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Ending our Medium integration

write.as

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Re: Ending our Medium integration

#81

Post by bena »

richardhod wrote: post #77
new_here wrote: post #56

Quora also started out as an awesome service just like Medium. Eventually though, the VC's need the promises they've heard during fundraising to be fulfilled. That's when the platforms start with the dark patterns. Non-VC companies are a longer and less glamorous slog to get off the ground but also don't come under pressure to compromise on their morals.

Can you describe what Quora did? I've heard a few reports that it's not like it used to be, but I've found it useful, and am curious as to what makes it worse than before.

User-generated content.

It's basically a crapshoot as to whether the person is a blowhard or knows what they're talking about.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#82

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #20

I don't have a Medium account so I'm not sure if this is still true, but there was once a button in the settings to export your content as a zipball. If you'd like to migrate to a self-hosted blog, I wrote a tool which will convert this zipball into a Jekyll blog: https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/unmediumify If you want, shoot me an email for free hosting, and I'll rig up builds.sr.ht to automate deployment for you, too:…

They still should have a feature like that due to GDPR compliance, even if the dark patterns / investors would like the feature removed for retention.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#83

Post by andrey-p »

athenot wrote: post #69

Does anyone here use Write.as for blogging? This is the first time I've seen them and the simplicity look appealing to me. For the record I was really excited when Medium came out and loved the simple, open, no-clutter style it had. But fast-forward to today and it's now very different.

I've used it for a personal project blog and I'm really happy with it. I wouldn't call myself a heavy user though.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#84

Post by Kihashi »

StavrosK wrote: post #27
feistypharit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live lektor, but thought it died. Hope to see it start moving again.

I don't think it died, plus it's pretty feature-complete as is, I've never had difficulty doing anything. The upside is that it's much easier to use than Hugo, which I never managed to get running. I haven't played with many other alternatives, if anyone knows of a static site generator that isn't specifically blog-oriented (i.e. something with an agnostic model), please let me know.

> if anyone knows of a static site generator that isn't specifically blog-oriented (i.e. something with an agnostic model), please let me know.

Is that not what Jekyll is? or maybe it's become more blog-centric since I used it.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#85

Post by bhrgunatha »

severine wrote: post #50
FPGAhacker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that way about most bloggish sites, until I hit the readability button. If they block that then I give up.

You can open links directly in reader view with the Open In Reader View addon for Firefox/Chrome/Opera: https://add0n.com/reader-view.html It's great for these situations.

No need for an extension.

Reader view doesn't always work though (at least in Firefox.) You can use the icon in the URL bar or CTRL + ALT + R to open reader view.

Firefox does some detective work to choose whether to show the reader view icon but using the keyboard shortcut used to work regardless. Recently it seems even the keyboard shortcut doesn't work unless the icon is visible - I think becausethe heuristic for showing the icon is more accurate these days.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#86

Post by PaulHoule »

bena wrote: post #81
richardhod wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe what Quora did? I've heard a few reports that it's not like it used to be, but I've found it useful, and am curious as to what makes it worse than before.

User-generated content. It's basically a crapshoot as to whether the person is a blowhard or knows what they're talking about.

My 16-year old son has a classmate who has made about $50 or so writing spam questions for Quora. Some of these questions were astonishingly stupid, the kind of writing that I would have fired a spam writer back in the day that I hired spam writers.

It wasn't clear if he was working for Quora or working for somebody who wanted to spam Quora, but the damage is done.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#87

Post by amelius »

kuhhk wrote: post #4

Personally, I was excited by Medium all those years ago. Now I think twice before clicking a medium.com link. I really hate the obnoxious UI and usually close the tab before reading the article. Anyone else feel this way?

> Personally, I was excited by Medium all those years ago.

Keep in mind that Medium is just YouTube, except with text-based content.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#88

Post by StavrosK »

Kihashi wrote: post #84
StavrosK wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it died, plus it's pretty feature-complete as is, I've never had difficulty doing anything. The upside is that it's much easier to use than Hugo, which I never managed to get running. I haven't played with many other alternatives, if anyone knows of a static site generator that isn't specifically blog-oriented (i.e. something with an agnostic model), please let me know.

> if anyone knows of a static site generator that isn't specifically blog-oriented (i.e. something with an agnostic model), please let me know. Is that not what Jekyll is? or maybe it's become more blog-centric since I used it.

Last I checked it was pretty blog-centric, but I didn't try in depth, I saw that somewhere and it put me off. Is it not?

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#89

Post by smacktoward »

mrzool wrote: post #39
dhh2106 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel similarly about Medium: waning enthusiasm. I only recently got engaged in HackerNews. The UI isn't beautiful. There are minimal features. It's my favorite content aggregator right now. Obviously, HN isn't a blogging platform, but it accomplishes many of the things medium is trying to. I wonder if many more partners will give up on medium? Hackernoon is moving away because of a change to medium's advertising po…

> The UI isn't beautiful. I disagree. HN's UI is perfect.

Hard disagree. It's barely acceptable on desktop, but on a mobile device it's awful. All the links and buttons are tiny, and they're all so crowded together I frequently end up doing dumb things like tapping "flag" when I meant to tap "discuss."

With just a little bit of work HN's UI could be so much better.

Re: Ending our Medium integration

#90

Post by kjaer »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #20

I don't have a Medium account so I'm not sure if this is still true, but there was once a button in the settings to export your content as a zipball. If you'd like to migrate to a self-hosted blog, I wrote a tool which will convert this zipball into a Jekyll blog: https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/unmediumify If you want, shoot me an email for free hosting, and I'll rig up builds.sr.ht to automate deployment for you, too:…

That's pretty nice. For people looking for an alternative with the same convenience as Medium, converting the archive of Medium posts to a GitHub Pages site could be a decent solution.
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