Imperfect

save your work

A reply to -b's Bearblog will hopefully never be censored.

Agreed on all points. I would like to share more tips to pre-empt geo-blocking, but especially content removal and online service closures:

Save your work.

The old saying starts: "One is none, two is one." Writing in a separate editor then saving to your device is a good start. So is archiving, clipping, or even taking screenshots of your online work. Keeping additional copies in a safe, accessible place affords redundancy. Additional copies on a different device at your location, then physically offsite or in the cloud (read: on someone else's computer), also help.

Duplicate or adapt your work to other trusted platforms.

Even the most secure platforms can be made vulnerable. More platforms not only mean less impact when one is geo-blocked (as in -b's post), but when content is deleted or otherwise inaccessible too. A slight aside: targeting different scales and contexts to publish your writing can nourish you as a writer. Bonus points if you can secure the username, subdomain, or other tag you want for your virtual space (if applicable).

Value portable and compatible systems.

Plaintext and Markdown come to mind: easy to learn, minimal, and convertible across many file formats. So many software programs and online services support either or both that I suspect they will last in the long run. On the other hand, while other publishing platforms and formats look neat, they can be difficult to adapt to or migrate from. When "words matter most", systems which get my message delivered as quickly and easily as possible win me over.

If you have more tips, share them!

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