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?
There is an update on the RSS situation of selfh.st; TL, DR: seems to be related to ways to monetize, so now it’s available to paid subscription, but for free have to visit site to read.
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.
Have you checked recently ? I did get the full articles until 2 or 3 months ago and now it’s the garbage described above. I am also using feeder.
They even replaced older posts that were complete with the garbage, but if I go far back enough I still have the complete version of older posts.
Try going to the settings for the specific feed and toggle on “fetch full articles by default.” I tried turning that off on mine and I got the same thing that you’re describing. Turned it back on and back to business as usual.
Well thank you that fixed it. I could have sworn I turned it on when I added the feed.
🥳 glad to help!
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 find general source tracking perfectly acceptable. It does not identify me as a user to any of both parties only tells the target site that users originate from another site.
I find personalized urls or tracking parameters bad. General source channel tracking is harmless for me.
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.
I remember he mentions the ?ref in a blog post a while ago but I can’t remember what it was there for.
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?
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.
