Thanks. I work seven days a week reporting and can’t keep up with product development. Is it default set to on? I am in production now and really don’t want people to directly contact me unless it’s email.
Thank you. I can't afford the time to sift through any more information coming to me through new channels. If a subscriber who is stranger wants to communicate with me, they can just reply to an email.
Reaching others, including authors, has been possible until now, too, by simply replying to a notification about a new publication. Is that feature going to be kept?
I can't see how anyone with thousands of subscribers can do more than keep the comment section civilized. I have only 2,300, and I couldn't possibly keep up with answering personal messages, and ignoring someone can be easily considered offensive.
I actually hadn't considered that, but you make an excellent point. This could create an incredible amount of work for writers with a large number of Subscribers. It would be very hard to keep up with hundreds, or thousands, of conversations taking place at once. And, you're right, someone could be offended if their message gets ignored - whereas with the current Comment system, often a Like is enough to let them know you appreciate their contribution. It'll be interesting to see how many people do utilise this new system, and how many turn it off completely... 😎
"Like"s are good in a way, because I feel appreciated, but I also understand that many readers don't dare to exercise the option for fear of being tracked. From my end, if I like everything, it becomes meaningless, and if I don't, that can also cause problems. I usually don't mark a comment that praises my work, but I thank for the feedback, and I try not to take sides in arguments, because my stance must be clear from the article.
It's a little easier for me, because I'm just posting Fiction. But I can see how dealing with radically opposing viewpoints and arguments could make using the 'Like' button tricky. I completely agree some readers prefer to stay anonymous, and don't get involved with Comments and Likes at all. Which is fine, too. It would be nice to interact with more of them, of course - but the most important thing is that the work is being read... 😎
That last phrase is my concern with having something like this roll out. I don't have a support staff and I try to put about 95 percent of my time to writing. I'm up to nearly 2,800 readers for what is becoming a local information institution. My fear is reading being told about a feature I can't support at this time. I also can't respond to every email, either, but I try to read and stay in touch!
What you mean by 95% is probably 80% reading, 16% writing, and 4% handling comments. Same here with about 2,400 subscribers and a readership of 3-6,000 per article.
As everything is free on my site, I offer bonuses for paid subscriptions. One of them is guaranteed answers to e-mail.
I would amend to that 95 percent being a catch all for production. Most newsletters are also fully produced podcasts. And then every Saturday there’s a radio version!
Oh, dear, that's a lot of work. How can you accomplish that? My wife and I can barely keep up with the articles.
It looks like you and I are practically neighbors by US standards, being in WV and KY.
Strangely, in recent weeks or, rather, months, hardly anything new is coming up; mostly limited hangouts and red herrings to occupy the feeble minds of the masses, and it works. The good news is that there is a lot less to read. The bad news is that I must come up with something new every time, which is becoming difficult after about 800 articles in 21 months.
Because I decided to be a journalist 30 years ago and the profession died while I was starting. There is no coverage of many of the topics I write. I worked for a nonprofit for 11 years and pioneered a certain kind of coverage that readers wanted, but a Board member got irritated with me reporting certain things and a decision was made to move away from beat coverage and I moved on. The problem is, when there's no one watching, corruption can spring up. So four years ago I opted to do something about it, no longer content to sit back. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life working seven days a week to build up a business, and Substack is about 50 percent of the revenue. There is nothing else I want to do and there's a lot of room to grow.
My circulation is approaching the local newspaper, which is no longer a daily. The corporation that earns them has no interest in building community, but I do!
Maybe it could help new, beginning Substackers to leverage their few subscribers to expand their base. I see the point of those with tons of subscribers being overwhelmed with overload. This could cut into their time to create content—which is the whole purpose. But what do I know, I’m a newbie.
Thanks for your insight here Mark - seems like it, eh? This would be a deal-killer for me I think. Wouldn't this in a sense kill the golden goose of organic growth/ community?
If you lose productivity because people send messages to you that you don't have to read, you have a problem with responsibility and self-discipline. It isn't the platform's fault if you can't control yourself.
I've not noticed, but I do think a lot of my subscribers are skeptical of Substack trying to morph into a social media site. I'm getting a lot more skepticism about people not wanting to grant over their credit card information. I'm glad I turned off direct messaging from the get go!
I'm not sure how I feel about DMs. I was initially against them but I'll wait and see.
But please don't advise people to DM anyone just to say 'hello'. It's not acceptable to many of us and it's one of the reasons so many have said 'no' to Substack DMs.
Please only use them if there's a reason beyond using comments or emails, which we all have.
I can definitely see the potential for them to become intrusive and overwhelming in some cases. But hopefully, they will be mainly used for the intended purpose - which is to improve collaboration and growth... 😎
FINALLY! A much needed feature to connect and reach out to other writers. This should have been on top of the list 😄. And great that writers have the freedom to turn off messaging. I welcome collaborations so if you have an awesome idea for a collab then feel free to reach out. And charging for DM's is brilliant idea too! Awesome.
Question for Substack, are DM's encrypted or can Substack team read them, like Elon Musk? 😂
Right now, DMs are not encrypted. We take privacy extremely seriously, and can only access DMs that are reported to T&S by the participant. We also engineered DMs in a way that allows us to move toward encryption in the future—I totally understand why it's important to you.
You can restrict them to just paid subscribers (or any other tier) from your settings. Then when you use a "Message me" button in your post — or a free reader sees your profile — they'll see a lock icon saying "Only paid subscribers can message Nico."
thanks Jasmine - yes it's showed up. The lock button isn't showing on my draft for free subscribers and I have set it to paid. Will it show up once it's sent? Thanks
When I put the message me button on a page it appears greyed out with a lock icon on it. All chat is on, and messages are accepted in settings. Is that how visitors/subscribers are experiencing it as well or just me ?
I seem to be seeing the same thing, and it's hard to figure out if this is just for my own Substack user or if my subscribers or non-subscribers will see the same thing.
Can substack make it easier for writers to recommend other substacks? For example, any time someone is on another’s substack page there should be a button somewhere to easy recommend the substack in my opinion
that would be awesome. currently, you’re asked to recommend only upon subscribing, but that often feels too soon. i’d like to read a few posts, get a feel for it, then hit Recommend.
Good job rolling this out with an “off” switch. Is there a plan for fine-tuning later so DM’s can be “off” except for specified people (e.g. collaborators)?
Can these be turned off entirely? I have zero need for this and worry it will hurt my productivity and provide a way to be harassed and abused.
You can go to your settings (substack.com/settings) and set "Allow message requests from" to "No one."
Thanks. I work seven days a week reporting and can’t keep up with product development. Is it default set to on? I am in production now and really don’t want people to directly contact me unless it’s email.
It is default set to on, so feel free to just go there and turn it off.
Ethically, wouldn't it be better to set the default to Off?
Agreed - it's a creepy feature.
You are no "Sun of God" if you consider conversation with people to be 'creepy'.
Yes.
The direct messaging default should be set to Off. The computer illiterate should not have to figure out how to turn it off.
Interjecting here to say I don't see that option. I already have community features disabled, does that cover it?
It's in the "Privacy" section of https://substack.com/settings. You can Ctrl-F or Cmd-F "Allow message requests from" and should see the dropdown!
Thank you. I can't afford the time to sift through any more information coming to me through new channels. If a subscriber who is stranger wants to communicate with me, they can just reply to an email.
Reaching others, including authors, has been possible until now, too, by simply replying to a notification about a new publication. Is that feature going to be kept?
I can't see how anyone with thousands of subscribers can do more than keep the comment section civilized. I have only 2,300, and I couldn't possibly keep up with answering personal messages, and ignoring someone can be easily considered offensive.
I actually hadn't considered that, but you make an excellent point. This could create an incredible amount of work for writers with a large number of Subscribers. It would be very hard to keep up with hundreds, or thousands, of conversations taking place at once. And, you're right, someone could be offended if their message gets ignored - whereas with the current Comment system, often a Like is enough to let them know you appreciate their contribution. It'll be interesting to see how many people do utilise this new system, and how many turn it off completely... 😎
G
"Like"s are good in a way, because I feel appreciated, but I also understand that many readers don't dare to exercise the option for fear of being tracked. From my end, if I like everything, it becomes meaningless, and if I don't, that can also cause problems. I usually don't mark a comment that praises my work, but I thank for the feedback, and I try not to take sides in arguments, because my stance must be clear from the article.
It's a little easier for me, because I'm just posting Fiction. But I can see how dealing with radically opposing viewpoints and arguments could make using the 'Like' button tricky. I completely agree some readers prefer to stay anonymous, and don't get involved with Comments and Likes at all. Which is fine, too. It would be nice to interact with more of them, of course - but the most important thing is that the work is being read... 😎
That last phrase is my concern with having something like this roll out. I don't have a support staff and I try to put about 95 percent of my time to writing. I'm up to nearly 2,800 readers for what is becoming a local information institution. My fear is reading being told about a feature I can't support at this time. I also can't respond to every email, either, but I try to read and stay in touch!
What you mean by 95% is probably 80% reading, 16% writing, and 4% handling comments. Same here with about 2,400 subscribers and a readership of 3-6,000 per article.
As everything is free on my site, I offer bonuses for paid subscriptions. One of them is guaranteed answers to e-mail.
Oh that’s an interesting idea!
I would amend to that 95 percent being a catch all for production. Most newsletters are also fully produced podcasts. And then every Saturday there’s a radio version!
Oh, dear, that's a lot of work. How can you accomplish that? My wife and I can barely keep up with the articles.
It looks like you and I are practically neighbors by US standards, being in WV and KY.
Strangely, in recent weeks or, rather, months, hardly anything new is coming up; mostly limited hangouts and red herrings to occupy the feeble minds of the masses, and it works. The good news is that there is a lot less to read. The bad news is that I must come up with something new every time, which is becoming difficult after about 800 articles in 21 months.
Because I decided to be a journalist 30 years ago and the profession died while I was starting. There is no coverage of many of the topics I write. I worked for a nonprofit for 11 years and pioneered a certain kind of coverage that readers wanted, but a Board member got irritated with me reporting certain things and a decision was made to move away from beat coverage and I moved on. The problem is, when there's no one watching, corruption can spring up. So four years ago I opted to do something about it, no longer content to sit back. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life working seven days a week to build up a business, and Substack is about 50 percent of the revenue. There is nothing else I want to do and there's a lot of room to grow.
My circulation is approaching the local newspaper, which is no longer a daily. The corporation that earns them has no interest in building community, but I do!
I may also be insane.
GG
Maybe it could help new, beginning Substackers to leverage their few subscribers to expand their base. I see the point of those with tons of subscribers being overwhelmed with overload. This could cut into their time to create content—which is the whole purpose. But what do I know, I’m a newbie.
Doesn't this defeat the purpose of having emails and building that 1:1 personal relationship ourselves, off-platform?
(I think Substack is trying to move away from email over time.)
Thanks for your insight here Mark - seems like it, eh? This would be a deal-killer for me I think. Wouldn't this in a sense kill the golden goose of organic growth/ community?
If you lose productivity because people send messages to you that you don't have to read, you have a problem with responsibility and self-discipline. It isn't the platform's fault if you can't control yourself.
I've noticed that subscriber counts have gone down considerably since this feature has been introduced. Are you finding this too Sean?
I've not noticed, but I do think a lot of my subscribers are skeptical of Substack trying to morph into a social media site. I'm getting a lot more skepticism about people not wanting to grant over their credit card information. I'm glad I turned off direct messaging from the get go!
Thanks so much Sean for your feedback. I really appreciate it. Turning it off now (:
Can’t wait to slide into all these DMs
Well played, sir
Hahaha 😂😅
I subscribed to your newsletter solely based on this comment.
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
lol
Haha. I think there's going to be so much sliding going on, Substack may need to put some salt down... 😎
Copy that. I just un-deployed my NextDoor account for that downward slide.
🏄🏾♀️
Substack really does listen! This is one feature a lot of people were shouting for and Substack made it happen. Fair play 👏👏
If you don’t want to use it, turn it off - ticks boxes for everyone.
I'm not sure how I feel about DMs. I was initially against them but I'll wait and see.
But please don't advise people to DM anyone just to say 'hello'. It's not acceptable to many of us and it's one of the reasons so many have said 'no' to Substack DMs.
Please only use them if there's a reason beyond using comments or emails, which we all have.
I see DMs as substitute for email replying. It is not possible if you are reading on the app.
I don't know. I rarely use the app, but I'm sure you're right. In that case, it's fine. As long as it's optional.
Agreed.
I can definitely see the potential for them to become intrusive and overwhelming in some cases. But hopefully, they will be mainly used for the intended purpose - which is to improve collaboration and growth... 😎
Hope so.
FINALLY! A much needed feature to connect and reach out to other writers. This should have been on top of the list 😄. And great that writers have the freedom to turn off messaging. I welcome collaborations so if you have an awesome idea for a collab then feel free to reach out. And charging for DM's is brilliant idea too! Awesome.
Question for Substack, are DM's encrypted or can Substack team read them, like Elon Musk? 😂
Glad you're excited about it!
Right now, DMs are not encrypted. We take privacy extremely seriously, and can only access DMs that are reported to T&S by the participant. We also engineered DMs in a way that allows us to move toward encryption in the future—I totally understand why it's important to you.
Bummer. That’s a deal breaker.
It's a good option
💯 agreed!
Never have I needed this feature more than right now…unless it came out yesterday…then that would’ve been a better time. But today. Today is good too!
Pretty neat!
Awesome. Can I charge for DMs? 🤠
You can restrict them to just paid subscribers (or any other tier) from your settings. Then when you use a "Message me" button in your post — or a free reader sees your profile — they'll see a lock icon saying "Only paid subscribers can message Nico."
how can i add a message button to a post? It's not showing up as an option under buttons? Thanks
Ah small hiccup - check again and it should be there!
thanks Jasmine - yes it's showed up. The lock button isn't showing on my draft for free subscribers and I have set it to paid. Will it show up once it's sent? Thanks
Yes. Free subscribers will see the lock button and clicking it will display a prompt to upgrade their subscription if they want to message you.
When I put the message me button on a page it appears greyed out with a lock icon on it. All chat is on, and messages are accepted in settings. Is that how visitors/subscribers are experiencing it as well or just me ?
I seem to be seeing the same thing, and it's hard to figure out if this is just for my own Substack user or if my subscribers or non-subscribers will see the same thing.
Oh adding this now!
This is awesome. I have so many chats via DM on other platforms + email - this will make for a much better experience for all
Can substack make it easier for writers to recommend other substacks? For example, any time someone is on another’s substack page there should be a button somewhere to easy recommend the substack in my opinion
that would be awesome. currently, you’re asked to recommend only upon subscribing, but that often feels too soon. i’d like to read a few posts, get a feel for it, then hit Recommend.
Exactly!
I second this!
Great idea!
This already exists. Usuaallybatvthe end of a post there is a button Recommand. Maybe it appears only on web.
I haven’t personally seen this while reading substack posts, but I usually do this on my phone so maybe it’s different on a computer.
Checking a Substacker's subscription list is easy.
My comment was that a “recommend this substack” button should be on a substack page somewhere, maybe next to the like button on a post or something.
If it’s easy, it can still be easier. More recommendations would help everyone out
Continued improvements to this platform. Constant growth. 👏
Solid upgrade! Thx Substack.
Yesssssss
Good job rolling this out with an “off” switch. Is there a plan for fine-tuning later so DM’s can be “off” except for specified people (e.g. collaborators)?
I’m wondering the same thing
“requests off” will still allow people you follow to message you, and it won’t delete any existing conversations you have
I don’t want this. It will make it like every other social media platform.
Significant improvements to author collaboration. Nice!