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 ?ref doesn’t bother me at all. Most of the target sites don’t even recognize it and if they do, I’m not sure what they’d do with it. Most of the links are to Github anyway and what is that going to mean to them?
im subbed with freshrss and for the first few weeks, it was a full article each Friday.
now, it’s just like you’ve posted.
i may have been late to that site but i do feel like i saw the seeds of enshittification sprout right before my eyes
I just pulled the feed for the first time after reading your post, and the content is like you describe. A pity as I liked what I saw on the website.
I may try the workaround and see if it helps.
Hmm, I’m subscribed to their RSS feed and I get full articles out of each post 🤷 I use Feeder in case that’s helpful for context.
I remember he mentions the ?ref in a blog post a while ago but I can’t remember what it was there for.
The RSS is a disappointment. I’ve been following that site since day one. I use NetNewsWire for my app. There is a web view toggle that shows maybe 70% of the content correctly. The updates and new software don’t render correctly.
It use to work fine, I want to say this is something to do with the ghost platform. It drives you to the web site. I’d be more inclined to just go to the website every Friday rather than have a broken rss.
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.
