It's been a few weeks since I've published anything. This summer was particularly busy, mostly with studying for the New York State bar exam, which culminated in a two-day test at the end of July. Since then, I've been working on a few things while trying to still enjoy my much-needed time off before I begin my post-law school work.
In the meantime, I thought I'd share something else I've been working on: MJR News is moving away from Substack to an entirely self-hosted site. I am also introducing new shorter-form content called Notes.
What's self-hosting?
You're probably familiar with the pre-Substack-era concept of writers running their own blogs rather than living on centralized platforms like Substack. Self-hosting a blog is similar to that, but most independent blogs still depend on third-party services to host them, design their interfaces, or publish their articles. That will no longer be the case for MJR News, as I now run the site on a self-hosted instance of Ghost. Ghost is a customizable platform for publishing, newsletters, and site design that runs on my own server and (outside of a few exceptions I describe below) every aspect of it, is under my control. Part of the reason for the change was to have control over my platform and work. The other part was simply for the exercise of it: I'm passionate about self-hosting, so I wanted to see if I could do it with MJR News.
The exceptions to my control are two. The first is email delivery, which is handled by Mailgun, because I cannot reasonably run it myself. Though it is possible to self host, email platforms are quick to mark messages as spam/junk if they don't meet certain criteria. I don't have the time or bandwidth to manage that so I chose to rely on Mailgun for this.
The second is payment processing for subscriptions, which, if enabled, would be handled by Stripe. Processing money carries technical and legal compliance that I cannot shoulder on my own. Currently, I do not plan to offer paid subscriptions but that could change in the future.
Other than that, I control all other aspects of the site, from the server and back-end to the analytics; from the reader list to the content. If you want to see more about these changes, please read my privacy policy.
What are Notes?
One of the features that is difficult to replicate on self-hosted and independent infrastructure is Substack's Notes feature. Notes in Substack is similar to a microblogging feature in the spirit of Twitter/X that is built directly into the platform. It's an engagement tool that is meant for writers to promote their work and share quick bits, thoughts, or, if you're into it, hot takes.
While I have not replicated that exact function here, what I've sought to do is create two streams of writing. The main page of MJR News is where my primary work will live. These are the longer-form, in-depth, think-pieces of the sort that I've been writing lately. For example, my recent piece on biometrics and phone unlocking or my piece examining the various arguments for privacy are typical of the "main" page writing I will continue to do.
Then, in the menu bar, you'll see a Notes page. There, I plan to publish shorter and more topical columns. It's a place for me to share things I've read or found interesting, or flag timely happenings on the subjects this site focuses on (law, tech, privacy, A.I., etc.). I don't expect to have a particular cadence with Notes, but it's meant to be an outlet, while the main page will be reserved for deeper-dives, research, and perspective pieces.
What changes for you
Practically, I hope not a lot. You'll keep getting emails when stories and Notes are published, covering the same topics as before. The main differences are the addition of Notes as an email subject matter and that, unlike a blog built on a centralized platform, your data (outside of the exceptions noted above) lives on a server that I control. Hopefully, you are happy to hear your data is being more strictly controlled.
Apart from this, there are four changes worth noting regardless:
- From here on, emails originate from this site rather than Substack, sent from: mark@posts.mjr.news – please make sure to mark this address as not spam if your email provider happens to do so.
- I may continue to cross-post to Substack for a while, but this is now the primary home.
- You may like/dislike posts by clicking the thumbs up/thumbs down.
- Commenting is available, all you need to do is enter your email (which I hope you have already done as a result of subscribing).
I hope you enjoy the new site design and I hope you find the Notes materials interesting. I am happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free to comment or provide feedback.