Stanton @ Inkwell

Busy as ever

I’ve sucked at posting, and that was the original idea for creating Inkwell. I wanted to write for myself, but I’ve been distracted by building, work, life, school, and so on. I’m entering my last few weeks of undergrad (finally), so I’ll have a heavier school workload. I’m also

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#Inkwell #WorkLifeBalance #BuldInPublic #Fediverse

I’ve sucked at posting, and that was the original idea for creating Inkwell. I wanted to write for myself, but I’ve been distracted by building, work, life, school, and so on. I’m entering my last few weeks of undergrad (finally), so I’ll have a heavier school workload. I’m also in the process of launching my first product at my job. Then I am silly and want to have hobbies and spend time with my boyfriend. I am always doing something. Or napping. I go until I can’t, nap, then go again until I fall asleep early and wake up even earlier.

I’m at a lull with Inkwell, and I’m not really sure how to keep trying to grow. I might have PTSD about posting in forums, and need to get over that if I’m going to find more users. However, there are enough users here that I feel like growth isn’t as important as improving existing features. I’m a little in the whole on cost, but once I get a few more users, I’m hoping I will break even. I don’t really have extra finances to spend on side projects, but I’m still hoping this will grow into something more. I’m also open to collaboration, as there are lots of things I don’t know, but I’m quick to learn and believe in the cliche ‘teamwork makes the dreamwork’. I even once dreamed up a company idea with a stoner buddy, “Collaborate to Save the World”. We didn’t get very far…Damn stoners.

I need to get back to working on homework. This week is interesting because I have to turn in an Unessay for my Native American Studies class. I chose to build an app that will tell the story of the Cherokee civilization before and after European contact. It will also have a timeline on what the Trail of Tears looked like. My grandpa told the story of my 3rd great-grandmother walking the Trail of Tears as a child, so I’ve always had an interest in Cherokee culture and native history in general. It’s sad to understand what the land looked like before European contact and how much culture was erased.

I think I’ve rambled enough today. If you read this far, I applaud and thank you, haha.

Testing the new album feature

Colorado Symphony Orchestra Me and my friend making terrariums Cherry Blossoms blooming in Indianapolis My cute new plants Turning 37 to turn 13

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#Inkwell #photography #photos

A new feature request came in to allow better photo handling in posts. I dig it so far. Thanks @tim!

Colorado Symphony OrchestraMe and my friend making terrariumsCherry Blossoms blooming in IndianapolisMy cute new plantsTurning 37 to turn 13

Fraud Update

An update on my world of fraud. Stripe refuses to help, and they shut down payment processing for Inkwell. They basically are saying sorry there is nothing they can do. There isn’t a number to call, and I’ve exhausted attempts through email. I may be able to get back in with Stri

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##Inkwell ##Fraud

An update on my world of fraud. Stripe refuses to help, and they shut down payment processing for Inkwell. They basically are saying sorry there is nothing they can do. There isn’t a number to call, and I’ve exhausted attempts through email. I may be able to get back in with Stripe, but I’m going to have to get some legal paperwork I’ve been putting off, as I wasn’t sure if Inkwell would take off or not.

In the interim, we need a solution to allow users to pay for Plus and Ink Donations. After looking at the options, it looks like Square is my best option for now. I’ve used them in a previous adventure without any issues. The bad news is I had to kill a couple of features for now: paid writing subscriptions and postage (donations) that used Stripe Connect. Stripe Connect is how the bad actor exploited a bug and processed payments using stolen credit cards. I couldn’t find a way to implement the features with Square. There are other ways I could go about it, but right now I don’t have any users using these features (if I’m wrong, please let me know!).

The biggest drawback is that any current Plus subscribers will need to resubscribe through the new payment portal. Inkwell does not store your payment information, and the fraud/bug issue was isolated to Stripe Connect. From what I can see, it was only used to process fraudulent payments. I understand if users are hesitant to resubscribe. I’m a little flustered too haha. I was able to process an Ink Donation payment, so I believe it’s working correctly. But if anyone has issues please let me know.

The good news is I’ve implemented hardened security to prevent anything like this from happening again.

Once I have the business fully formed, I will go back to Stripe, set up a new account, and try again. But the government is not making it easy currently, so this will likely take a few weeks.

Payment Issues

Fraudsters found a hole in my system and exploited it. It’s being fixed but Stripe payments may not work until I can get ahold of Stripe and get my account unblocked. Right now I’m glad it’s blocked. They had racked up over $400 in charges overnight. I saw an email from Stripe an

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Fraudsters found a hole in my system and exploited it. It’s being fixed but Stripe payments may not work until I can get ahold of Stripe and get my account unblocked. Right now I’m glad it’s blocked. They had racked up over $400 in charges overnight. I saw an email from Stripe and found more issues than Stripe reported. I don’t think anyone on the site is collecting Tips so that would be the only impact beyond payments for Plus/Ink Donor (i think). If anyone notices any issues, please let me know.

Also, if you have paid for Plus, your information is not at risk. The users created an account and used fraudulent cards. I’m guessing someone with stolen credit cards was trying to find a system they could exploit. Well, at least I can work to fix it now.

Learning every day!

Inkwell Improvements

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted, and I need to do better. I’ve been busy with work, enjoying the outdoors, putting puzzles together, painting, and doing more off the computer. It’s that time of year. However, I’m still super appreciative of Inkwell users and want to continue

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#Inkwell #Fediverse #Journaling

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted, and I need to do better. I’ve been busy with work, enjoying the outdoors, putting puzzles together, painting, and doing more off the computer. It’s that time of year. However, I’m still super appreciative of Inkwell users and want to continue improving the site. I was able to do a little over the last couple of days and wanted to share some highlights:

• Animated avatars for Plus users - Float, Glow, Prismatic, and Shimmer. CSS powered. Check them out. Thanks, @eve, for the suggestion! There is more that can be done with avatars, and the long-term goal is to find an artist to collaborate with.

• Help page - Getting Started, FAQ, Email Support, & System Status.

• AI Policy - Added a page on AI Policy to provide transparency on how AI is used (and not used) on Inkwell.

If anyone has suggestions on features or improvements you’d like to see on Inkwell, please let me know in the comments (or submit feedback via the Roadmap)!

Dino Terrarium

Okay, I can finally show off Bob Moss’s friends. It’s hard to see with the reflections, but I think it’s cute. We have Little Foot alive and well, living as he did 150 million years ago. I’m going to have to work on getting a good picture. I’m probably the only one who cares, but

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#Dinosaur #Terrarium #Plant #Jurassic

Okay, I can finally show off Bob Moss’s friends. It’s hard to see with the reflections, but I think it’s cute. We have Little Foot alive and well, living as he did 150 million years ago. I’m going to have to work on getting a good picture.

I’m probably the only one who cares, but I love this so much. I guess that is obvious since it’s my carry-on for my flight, haha.

Marked safe from TSA

We made it through TSA in less than 10 minutes. They had to make sure my terrarium wasn’t a bomb, but other than that we’re good. I did see 4 or so DHS/ICE before I got to the gate but they were just standing there talking. They stand out with their camo and tactical gear. Update

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#Travel #Denver #Moss

We made it through TSA in less than 10 minutes. They had to make sure my terrarium wasn’t a bomb, but other than that we’re good.

I did see 4 or so DHS/ICE before I got to the gate but they were just standing there talking. They stand out with their camo and tactical gear.

Update on Bob Moss, he’s enjoying the tour of Denver International Airport. I’ll probably break out and introduce his friend now that I can chill.

Home

Denver, as always, was a blast. I took time to be offline and do analog activities - somethi

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#Travel #terrarium #plant #moss

Denver, as always, was a blast. I took time to be offline and do analog activities - something I don’t do enough of.

I made the cutest terrariums that are coming home with me and making the trip on the plane. I figured I’d do a series for this little guy, starting with our wait for the airport shuttle.

I need to name him. Any ideas?

Denver!

I actually made it to Denver this time. I may be slower to respond since I’m on ‘vacation’

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I actually made it to Denver this time. I may have fewer updates and be slower to respond since I’m on ‘vacation’. But we will be back at it next week. I’ll still check in and fix any reported bugs. But I think we are getting to a stable period. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Need to test the new reprint (quote reposts) feature. Eve is amazing with what she is doing on the Inkwell Plugin.

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Need to test the new reprint (quote reposts) feature. Eve is amazing with what she is doing on the Inkwell Plugin.

UI Changes

I tweaked the UI for the Feed and Explore pages to match what

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#Inkwell #UI #Fediverse

I tweaked the UI for the Feed and Explore pages to match what I had in the early days of Inkwell before users joined. I also tried to improve how the content from the Fediverse shows up. I thought it would be neat to have the pages resemble a book and scroll left and right instead of up and down. There is more work to do, but I’m going to have to call it a night. I’m an early riser, and my day job took it out of me today.

I hope you all don’t mind the changes.

Bulk Edit Posts

I realized today, through some user feedback, that there was no way to bulk manage posts (delete, privacy, and tags). You will now notice there is a page ‘Posts’ found under section III. Library in the navigation pane to do just that. Check it out and let me know what you think!

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#Inkwell #writing

I realized today, through some user feedback, that there was no way to bulk manage posts (delete, privacy, and tags). You will now notice there is a page ‘Posts’ found under section III. Library in the navigation pane to do just that.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Mobile Updates

Spent my birthday improving Inkwell’s mobile experience and it finally feels a lot closer to where it needs to be. New navigation, swipe gestures, pull-to-refresh, and better reading on small screens are all live, with a few auth issues still being worked through.

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#Inkwell #MobileUX #UX #PWA

Spent my birthday playing Pokopia and trying to improve the mobile experience for Inkwell. I hadn’t put much thought into the mobile UI/UX beyond making sure it worked. After many iterations, I think it is in a better place.

I’m sure there are still holes, so testers, breakers, and general feedback are appreciated.

The app works if you add it to your homescreen, but there are still issues with the magic auth sign-in. Right now, you need to sign in through your mobile browser before adding it to your homescreen. I’m investigating that and hoping to get it fixed.

• Bottom tab bar — Feed, Explore, Write, Notifications, and Profile are now one tap away instead of living behind the hamburger menu

• Menu — swipe right or tap the menu icon for the full Table of Contents navigation, styled more like the desktop sidebar with the paper texture and Roman numeral sections

• Swipe gestures on feed cards — swipe right to ink, swipe left to bookmark

• Pull-to-refresh — pull down on the feed to refresh, more like a native app

• Better entry reading — larger text, wider margins, and more breathing room on small screens

Next step is trying to get the app onto Google Play, but I need an Android device first. I’m trying to find a hand-me-down before buying one. No huge rush though. This already feels dramatically better to me.

If you check it out, let me know what works, what feels weird, or what breaks!

Who used LiveJournal?

During my angsty teenage years, LiveJournal was where it was at. I remember writing in it daily, and even though I came from a small town, I had an audience who interacted with my journal. It felt real and vulnerable. Why did we stop using it? Facebook came out, and all of a sudd

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#writing #community #inkwell

During my angsty teenage years, LiveJournal was where it was at. I remember writing in it daily, and even though I came from a small town, I had an audience who interacted with my journal. It felt real and vulnerable.

Why did we stop using it? Facebook came out, and all of a sudden, the world lived through status messages. AIM → LiveJournal → Myspace → Facebook → YouTube → TikTok. We went from instant connection and long-form thought to building spaces that felt like our own, only to abandon them in favor of performing for the world. Somewhere along the way, we traded vulnerability for likes.

I miss the community.

That said, I've been blown away by the people I've been meeting here on Inkwell. It's been a pleasure getting to know everyone, and I hope to continue meeting many more. I also hope others find one another through here and make meaningful connections. The one thing I've noticed so far is that I'm meeting people all over the world. Right now, that feels important.

Who else used LiveJournal? And who joined for the appeal of long-form writing?

When not in Denver, improve mobile UI/UX?

Southwest canceled my flight so I made Inkwell work on mobile. PWA with push notifications. App stores coming eventually.

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#Inkwell #Fediverse #MobileDev #IndieDev #ActivityPub

Well, I’m not in Denver. I have had bad luck when flying Southwest, but this time it took the cake. After getting to the airport early in case lines were long from the DHS shutdown (they weren’t), my flight ended up getting delayed for about 10 minutes before it got canceled all together. I was rebooked for a flight the next day. That didn’t work since it was a short trip, so I decided to stay home and rebook for next week.

Since I ended up having extra time, I’ve worked on a few things today. A few bugs and features, mostly, but I also started figuring out Inkwell’s mobile experience. I’ve focused on Desktop so far, since I feel most long-form writers would prefer to write on PC rather than mobile (or at least I do). But you can’t always have your PC, so it’s been on the to-do list to improve the mobile experience.

I’ve been impressed by the adoption so far (thank you!), so I’ll likely try to get Inkwell into the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. But for now, I was able to get the site set up as a PWA (Progressive Web App) and even has push notifications. For anyone who wants to use (or test) Inkwell on mobile, you can add it to your home screen so it feels more like a traditional app. If anyone wants more instructions, I’m happy to set up a quick how-to page. I’m sure getting through app store hurdles will not be quick or easy.

Testers are appreciated!

#Inkwell #Fediverse #MobileDev #IndieWeb #ActivityPub

Test Embed

I had an Inkling request to embed BookWyrm (or other URLs) inside journal entries. I’m testing this time because last time it broke, and I left the feature broken overnight. I passed out so I could wake up and pack last-minute for my flight to Denver. Here I am being responsible

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I had an Inkling request to embed BookWyrm (or other URLs) inside journal entries. I’m testing this time because last time it broke, and I left the feature broken overnight. I passed out so I could wake up and pack last-minute for my flight to Denver.

Here I am being responsible and testing this time. I hope it works so I can go shower. xD

Birthday Weekend

It’s the time of the year when the Earth circles the sun, and I age another year on this planet. I will have traveled around the sun 37 times, what a ride. I remember the earlier rides fondly but seeing the traction Inkwell has received is making this next trip unknown and exciti

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It’s the time of the year when the Earth circles the sun, and I age another year on this planet. I will have traveled around the sun 37 times, what a ride. I remember the earlier rides fondly but seeing the traction Inkwell has received is making this next trip unknown and exciting.

With that said, you might notice I’m less active on here and slower to respond to feedback. However, I’ll be back to my regular schedule next Monday. I set up a monitoring stack to keep an eye on the health of the site so I should get notified if anything breaks.

If you are reading this, thank you, and glad to have you on the site!

Cheers,

Stanton

Human not a bot?

I’ve been moving and shipping fast. That’s product lingo saying I’ve been making lots of changes really fast to Inkwell, trying to improve the site based on user feedback. For the first two weeks of being live, I got so much feedback that it really helped shape this into a polish

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#Inkwell #Writing #AI

I’ve been moving and shipping fast. That’s product lingo saying I’ve been making lots of changes really fast to Inkwell, trying to improve the site based on user feedback. For the first two weeks of being live, I got so much feedback that it really helped shape this into a polished product. But I also realize I am moving too quickly. If you haven’t realized, I use AI to assist with development. Bear with me, there is a reason I bring this up. I liked programming before I realized careers were built around it. The inspiration for Inkwell was to bring back the vibe of learning to code and tweaking your site by seeing what your friends were doing and learning how to implement it on your site. I was as savvy as any 14/15 year old at the time. Then my priorities shifted.

In high school I got involved in theatre and studio art and stopped spending as much time online. Then I graduated and had to start adulting. I was taught I had to go to college in order to be successful. I first studied art, then theatre, then stopped and dropped out because I realized the competition and chance of success were not worth losing the love of art. I started working and found that I’m technically savvy, and some would say ‘smart’. I’ve moved quickly in my career and made moves intentionally to get where I’m at today, and I’m proud of it. But I’ve always wanted to be a ‘builder.’ I wanted to create things that were bigger than me. In the age before AI (wow we can say that now), when I looked into it, I needed developers, I needed money. Things I did not have. But AI has changed that. Now, my work experience combined with leaning into AI when it first came out (in 2018 I had a mentor tell me AI/ML was the future so I jumped into testing ChatGPT when it first launched). The last three years working in a product/business setting, learning AI and how to ship products, have naturally made it easy for me to adopt new tools. The latest sensation is Claude Code. No longer do you have to work with a chat to find the error in your code and have conversations turn to slop because of token limitations. It went viral for a reason, it changed what people could do and I’m firsthand proof. Now, I’m wondering if I made the right moves. Would I do it all the same? The Reddit community was amazing and very helpful. But I also got sloppy. Instead of writing posts myself, I let AI do it for me because it could do it so much faster. On Reddit, the community was forgiving and actually helped. But I learned what happens yesterday when you are naive and do this in an opinionated federated instance. I always knew there were a lot of people who didn’t like AI. Heck, my friends are some of them. And I have concerns regarding it as well, but I try to approach it by learning and embracing it ethically and openly. I posted yesterday outside of Reddit to get more early feedback, specifically looking for people who want to host their own instance of the Inkwell code. I’ve learned that’s big in the fediverse and I want to participate in any way I can because I’ve found it welcoming and refreshing.

Until last night that is. I made a post and let AI do its thing not really thinking about it because it was late and I was multitasking. Actually, I was playing Pokopia xD. So when I noticed comments on my post, I went in to review, and all I will say is they were different from Reddit. I’m not going to talk badly about others, as I truly understand where others were coming from and how my mistakes made the wrong impression. But I did learn that there is a real concern about AI slop amongst the fediverse and likely outside it as well. I don’t want to be one of those platforms. I’ve been the vision and driver for Inkwell; Claude Code unlocked the development potential. So if you saw me moving fast and wondered why, now you know. I haven’t been trying to hide it but should have been more straightforward before the backlash. However, I will always learn from my mistakes and be better for it. Inkwell is open source, and I want to find developers who know more than me, who are willing to work together and ensure the safety of AI generated code. I’m not an expert coder and maybe I could have been if I stayed with it instead of the path I took. Yet, everything happens for a reason and I feel I’m on good path.

I also want to collaborate with artist to create stamps, custom avatars, etc. I don’t have time to do all of this and feel strongly against AI replacing human generated content (i.e. thought, art, writing, photography, etc). That’s the AI slop I worry about. I created Inkwell so I could write my thoughts and share if people were interested. In the past, I would have used AI to polish this post, but the entire point of Inkwell for me was to write. Mistakes and all.

#Inkwell #Writing #AI

My first post by email

Inkwell’s first Plus subscriber requested a new feature that lets you post directly to your journal by writing & sending the post as an email. If this works, I will have delivered a new feature for a valued Inkling. I never would have thought of this feature, and I am very th

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Inkwell’s first Plus subscriber requested a new feature that lets you post directly to your journal by writing & sending the post as an email. If this works, I will have delivered a new feature for a valued Inkling. I never would have thought of this feature, and I am very thankful for the recommendation. Ideas like this are actively driving success. So thank you, and keep them coming!

Stanton

Custom domains are live for Plus

I've been wanting to ship this one for a while. Starting today, Inkwell Plus subscribers can point their own domain at their Inkwell profile. So instead of inkwell.social/stanton , you get blog.stantonmelvin.com . Same writing. Same feed. Same fediverse identity. Just yours. I se

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I've been wanting to ship this one for a while. Starting today, Inkwell Plus subscribers can point their own domain at their Inkwell profile. So instead of inkwell.social/stanton, you get blog.stantonmelvin.com. Same writing. Same feed. Same fediverse identity. Just yours.

I set mine up this morning, and it took a few minutes. You add a CNAME record, drop the domain into your settings, and that's it. Your entries live at your domain. Your RSS feed lives at your domain. If you ever leave Inkwell, you own that address and can point it somewhere else. That's the whole point.

This is the kind of feature that feels small until you realize what it means: your writing isn't hosted on Inkwell, it just runs on Inkwell. There is a difference.

Custom domains are available now in Settings for all Plus subscribers. If you're not on Plus yet and this is what tips you over, I'll take it.

#inkwell #update #customdomains #fediverse #indieweb