It occurs to me that the other day I made a plea to use Substack Notes as an alternative to the abominable X and its social-control algorithm, but I did not really explain what it means to “use” Substack Notes even though this might not be self-evident for all subscribers.
It means that instead of waiting for an e-mail notification of a new post from a publication to which you are subscribed, head over to the Substack home page from time to time to check out your Notes timeline. The Substack home page is here: Home | Substack. There you will see a horizontal scroll bar of publications to which you are subscribed and, below the scroll bar, the Notes timeline, which is much like the Twitter/X timeline. This, for instance, is what my home view looks like now.
The Notes feed appears to be set to “Explore” by default and I have not been able to find a way of changing this default setting. This means that you are seeing algorithmically-generated recommendations like in the X “for you” tab – which I refer to as the “to-piss-you-off” tab and try my best never to see or look at.
But you can easily switch from “Explore” to “Following” by clicking on the box with the three horizontal lines to the right of “Notes”. See below.
As far as I can tell, the “Following” feed is entirely unfiltered and there is no algorithmic manipulation. You will simply see the notes in reverse chronological order of authors to whose newsletters you subscribe or whom you follow.
It is important for users to understand that they can follow an author without subscribing to his or her newsletter. A newsletter subscription automatically translates into following the author on Notes, but not vice-versa. If you just want to see the author’s Notes in your timeline, you can do so without having to clutter up your inbox with another newsletter subscription.
That’s it. Apart from not being able to set the “Following” feed as the default, other drawbacks are that there is no search function for Notes, unlike for full Posts, and that there is no “replies” tab. This is why I will often “restack” my replies as independent Notes, since otherwise I don’t know how I would ever find them again.
But Substack appears to be gradually improving the platform and adding functions – unlike X, whose programming team appears to devote most of its time to “improving” algorithmic censorship and platform manipulation.
Thanks so much for the "piss you off" function. That I fully understood.
For me, landing in notes is somewhat of a lottery-win-without-entering.
Up to now, I afford SS CHAT-AssinineIdiocy with the piss you off award of the year.
You listened to any of Dark Journalist's stuff on stenography, this "X" thing?
This is how nuts it is: nearly a year ago I got a mail notice from my local credit union about some new "X" thing the bank was doing.
I looked away, and laughed. How much eXtra they get for doing something "X"?
Mickey Mouse Clubs, Everywhere
I'm lazy. I will look for that place on my page that says "notes", see what happens. I think I recall whee it is.
Something new to learn today. Thanks, "teach".
Ever notice how you have to SMASH the notes button? Well, I always have to...
Very helpful, thank you!