Request for help from Instapaper users

[epershand]

ETA: SUCCESS. Thanks, folks, he's fixed it.

If you are a user of Instapaper for reading fanfic, you are probably familiar with the annoying habit of the iPhone client and a few Android clients to smoosh all paragraphs on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth together into one paragraph of doom.

As it turns out, it's possible to fix this problem for individual subdomains with the Text-parser configuration page, and a few weeks ago I submitted the appropriate changes for DW news and LJ news. (I also told it to strip out icons and username heads, because often those do not load anyway)

However, only an administrator at Instapaper can modify a set of rules to apply to an entire domain, and obviously adding a custom rule for every single LJ and DW account out there is not scalable. It looks like the only way to get this changed is to email the developer, Marco Arment, directly. He's a busy guy and a request from a single user is probably pretty low on his radar. But there are a *lot* of us who are using Instapaper for fic (honestly, I don't know any dedicated users who aren't fic readers, although I know that I have a strong sample bias) and together I'm pretty sure we can get his attention.

Will you please join me in writing to instapaper@marco.org to get the LJ and DW configuration optimized?

Here's a sample letter, based on the one I sent him. Feel free to modify as you see fit.

Subject line: Instapaper Optimization for livejournal.com and dreamwidth.org

Hi Marco,

I've recently become incredibly addicted to using Instapaper--it's an awesome product.

I use it a lot with pages from livejournal.com and dreamwidth.org, both of which sites have some parsing problems with their paragraph separations. There are optimizations for a subdomain of each site listed on the Text-parser configuration page, but since both sites use a distinct subdomain per user, the optimizations need to be expanded to *.livejournal.com and *.dreamwidth.org to apply.

I know you're busy, but can you or another Instapaper admin please update http://www.instapaper.com/bodytext/edit/157 and http://www.instapaper.com/bodytext/edit/156 to apply to their respective full domains?

Thanks!

Comments

[littlemousling]

Sent a version of your sample email! I'm a total Instapaper addict but terribly frustrated by this problem. I finally went and bought Read It Later, which seems to lack this problem, but on the whole I would prefer Instapaper again if this could be fixed.

Thank you very much for figuring out what the issue is, identifying a solution, and so clearly providing a "what to do to help" guideline.

[jesse_the_k]

What lilmousling said, in its entirety.

Not only do I use Instapaper for fic, I use it for almost all other long-form reading -- Blog posts with long threads, newspaper articles, journals. It's the easiest sync ever to my iPod touch. The auto-scroll lets me read without stressing my hands. Words can't express how much I love InstaPaper!

Zank you zank you zank you.

[were_duck]

emailed! Thank you for this post and figuring this stuff out :D

[twtd]

This is so very awesome.

[epershand]

\o/

[epershand]

I love that just getting a bunch of people to email him meant that he fixed it! Like, today! Hurrah for the power of the internet!

Still trying to figure out a solution to the adult content problem that works for LJ and DW; I have a bad feeling that I might have to write my own instapaper client to get that to work :(((((( Meh, I should just suck it up and play around with the API at least; maybe that would help me figure out why the text version on instapaper.com respects the browser settings at the time of bookmarking but the apps don't. Le sigh.

[epershand]

INSTAPAPER IS JUST SUCH GOOD STUFF. It's the best repository ever for all my things. Except when it isn't, and then I get overly upset because it's set my expectations too darn high.

But he fixed it today. Hurrah for people emailing!