twitter.com/writeupsorg
*This* account wasn’t a bot, though it mostly just announced new or revised entries. Due to the situation on Twitter, it went inactive in late 2022. Press F.
Mastodon
Personal account, so prolly not your thing. But there occasionally are writeups.org bits so people following relevant hashtags (often #ttrpg and #comics) will get writeups.org news.
Bluesky
It looks far less interesting than Mastodon, but I reckon I will run the same sort of newsfeed there than I did on Twitter. Once the ridiculous “beg for invites” thing is over.
Example of a writeups.org feed on Feedly, which is what we’re about to discuss.
•••
Following a website (say, writeups.org)
Since the late 2000s, the standard way to be alerted about new publications on a website is to follow them on social media . As per above.
Now, for-profit social media is awful and exploitative and toxic AF. I don’t think I need to explain that. People know this. It’s just that they won’t let go of the super-easy dopamine hits.
So I wasn’t going to write about another way to follow website activities. It’s not the frictionless, effortless, social-stimulation-rich approach that most people crave.
Then I remembered that this here website is about how far Batman can throw a quarter-pounder hamburger. And how many sorts of Cat People we can taxonomise in obscure 1970s Marvel comics.
So it’s not like we’re dealing in mainstream pursuits *anyway*.
Having a separate feed for web sites
The idea here is to have an app that automatically checks websites of interests, and builds lists of recent articles.
This is done using the RSS protocol.
RSS had its heydays from, roughly, 2008 to 2012. These were the halcyon days of the Google Reader RSS client. Which, of course, has since joined the Google Graveyard .
I *think* RSS is now somewhat obscure, outside of people whose work involves following a large number of news sources. Such as, say, journalists.
If you have a lot of Favourites in your browser, and thus already built a list of sites you’re interested in, you’ll prolly benefit from a RSS aggregator.
Unless you need to monitor hundreds of websites and subreddits and YouTube channels and blogs and newsletters and whatnot, the existing solutions are both free and simple.
Solutions
The first one that used to come to mind is Feedly . It works on the web, on IOS and on Android.
You create a folder, put one or more websites in it, done.
As of early 2023, Feedly has apparently decided to pivot to Umbrella Corp cosplay. So an open-source alternative is Feedbin. However, the free plan only lasts for one month.
The second one that comes to mind is Newsblur . The free plan allows for following up to 64 sources.
Another well-regarded RSS aggregator is Inoreader , though I find the free plan to be more constraining than Feedly’s or Newsblur’s.
Those heavy users I know tend to be Apple types, and use Readkit , a sort of meta-aggregator.
Now :
- You have to *know* what sources of information you’re going to monitor. You just don’t sit here and let an algo stuff you full of whatever content is most likely to create “engagement” in your demographic.
- Some websites do not run a RSS service. For instance, many of the websites listed on our links page are too small and/or too old. But then it doesn’t matter because most of them are abandoned as well, ah ah ah.
- On the other hand WordPress has good RSS support. So even a tiny blog made by an amateur might turn out to have an RSS feed, because it’s just built-in and a majority of small web sites use WordPress.
- If you use a lot of RSS feeds you’ll have to pay a small subscription (Newsblur is $3/month, Feedbin is $5). Because you’re the customer, rather than the product and the mark.