Ellis — this is a very useful signal, thank you. Especially your point about the “passing the baton” loop posts disappearing by late December. I’m seeing something similar: formats that used to get amplified at scale now seem to stop circulating almost overnight.
I’d be cautious about framing it as intentional “Substack fixing hacks” — we don’t know the internal mechanisms. But as a pattern (“a widely repeated format stopped being rewarded across many accounts”) this is extremely valuable.
If you have any concrete examples (even 1–2 posts with dates / before vs after), please drop them here. I’m mapping exactly which viral mechanics started dying — and when.
Yes — and you articulated the key point: those signals always existed. So it’s not that Substack suddenly “invented algorithms.”
What seems to have changed in January is the weighting: not what gets measured, but what gets rewarded more aggressively. The system appears less tolerant of “slow” engagement curves and more dependent on early velocity — a post either gets picked up quickly, or it fades into silence.
That would explain the pattern many writers are describing in the exact same words: “same format, same quality — but it feels like the post didn’t reach people.”
If you don’t mind clarifying one detail:
are you seeing the drop mainly in email opens, or in feed visibility / Notes distribution?
and did it start specifically in January, or already in December?
Right now, I’m collecting signals — not conclusions.
That’s actually extremely valuable — thank you. I need not only “engagement dropped” reports, but also exceptions, otherwise it becomes easy to fall into a false “everyone is down” narrative.
The two factors you mention sound like key differentiators:
a subscriber base of “regular people” (less platform-native / less feed-dependent),
one viral post that continues to pull a long-tail wave of traffic.
If you don’t mind clarifying two details (for mapping):
where is most of your traffic coming from right now — email, Substack network, or external (Google / social)?
did the viral post start gaining traction before January, or only after?
That would help separate “discovery weighting shift” from “stable external long-tail.”
I think there is something to this. I started a German Substack in January and just randomly posted a note saying hi to the Substack world and that I previously thought there was not much Substack going on in German but I obviously was wrong. There was no particular intention behind that post except for saying hi and expressing my surprise about the unexpectedly many German Substackers - but the note got close to 200 likes by now!
Marion — yes, you’ve caught a very telling effect.
Right now the algorithm often boosts not “meaning,” but signal: short, simple, social, instantly legible. Greeting + surprise + language/identity = perfect feed trigger.
200 likes on a post like that isn’t proof of “quality” or “emptiness.” It’s more a sign of what the platform currently rewards: contact, not reading.
And there’s something funny here: sometimes the most honest texts really are the ones with no agenda and no performance. But the metric still isn’t measuring depth. It’s measuring distribution.
If you want a clean test: check how many of those likes convert into actual subscribers / deeper readers. That will show what’s “resonance” vs what’s just “feed signal.”
Yes, I did check, and it was interesting. I really got subscribers who also read my articles. I think it‘s not bad if notes perform well which are just aiming for connection. After all, nobody will read my articles if nobody knows I‘m there… but anyway, I suck at notes because I can‘t post just for the sake of posting. 😅
I saw it in early and mid January with my 2 fiction posts, both of which my followers told me they didn't find in their feeds when I sent out a note asking if my customary readers were seeing the posts. They had to go to my stack to get the posts, and I had to begin doing multiple re-stacks. I also resorted to satire . . . enlisting the help of a great fictionista who wrote a "review" of one of the stories, declaring me Substack's "worst writer of fiction." I never had to "drum up" readers before because many just found me through the algo. Not in Jan. It'll be interesting to see what February brings.
Elizabeth — this is an excellent signal, thank you for describing it so precisely.
The fact that your regular subscribers couldn’t find your fiction posts in their feeds and had to go directly to your stack to see them doesn’t look like “content quality issues” — it looks like a distribution / prioritization shift.
And the timing matters: early–mid January is exactly when similar symptoms started appearing across many unrelated accounts. I’m increasingly seeing a pattern where Substack seems to reward predictable engagement + portable formats more than the text itself — especially when the content is fiction (less “scannable,” slower reaction curve).
If you notice whether February brings a continuation (or a reversal), please share. Right now, these observations are more valuable than any official explanation.
The only comment I can make in response to your questions is: "yes, something is different here on this platform, and I can't put my finger on it, but I can sense it from a high level."
I do not track my own stats, because they are not important to me, but the "feeling" of the platform seems to have changed a bit from last June when I opened my own. I now spend as little time here as possible, because it seems to have begun to mutate into a platform where the "owners" ... "investors" or whatever you want to call them --- even the posts coming from Substack itself --- keep pushing readers to pay. So I curate what I read each day, without scrolling.
What I want to say is this: I would support more than the several dozen creators than I already do, because I believe in paying content providers, but now I have to cut back. Canceling paid subs where I must because funds are limited, but MOSTLY because I think the algorithms have changed and all the investors want is more money in their own pockets. And I don't want to give it to them.
Just my two cents and I don't even have payments activated, because that is not why I am here, so I am not obliged to the platform or its owners in any way.
Second response, and to the point: less engagement on a relatively new stack started in June 2025. No changes in number of posts or weekly newsletter OR basic content.
Lilian — you read mostly via email rather than the Substack feed, right? If so, your signal is extremely important: it may not be a Notes/feed algorithm issue only, but an email delivery / inbox visibility shift (Promotions/Other tabs, delays, etc.). Have you noticed posts becoming harder to “see” in your inbox lately?
I also check, once a day, the feed. Not to read it but to clear the notifications. I glance at the feed, and what is important is, I do not see the people I follow first. I see a a lot of stuff I've no interest in reading or following. As if the platform is pushing politics at me, or other stacks and comments I'd rather not see. That seems to be the difference I've noticed.
I have not noticed a huge difference in what is in my email inbox. Seems to be mostly the stacks to which I've subscribed. Also I get notifications regarding who has liked or commented on one of my posts.
Overall, I have not noticed a definitive change in what comes to my inbox. Some days less, some days, like Mondays, huge numbers. I use it mostly to jump to what I want to read, and to go check out others posts, generally if they have engaged with mine and I remember the names. I must admit, I delete most because I don't have the time to read everything, so I pick and choose different people to read each day. I hope that helps.
Yes. That’s exactly the point — not to “fix” anything, but to name it.
Platforms shift quietly, and people start thinking they’re the ones who broke.
Since January I’ve been seeing the same symptoms across too many unrelated accounts for it to be personal. I’m not promising answers. I’m promising observation without self-gaslighting.
One quick marker question, if you feel like it: did you notice this more in email visibility, or in feed/Notes distribution?
Mostly feed and Notes for me. Email stayed about the same. It was subtle, but consistent. Although honestly? I didn’t actually monitor it that closely to be able to give you the correct verdict 🫢😅
It’s a solid piece of pattern-spotting, not a definitive analysis.
It clearly describes a shared experience many writers are having, which already makes it valuable. The explanations are mostly hypotheses, but reasonable ones, and the text is careful to frame them as such.
In short, it helps writers stop blaming themselves and start questioning the environment, even if the exact cause remains unclear.
In fact, my highest jump happened in January. Before was somewhat stuck. Took me long time to grow. In January I had almost as much as the 2 previous months together. But I have no idea what is going on. I just keep writing and it's all I can do.
I am active on substack, I started from zero here. No social media accounts. Only FB for Portuguese people that don't care about writing at all. I came here in November with empty hands and empty pockets.
Sara 🙂 I’ll tell you a different (and funnier) theory.
Not social media.
It’s because someone (I won’t say who) put your name into their Notes notebook — and then someone (again: I won’t say who) found your comment under Lintara’s post, clicked your profile, and saw your name + description referenced in Lintara’s Notes.
So you basically got surfaced through a human routing layer, not an algorithm.
I’ve noticed a significant increase in glitches since January, sometimes I can’t even read certain posts. I’ve also seen a drop in subscribers, paid subscribers, and in likes and comments overall. Something has clearly changed, because I haven’t altered anything about what I was doing before.
Thank you — this matches what I’m seeing from multiple sides.
The key line in your comment is: “I changed nothing.”
That makes your experience a clean control sample.
Also important: you’re not only seeing lower engagement — you’re seeing access failures (not being able to read some posts). That points to platform integrity, not just weighting.
If you can, please add one clean signal:
approx dates/times when you couldn’t open posts
app vs desktop?
and what kind of error (blank page / “something went wrong” / missing post / broken profile)?
And yes — while the platform is storming: export + screenshots, and avoid changing passwords / emails / cookies unless absolutely necessary.
Well, this was an older post. My Substack is back to working just fine after removing the VPN from my phone and computer. When I tried to add it again, everything started glitching, so I turned it off once more. At this point, I’m pretty sure the VPN had a lot to do with the issues I was experiencing.
That makes total sense — and thank you for testing it cleanly.
I want to frame it precisely:
It may not be that VPN is “the cause” of Substack’s January instability —
but VPN can absolutely act as a trigger for lockouts, glitches, and partial access failures, because it changes risk signals (IP region, bot-like patterns, session integrity).
So your result is real:
VPN ON → failures
VPN OFF → stable access
But it’s also important that many people are seeing the same anomalies without VPN, which suggests the platform itself is under stress — VPN just amplifies it.
If you ever need to use VPN:
keep one stable location (don’t jump countries)
avoid rapid reconnects
don’t change password/email/cookies while the system is storming
Your case is still valuable telemetry: it shows the risk filters are currently hypersensitive.
But if you catch one specific glitch while we’re crossing it (feed delay, split app/desktop, missing post, lockout), drop a timestamped signal here. That’s how we map the terrain.
Okay, you just answered some questions which have made me feel oh, so much better and oh, so much more worried. I'll list just a few of the problems you've referenced here that apply to me and then discuss them a little bit. Here they are:
1) I'm losing subs every day. You and I have talked about the fact that for complex reasons I actually have to track my new subs and followers by compiling a daily list of new ones each day and maintaining a running list of my daily numbers, both subs and followers. So there's no question of when I lose any. The evidence is on the list. If you were to look at my sub/followers list from your perspective, without knowing what my activities are, this would not be reflected there. I'll explain why in the next item.
2) Recent slow growth. This would also not be reflected in my sub/followers list if someone other than myself were to look at it. But in the morning when I first check, there are sometimes no new names. It is only because of my Poet Gathering activities (for my Mirror Poems collaboration with @Wildwood Writer) that I gain new subs/followers. In order for my strategies to function properly, I have to sub to the new/emerging poets who I "gather." In return, a few each day sub or follow me. If it weren't for this, which I only began to do 2 or 3 weeks ago, I would have far less subs than I do now.
3) Glitches. I don't think you mentioned this specifically but I've been having serious problems with my DM's that are imperative for the Mirror Poems collab. So are an enormous number of people I've asked about it. Now, Wildwood Writer can't perform another imperative step in her formatting process and we may not be able to list some of the mirror poets as collaborators on the post. There are other glitches too.
4) I gave up on the feed entirely. I don't even bother to scroll anymore. I was encountering about a total of 6 writers who I've never read; never liked; never subbed or followed; never engaged in any way. I wasn't accidentally using the main feed. I was using my community feed.
So thank you for this post, Lintara. I thought all of these things were me. Again. Just doing things incorrectly, or not understanding what I was doing. I knew you were studying the algorithm and I'm glad I came to check in with you today. You always have a way of helping me feel better.
I'm fairly new on Substack so just a little guy but I have noticed this that you mention:
"I have to sub to the new/emerging poets who I "gather." In return, a few each day sub or follow me."
Most of my subscribers are people I have subscribed to first. I don't seem to be getting noticed out there for people to find me on their own.
People keep giving advice "go and make lots of notes and comment on other people's stuff" as if I'm not doing that.
*I am* but it's not enough. I find the people to comment on through recommendations on my feed but I don't seem to be getting recommended to anyone for them to find me. It almost feels like I'm shadowbanned.
Hi Lintara, thank you so much for your generous reply. But don’t worry, I think something got lost in translation because I actually didn’t request that you do anything for me. I had just wanted to give you any information I could as far as what I personally was experiencing. I learned since then through you and others that these glitches and malfunctions are common technical Substack problems. But thank you so much. You are a Godsend for all of us. Where would we be without you?!
I forgot to tell you that yesterday one of my posts had 101 likes and today it has 99. I keep leaving likes and responses for comments on my poems but they disappear. My readers must think I don't care. Also, I've been leaving likes and some very long, involved comments on posts by friends and other writers. A couple of times I went back to see if there were responses and discovered my comments had disappeared. This has happened to other people too. I just talked to A Writer's Voice and he is also losing subs and worse. So is Wildwood. It's everybody. I'm telling others to read this piece. I hope it helps.
Attention: classic devaluation pattern.
No discussion of the topic. Just a replacement move: instead of signals/telemetry → an “AI label” to avoid substance.
5 abuse markers
Topic shift (from platform mechanics → “who wrote it”)
Label instead of argument
Control move (“where’s your disclaimer?” = interrogation posture)
Author discrediting instead of facts
Work erasure (“everyone says this” + “AI wrote it”)
Personality type
Anxious-controlling moral enforcer. Not truth-seeking — power-seeking.
And yes, their bio says it all: “I came to exterminate evil…” That’s not dialogue. That’s a self-declared executioner.
End. No feeding.
Ellis — this is a very useful signal, thank you. Especially your point about the “passing the baton” loop posts disappearing by late December. I’m seeing something similar: formats that used to get amplified at scale now seem to stop circulating almost overnight.
I’d be cautious about framing it as intentional “Substack fixing hacks” — we don’t know the internal mechanisms. But as a pattern (“a widely repeated format stopped being rewarded across many accounts”) this is extremely valuable.
If you have any concrete examples (even 1–2 posts with dates / before vs after), please drop them here. I’m mapping exactly which viral mechanics started dying — and when.
Yes — and you articulated the key point: those signals always existed. So it’s not that Substack suddenly “invented algorithms.”
What seems to have changed in January is the weighting: not what gets measured, but what gets rewarded more aggressively. The system appears less tolerant of “slow” engagement curves and more dependent on early velocity — a post either gets picked up quickly, or it fades into silence.
That would explain the pattern many writers are describing in the exact same words: “same format, same quality — but it feels like the post didn’t reach people.”
If you don’t mind clarifying one detail:
are you seeing the drop mainly in email opens, or in feed visibility / Notes distribution?
and did it start specifically in January, or already in December?
Right now, I’m collecting signals — not conclusions.
That’s actually extremely valuable — thank you. I need not only “engagement dropped” reports, but also exceptions, otherwise it becomes easy to fall into a false “everyone is down” narrative.
The two factors you mention sound like key differentiators:
a subscriber base of “regular people” (less platform-native / less feed-dependent),
one viral post that continues to pull a long-tail wave of traffic.
If you don’t mind clarifying two details (for mapping):
where is most of your traffic coming from right now — email, Substack network, or external (Google / social)?
did the viral post start gaining traction before January, or only after?
That would help separate “discovery weighting shift” from “stable external long-tail.”
I think there is something to this. I started a German Substack in January and just randomly posted a note saying hi to the Substack world and that I previously thought there was not much Substack going on in German but I obviously was wrong. There was no particular intention behind that post except for saying hi and expressing my surprise about the unexpectedly many German Substackers - but the note got close to 200 likes by now!
Marion — yes, you’ve caught a very telling effect.
Right now the algorithm often boosts not “meaning,” but signal: short, simple, social, instantly legible. Greeting + surprise + language/identity = perfect feed trigger.
200 likes on a post like that isn’t proof of “quality” or “emptiness.” It’s more a sign of what the platform currently rewards: contact, not reading.
And there’s something funny here: sometimes the most honest texts really are the ones with no agenda and no performance. But the metric still isn’t measuring depth. It’s measuring distribution.
If you want a clean test: check how many of those likes convert into actual subscribers / deeper readers. That will show what’s “resonance” vs what’s just “feed signal.”
Yes, I did check, and it was interesting. I really got subscribers who also read my articles. I think it‘s not bad if notes perform well which are just aiming for connection. After all, nobody will read my articles if nobody knows I‘m there… but anyway, I suck at notes because I can‘t post just for the sake of posting. 😅
Yes — and one more important thing: notes aren’t only for “grabbing attention.”
For many authors, they work as a quotation device:
a short fragment from a longer piece, a line, a thought — a way to point toward the work without rewriting yourself or pretending to be “light.”
You’re not writing for the note.
You’re simply opening a door into an existing text.
For authors who care about wholeness rather than constant signaling, this is often the only honest way to be present in the feed.
I saw it in early and mid January with my 2 fiction posts, both of which my followers told me they didn't find in their feeds when I sent out a note asking if my customary readers were seeing the posts. They had to go to my stack to get the posts, and I had to begin doing multiple re-stacks. I also resorted to satire . . . enlisting the help of a great fictionista who wrote a "review" of one of the stories, declaring me Substack's "worst writer of fiction." I never had to "drum up" readers before because many just found me through the algo. Not in Jan. It'll be interesting to see what February brings.
Elizabeth — this is an excellent signal, thank you for describing it so precisely.
The fact that your regular subscribers couldn’t find your fiction posts in their feeds and had to go directly to your stack to see them doesn’t look like “content quality issues” — it looks like a distribution / prioritization shift.
And the timing matters: early–mid January is exactly when similar symptoms started appearing across many unrelated accounts. I’m increasingly seeing a pattern where Substack seems to reward predictable engagement + portable formats more than the text itself — especially when the content is fiction (less “scannable,” slower reaction curve).
If you notice whether February brings a continuation (or a reversal), please share. Right now, these observations are more valuable than any official explanation.
The only comment I can make in response to your questions is: "yes, something is different here on this platform, and I can't put my finger on it, but I can sense it from a high level."
I do not track my own stats, because they are not important to me, but the "feeling" of the platform seems to have changed a bit from last June when I opened my own. I now spend as little time here as possible, because it seems to have begun to mutate into a platform where the "owners" ... "investors" or whatever you want to call them --- even the posts coming from Substack itself --- keep pushing readers to pay. So I curate what I read each day, without scrolling.
What I want to say is this: I would support more than the several dozen creators than I already do, because I believe in paying content providers, but now I have to cut back. Canceling paid subs where I must because funds are limited, but MOSTLY because I think the algorithms have changed and all the investors want is more money in their own pockets. And I don't want to give it to them.
Just my two cents and I don't even have payments activated, because that is not why I am here, so I am not obliged to the platform or its owners in any way.
Second response, and to the point: less engagement on a relatively new stack started in June 2025. No changes in number of posts or weekly newsletter OR basic content.
Lilian — you read mostly via email rather than the Substack feed, right? If so, your signal is extremely important: it may not be a Notes/feed algorithm issue only, but an email delivery / inbox visibility shift (Promotions/Other tabs, delays, etc.). Have you noticed posts becoming harder to “see” in your inbox lately?
I also check, once a day, the feed. Not to read it but to clear the notifications. I glance at the feed, and what is important is, I do not see the people I follow first. I see a a lot of stuff I've no interest in reading or following. As if the platform is pushing politics at me, or other stacks and comments I'd rather not see. That seems to be the difference I've noticed.
I have not noticed a huge difference in what is in my email inbox. Seems to be mostly the stacks to which I've subscribed. Also I get notifications regarding who has liked or commented on one of my posts.
Overall, I have not noticed a definitive change in what comes to my inbox. Some days less, some days, like Mondays, huge numbers. I use it mostly to jump to what I want to read, and to go check out others posts, generally if they have engaged with mine and I remember the names. I must admit, I delete most because I don't have the time to read everything, so I pick and choose different people to read each day. I hope that helps.
💕
Honestly, I felt a little less crazy reading this.
Not because it fixes anything.
Just because someone said out loud what a lot of us have been squinting at since January.
Yes. That’s exactly the point — not to “fix” anything, but to name it.
Platforms shift quietly, and people start thinking they’re the ones who broke.
Since January I’ve been seeing the same symptoms across too many unrelated accounts for it to be personal. I’m not promising answers. I’m promising observation without self-gaslighting.
One quick marker question, if you feel like it: did you notice this more in email visibility, or in feed/Notes distribution?
Mostly feed and Notes for me. Email stayed about the same. It was subtle, but consistent. Although honestly? I didn’t actually monitor it that closely to be able to give you the correct verdict 🫢😅
Yes, thank you!
Fascinating!
😂
This reads as careful, honest pattern recognition, not panic. We just gotta outsmart the algorithms.
I’ve noticed my posts surfacing later than their publish time as well, which tracks with this.
Thanks for sharing this.
thank you!
It’s a solid piece of pattern-spotting, not a definitive analysis.
It clearly describes a shared experience many writers are having, which already makes it valuable. The explanations are mostly hypotheses, but reasonable ones, and the text is careful to frame them as such.
In short, it helps writers stop blaming themselves and start questioning the environment, even if the exact cause remains unclear.
thank you!
In fact, my highest jump happened in January. Before was somewhat stuck. Took me long time to grow. In January I had almost as much as the 2 previous months together. But I have no idea what is going on. I just keep writing and it's all I can do.
No. Because you're active on social media.
I am active on substack, I started from zero here. No social media accounts. Only FB for Portuguese people that don't care about writing at all. I came here in November with empty hands and empty pockets.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your activity in the notes.
Ah ok
Sara 🙂 I’ll tell you a different (and funnier) theory.
Not social media.
It’s because someone (I won’t say who) put your name into their Notes notebook — and then someone (again: I won’t say who) found your comment under Lintara’s post, clicked your profile, and saw your name + description referenced in Lintara’s Notes.
So you basically got surfaced through a human routing layer, not an algorithm.
Sometimes that’s how January works:
your work doesn’t “grow.” It gets noticed.
That makes sense.
I tend to trust human routing more than algorithms anyway.
January does that sometimes.
Thanks for your insights
I appreciate this analysis and insight. To answer your questions near the beginning: yes, yes, yes, yes, no. Let us know if you hear from Chris Best.
😂🤣🤣🤣
I’ve noticed a significant increase in glitches since January, sometimes I can’t even read certain posts. I’ve also seen a drop in subscribers, paid subscribers, and in likes and comments overall. Something has clearly changed, because I haven’t altered anything about what I was doing before.
Thank you — this matches what I’m seeing from multiple sides.
The key line in your comment is: “I changed nothing.”
That makes your experience a clean control sample.
Also important: you’re not only seeing lower engagement — you’re seeing access failures (not being able to read some posts). That points to platform integrity, not just weighting.
If you can, please add one clean signal:
approx dates/times when you couldn’t open posts
app vs desktop?
and what kind of error (blank page / “something went wrong” / missing post / broken profile)?
And yes — while the platform is storming: export + screenshots, and avoid changing passwords / emails / cookies unless absolutely necessary.
Well, this was an older post. My Substack is back to working just fine after removing the VPN from my phone and computer. When I tried to add it again, everything started glitching, so I turned it off once more. At this point, I’m pretty sure the VPN had a lot to do with the issues I was experiencing.
That makes total sense — and thank you for testing it cleanly.
I want to frame it precisely:
It may not be that VPN is “the cause” of Substack’s January instability —
but VPN can absolutely act as a trigger for lockouts, glitches, and partial access failures, because it changes risk signals (IP region, bot-like patterns, session integrity).
So your result is real:
VPN ON → failures
VPN OFF → stable access
But it’s also important that many people are seeing the same anomalies without VPN, which suggests the platform itself is under stress — VPN just amplifies it.
If you ever need to use VPN:
keep one stable location (don’t jump countries)
avoid rapid reconnects
don’t change password/email/cookies while the system is storming
Your case is still valuable telemetry: it shows the risk filters are currently hypersensitive.
Thank you for this valuable information!
We're all passing through the SubStack bardos.
Yes 😄 — Substack bardo is real.
But if you catch one specific glitch while we’re crossing it (feed delay, split app/desktop, missing post, lockout), drop a timestamped signal here. That’s how we map the terrain.
Hi Lintara,
Okay, you just answered some questions which have made me feel oh, so much better and oh, so much more worried. I'll list just a few of the problems you've referenced here that apply to me and then discuss them a little bit. Here they are:
1) I'm losing subs every day. You and I have talked about the fact that for complex reasons I actually have to track my new subs and followers by compiling a daily list of new ones each day and maintaining a running list of my daily numbers, both subs and followers. So there's no question of when I lose any. The evidence is on the list. If you were to look at my sub/followers list from your perspective, without knowing what my activities are, this would not be reflected there. I'll explain why in the next item.
2) Recent slow growth. This would also not be reflected in my sub/followers list if someone other than myself were to look at it. But in the morning when I first check, there are sometimes no new names. It is only because of my Poet Gathering activities (for my Mirror Poems collaboration with @Wildwood Writer) that I gain new subs/followers. In order for my strategies to function properly, I have to sub to the new/emerging poets who I "gather." In return, a few each day sub or follow me. If it weren't for this, which I only began to do 2 or 3 weeks ago, I would have far less subs than I do now.
3) Glitches. I don't think you mentioned this specifically but I've been having serious problems with my DM's that are imperative for the Mirror Poems collab. So are an enormous number of people I've asked about it. Now, Wildwood Writer can't perform another imperative step in her formatting process and we may not be able to list some of the mirror poets as collaborators on the post. There are other glitches too.
4) I gave up on the feed entirely. I don't even bother to scroll anymore. I was encountering about a total of 6 writers who I've never read; never liked; never subbed or followed; never engaged in any way. I wasn't accidentally using the main feed. I was using my community feed.
So thank you for this post, Lintara. I thought all of these things were me. Again. Just doing things incorrectly, or not understanding what I was doing. I knew you were studying the algorithm and I'm glad I came to check in with you today. You always have a way of helping me feel better.
❤️
Re: #2
I'm fairly new on Substack so just a little guy but I have noticed this that you mention:
"I have to sub to the new/emerging poets who I "gather." In return, a few each day sub or follow me."
Most of my subscribers are people I have subscribed to first. I don't seem to be getting noticed out there for people to find me on their own.
People keep giving advice "go and make lots of notes and comment on other people's stuff" as if I'm not doing that.
*I am* but it's not enough. I find the people to comment on through recommendations on my feed but I don't seem to be getting recommended to anyone for them to find me. It almost feels like I'm shadowbanned.
Hello Astria, I just subscribed to you. I’ll restack a post too. Which would you like me to do?
Thank you very much! 😍 My most recent personal one with my own message would be the one about ableism in the writing community
I want to help.
But Substack is having problems right now and it might not even work.
I just did. We’ll see if it remains. Best of luck!
Kelly — thank you, but I’m going to keep this thread in a strict mode.
Right now we don’t need heroic gestures or rescue missions.
We need clean signals.
If you want to help, do this instead:
take one screenshot + timestamp of any glitch you see (feed delay / missing post / broken profile / chat failure)
note whether it happened on app or desktop
drop it here
That’s more valuable than boosting one person, because it helps map what the platform is doing to everyone.
Hi Lintara, thank you so much for your generous reply. But don’t worry, I think something got lost in translation because I actually didn’t request that you do anything for me. I had just wanted to give you any information I could as far as what I personally was experiencing. I learned since then through you and others that these glitches and malfunctions are common technical Substack problems. But thank you so much. You are a Godsend for all of us. Where would we be without you?!
❤️
I forgot to tell you that yesterday one of my posts had 101 likes and today it has 99. I keep leaving likes and responses for comments on my poems but they disappear. My readers must think I don't care. Also, I've been leaving likes and some very long, involved comments on posts by friends and other writers. A couple of times I went back to see if there were responses and discovered my comments had disappeared. This has happened to other people too. I just talked to A Writer's Voice and he is also losing subs and worse. So is Wildwood. It's everybody. I'm telling others to read this piece. I hope it helps.
Yes, that's right. exactly. Thanks Kelly