Engagement

Or, Is it actually possible, on Substack, to have a discussion that leads somewhere?

Hello Readers, whoever you might be and welcome, new subscribers!

This past year has proved quite “interesting” for many, in the “Chinese Curse” sense¹, myself included. My last researched article that I had time for was The Fact-Value Distinction in August, 2024, which had 100 views and a 25% open rate. Meanwhile, Substack seems to have been evolving into a full-blown, business as usual “social media platform”. How exciting. How interesting.

If I open someone’s Substack article, read it, and then proceed to the comment section, there will be a list of threads, some of which perhaps branch to other threads, perhaps recursively. Have you ever tried to sustain a conversation in one of these?

Let me interject that I am not complaining. I am trying to understand what gives, and what can be done about it. I don’t believe this platform is designed to facilitate discussion. It seems to be great for ranting and carrying on, however.

If I choose a random comment, I am presented with four items:

1. The comment text itself, with any comments-within-the-comment (replies).

2. A menu that offers several options such as “Copy link”, “Restack”, and “Collapse“.

3. A “Share” button and menu.

4. Information about the commenter, including

   1. two variations of the commenter’s blurb,

   2. Either of which if I know what to do and click enough links will allow me to “mute” the commenter or worse

   3. A link to the comment itself. I find “mute” useful for trolls, once I establish that they are indeed trolling.

So what if I come across an interesting discussion and simply want to follow it? Oops, that’s not an option that I can see. I can copy the link to the comment and track it using my browser’s bookmarks, but how many people actually would do that, even if they knew about it? I can also reply to the comment, which then establishes a “follow” for it, but I don’t understand exactly what is being followed. If someone branches off from there, is that part of the conversation followed? I get the impression that it might not be, possibly depending on the depth of the branch. And if they branch in parallel it is not, I don’t think.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but it looks to me as though thoughtful attempts at discussion are being run through a shredder. How does one publish articles and then engage readers in conversation? Chat? I somehow don’t think so, although it might be useful sometimes.

I don’t have a solution to this for Substack authors in general. If there are readers here that would like to engage in discussion about things I write about—including questions about what are we doing here, and what in the world is really going on—or even things I should write about but haven’t thought of yet, I do have an alternative outside of Substack.

It is part of my business, a private Microsoft Teams virtual server. It’s not the easiest thing to use, and it’s not entirely private (there’s no such thing), but it is licensed under a business EULA² that is different from the usual “you consent to our use of anything you say here” EULA for “free” platforms.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Interesting?

—Megan

1. "May you live in interesting times.” And no, it’s not Chinese, I don’t think, but it should qualify as a curse. Here’s an explanation that I picked because I like the site name, Mental Floss: Where Does the Phrase ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’ Actually Come From?

2. EULA = “End User License Agreement”.