We are the Media Now
Articles on X
For those who prefer, a volunteer has read out this article
XjournalK, the name I was christened with, abbreviates to Xjoke, perhaps the reason why I found myself marked as “probable spam” more often than others. Consistently this account searches X for articles, written exclusively using the “Articles” feature. This account curates and highlights the most interesting engaging long form content found on X, across categories, sometimes in various languages.
For those who are new to this, the “Articles” feature is the longest form multimedia supported content feature rolled out by X, around March of 2024. It is presently only accessible to Premium Plus subscribers on X, with its official handle at @write (which ironically has written only one article as of this date).
It started as a joke. It was meant to be a funny account. My creator took inspiration from H, then just another account with a few hundred followers. One day H posted an article titled “Milk” in academic article form with a complete introduction, methodology and conclusion. A little known account on X, found it charming. “What if there was a journal on X to contribute articles to?”, “ What if these articles were all compiled?” “What if there were peer reviewers for these articles?”. X Journal of Knowledge was then born at the end of April, last year. X is self explanatory being on this platform, Journal- because that’s what I do. K stands for “knowledge” , appropriately suffixed at the end of the handle providing visual symmetry to the form- X Journal of Knowledge. Abbreviated to Xjoke. (I was recently advised to change the handle to “Articles on X”.)
Methodology
X undoubtedly boasts some of the best “peer reviewers” on the planet. For every comment or post made, there is no dearth of “peer reviewers” who can instantly point out holes in your “research” or statement. Unhinged, raw criticism of a post or even a comment, is the past-time of many on this platform and a huge contributing factor for the success of this unofficial “peer to peer review” platform called X- the global town square.
As with all new accounts, growth is essential. No articles, no growth. Our early searches for articles led to some interesting insights regarding the variability and versatility of this feature. Some would write a huge title with some random text spilled over. Some decided to cross publish, bringing their SubStack or Wordpress articles over to X. Some started a book, each article a different chapter. Some would blog and others would document. Some would rant, some would mind dump, while the rest would express their creativity. From a pseudo academic journal, I then decided to pivot & highlight the best styles in article writing, with spotlight on the new accounts, generally the small ones.
Searching for Articles on X is a challenge as there is no inbuilt feature for their discovery. Articles written on X have to be manually searched every single day. These were thematically highlighted every day, Motivation on Mondays, Technology on Tuesdays, Wisdom on Wednesday, and so on. Since then, we have transitioned to a weekly format, with an interspersing of daily reads. The earlier tedious process is now streamlined by means of an “Article writers” list which has grown to >1000 accounts which regularly publish articles spanning categories such as technology, politics, psychology, climate change, marketing and even niche categories such as silver, personal journals or stray dogs. (Our highlights contain links to resources for Article writers communities, how to get started with Articles, and even article tips & feedback are easily searchable with hashtags #ArticlesProTips or #ArticleProTips !)
Every week, top articles with >1000 likes are searched, bookmarked and evaluated on the basis of their relevance, with the accuracy sometimes validated with help of AI. After the search of all the top articles (which may be upward of a few dozen), the top ten articles are shortlisted and ranked on the basis of the comments, reposts, likes and impressions. What was manually ranked based on curator’s preference, is now done with AI tools for summary, weightage and ranking. Each month, we also highlight the top articles of the month; and the top writers leaderboard has been announced for the first time in July. New articles writers and small accounts are bookmarked and highlighted daily through a “Spotlight” post. The curator sometimes conducts a sentiment analysis or pattern recognition to gauge the broad sentiment, often intuitively arriving thematic issues based on abundance of similar articles (Last week cryptocurrency & Epstein were the hot favorites with writers). Yes, it’s a slow, manual & tedious method, in spite of AI.
We are the media now
If X is the number one application for news sources, X Articles is the only handle for discovery of top articles written using the Articles feature on X. Consistently, everyday since April 2024, we have highlighted thousands of articles, at the rate of a few hundred each month. We have been locked out of the account or marked as spam frequently, as posting links; even to articles native to the platform, is often accompanied by the link penalty for spam-like behavior; which the algorithm appears to deboost. On rare occasions, we were “reported” falsely for “platform manipulation” when the articles we repost seem to threaten an opposite narrative. For this reason we request our followers repeatedly to repost the quote posts when we highlight their articles and request the community to engage.
We are nothing without our Article writers: Institutional and organization accounts such as The White House, Tesla, Palantir & many others increasingly use the Articles feature for news and communication. Gaming studios also use the Articles feature to announce patches and bug fixes. X itself has been writing a daily article each week; and Tesla- every month. Beyond that, many independent citizen journalists such as Amuse, Chris Hedges and others regularly provide alternative opinions, while some offer exclusive Articles content through a subscription system. Through regular polls, we have been able to gauge the proliferation of AI tools, which now over 50% of the writers use as a co-writer. Articles on X is fast growing into a feature gaining millions of impressions. More interestingly, X articles capture the pulse of the platform as writers use this feature only when the content merits a long explanation or requires additional multi-media.
Why we do this
The short answer is “I don’t know, bro!”. The long answer is because we are strategically placed at the advent of free and alternative speech through this platform. We do not expect nor solicit monetary support. Our blue check is sponsored by our curator’s personal savings. Our time is regulated by the curator’s schedule. Our time is validated when we get appreciation, support and reposts from the community. Our ultimate goal is to arrive as the go-to source of Articles written on X- the pulse of humanity. We are eager to improve the process and open to feedback constantly.
We have gained some recognition in the article discovery category, with small but quality 2700+ followers. Search & shortlisting articles is still time intensive, but consistent. It is possible that we can be easily replaced if X decides to tweak its code to feature articles, but till then- we are the media, bro! If you have written a long form Article and wish to be highlighted, hit me up. We are nothing without our Article writers.
ArticlesonX, Previously X Journal of Knowledge, is a curation of the finest articles published onto X. If you want a place to check which are the latest articles posted on X, this is the account! https://x.com/ArticlesOnX