I went to https://selfh.st/ because someone posted a link to a github repo that had some tracking appended to the URL (?ref=selfh.st). OK your marketing worked on me I’m a mark.
I still have an aversion to this kind of tracking. Maybe considering how old-fashioned it it compared to the undetectable and nearly impossible to evade tracking methods currently deployed, that’s wrong. Maybe this is just charming and quaint.
Disregarding the above, I liked the site enough to subscribe to their RSS feed https://selfh.st/rss/. Well that was pointless, as there is no content in the feed. Each entry like this:
Self-hosted news, updates, launches, and content for the week ending Friday, August 1, 2025
Continue reading on selfh.st…
I kind of expect a meaningful RSS feed these days. It sign of participating in the Libre internet.
Workaround: I have used Kill the Newsletter! (which kicks ass) to convert the email newsletter to an Atom feed which appears to work. Got the confirmation email, now need to wait for a post to be made.
What do you all think?
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Link tracking: yay or nay?
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Placeholder RSS: Rude or acceptable?
The email tracking is even worse. I really hate the obfuscated links with who knows what embedded tracking. At least the ?ref is clear. It’s brought me close to unsubscribing
Email list tracking is much worse.
It gets me riled up because every email list does it. Even when I know that the people who run it have no interest in it. Non-profit, non-creepy organizations have it turned on by default. They may not even be aware of it.
It turns me off the whole concept of email lists because I have to be on guard to not click any of their links by mistake.