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Comment by xd1936 | Hacker News Reader

xd1936

From what I understand, Mastodon is to Twitter as WriteFreely is to WordPress.com/Medium/Blogger/etc. Fediverse-aware, open-source, with a flagship SaaS hosted instance available at https://write.as. If microblogging hadn't fried my brain and I was interested in spinning up a longform blog, this is the software I would choose.

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WordPress.com is also based on open-source software (WordPress) and can connect to the Fediverse via Activitypub [1]. Similar to WriteFreely, there's even a WordPress.com desktop app [2]. That said, I understand the allure of a simple, minimal, distraction-free writing and reading experience.

[1] https://wordpress.com/support/enter-the-fediverse/

[2] https://apps.wordpress.com/desktop/

I think a lot of people may prefer WriteFreely’s Go stack vs. WordPresses PHP - for right or wrong reasons.

why would a writer need to know or care about the tech stack

Both are FOSS and self-hostable. I assumed it was implied "a lot of people" meant "a lot of people [who self-host]", especially when the post is linking to the server software not the SaaS write.as.

As to why people would prefer Go over PHP...I think there's plenty of reasons to be found on HN's search :)

To be able to easily modify the software, and send patches (or make pull-requests whatever) to make the software suit better to own writing needs.

Nerds aren't writers and Writers aren't nerds. Most of them don't care to DIY their writing tools.

Have you never read a blog by an open source nerd? Hell, most nerds I know have written their own blogging software at some point.

True. But this is HN so… you know, tech

It’s all aesthetic experiences. Some people care, so it matters.

I know what you’re getting at and the world you want to live in. Listen, why do people care if some story they read was written by a bot, for example? The people reading Reddit’s top creative writing venues (AITA comes to mind) clearly don’t know and don’t care. But many people do care. It’s arbitrary. It’s just aesthetic. Nobody needs this stuff, nobody needs Fediverse or ActivityPub.

No, but fediverse/activitypub are features that the end-users directly use, whereas 'written in language X' isn't.

at some point the ActivityPub protocol with its open interoperability will develop a sort of critical mass with the mainstream and everyone will need it. So you may be correct now, "nobody needs Fediverse or ActivityPub" but in some near or distant future your claim will need adjustment.

Yep, that's exactly it! (Creator here.)

Would also note it works pretty well for microblogging -- here's an example (with some custom styling)[0]. Small posts with a single paragraph also get federated out as `Note`s instead of `Article`s, which makes them show up on Mastodon pretty nicely.

[0]: https://write.as/updates/

I'd noticed some years back that this project seems to have started with a pretty strong anonymity story:

https://write.as/

That seemed to diminish in emphasis a few years ago, stopped accepting accounts that didn't give you a credit card end of 2021, and some year recently (last year? I forget…) seemed as though the warrant canary missed a couple updates. (It's up to date now, with an assertion of no warrants ever.)

Are the anonymous speech principles of write.as still as important as when it was launched? Or did the business model for that just not work?

There aren't a lot of options in this class (which I love seeing make it):

https://write.as/

https://mataroa.blog/

https://bearblog.dev/

And… that's about it? While these other two talk about "no trackers", and mataroa emphasizes ethical (and non-SEO!) speech, only write.as seems to have had had the emphasis around importance of anonymity.

TIA for any story you can comment on.

It also speaks ActivityPub, and can thus talk to Mastodon, Pixelfed, etc. servers.

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