A writer's guide to Decent Newsroom
- What Decent Newsroom is (for writers)
- How “accounts” work on DN (Nostr signing, not passwords)
- Create a new article
- The “Details” panel: what makes your article shareable
- Publishing: where your article goes (relays)
- Advanced options writers should know (optional)
- Updating an article
- Why DN pages are fast (and why you might occasionally see older content)
- Getting found on DN (Active Indexing)
- Sharing your work: DN link vs Nostr address
- Troubleshooting FAQ (writer-focused)
- Need help?
This guide is for authors publishing long-form work on Decent Newsroom. It covers: writing and formatting, setting the metadata that makes links share well, publishing to relays, updating posts, and the most common “why isn’t it showing up?” issues.
What Decent Newsroom is (for writers)
Decent Newsroom is a Nostr-based publishing and discovery layer for long-form content. You publish an article as a Nostr event; DN turns it into a fast, stable web page that can be searched, browsed, and curated into magazines. DN doesn’t ask you to create an email/password account—authentication is done via your Nostr keys.
A practical benefit for writers: when you share a DN article link, it “unfurls” properly in chats and social apps (headline + cover image + summary), like a normal web publication—not a raw protocol object.
How “accounts” work on DN (Nostr signing, not passwords)
DN does not store user emails/passwords; you authenticate by signing with your Nostr identity.
On DN you’ll typically see two login paths:
1) Browser extension (window.nostr)
Use a Nostr browser extension that can sign events for websites (the “Extension” option). DN will request signatures when you save/publish.
2) Remote signer (NIP-46 “bunker signer”)
DN can pair with a NIP-46-compatible remote signer via QR code. After pairing, any page that uses window.nostr will use that remote signer session automatically. If pairing stalls, retry the login.
Connection data is currently not available as a string you can copy into your signer. We’re working on it.
Create a new article
Go to the editor: https://decentnewsroom.com/article-editor/create.
At the top, DN offers multiple ways to write:
- Rich Text (WYSIWYG)
- Markdown
- JSON (direct event editing—advanced)
- Preview
You’ll also see Save Draft and Publish actions.
A simple “first post” workflow
- Write in Rich Text or Markdown.
- Fill in the fields in the Details panel (title, summary, tags, cover).
- Hit Preview to check layout.
- Save Draft or Publish.
When saving a draft, you will remain in the editor after submission. When publishing, you will be redirected to the article page, if publishing succeeds, and you’ll remain in the editor otherwise.
The editor doesn’t currently have an auto-save function. It is on the feature wishlist, though.
The “Details” panel: what makes your article shareable
DN’s “Details” panel is where you set the metadata that turns your Nostr event into a proper publication page.
Title + Summary
- Title: obvious.
- Summary: DN explicitly labels this as “A short description shown in previews” — use this to give your readers a hint about what to expect in the article. This text will show up in article cards, where multiple articles are listed, and in rich previews when you share links.
Slug
You can set a custom slug (used in the DN web URL). Slugs are special in Nostr. Slug is used to populate the d tag in your event. Slugs are unique, per one of your articles. If you reuse one, you will effectively overwrite the previous article with the new one. This is effective for revisions, but be sure to clear the slug when publishing a new article. DN will autogenerate a slug from your title if you leave the field blank.
Tags
Add tags for discovery and topical browsing. Do not use the # signs; those are added for display by the clients and make matching equivalent tags harder.
Cover image
DN supports uploading a cover image to a few preset providers. A cover image strongly improves link previews.
If you plan for it, you can use the same form to upload main body images. When you upload, the image URL will show up in the cover image input, and you can use it in the editor.
Resist the temptation to reuse the cover image in the body of the article again. Readers notice.
Publishing: where your article goes (relays)
Nostr content lives on relays. DN exposes a Relays tab in the editor to show your known relays. Content will be published to your chosen relays and to the internal relay relay.decentnewsroom.com. You will eventually be able to pick and choose your relays.
Even when relays are correct, discovery can be “eventually consistent” (more on that below).
Advanced options writers should know (optional)
The editor’s Advanced tab includes extra toggles/features that affect distribution and reader experience. Currently, the space is reserved for setting up zap splits.
Zap splits
DN includes a Zap Splits section (e.g., “distribute equally,” add recipients/weights). Use this when multiple contributors should share zaps tied to the article. When you configure zap splits, they override the author as the recipient, so don’t forget to add yourself to the list if you want to be included.
When zap splits are set on the article, the zap gets split into multiple invoices. The user sending the zaps can still pick and choose which invoices they pay.
Updating an article
On Nostr, long-form articles are addressable events (kind 30023 in NIP-23). In practice, that means “editing” means publishing a new version that clients treat as the latest for that address (slug).
In DN’s UI: when you’re logged in, DN loads your known articles into the sidebar tab, and you can open one for editing with one click. Once opened, you update content/metadata and publish again.
Why DN pages are fast (and why you might occasionally see older content)
Nostr is decentralized and relay-based, so a “fresh read” can require network calls to multiple relays. DN prioritizes fast page loads: it may show a recently cached version, refresh in the background, and then the next view is updated.
For writers, this matters in two places:
- Right after you publish, DN’s web page might need a refresh or a few minutes to show the newest version.
- Search/discovery may lag because indexing depends on relay fetch + processing.
Getting found on DN (Active Indexing)
If you want DN to reliably fetch your long-form content from the relays you declare, DN offers Active Indexing. It’s explicitly described as: “makes sure Decent Newsroom fetches your long-form content from the relays you declare,” including “bypass quality gates” and “custom relay list configuration.”
Sharing your work: DN link vs Nostr address
On DN article pages, the Share section offers both a Newsroom Link and Naddr. Use:
- Newsroom Link when you want maximum compatibility (anyone can open it, rich previews work).
- Naddr when sharing inside Nostr-native contexts.
Troubleshooting FAQ (writer-focused)
“I can’t sign in / the signer pairing is stuck”
- If using remote signer: close and reopen the pairing dialog (DN generates a new ephemeral key).
- If using an extension: confirm the extension is installed and permitted on the site.
- If nothing helps, let us know so we can fix it. Nost has an abundance of signers, and we haven’t been able to test them all.
“Publish clicked, but nothing happens / signing fails”
We’ve observed an issue when a browser has multiple signers available; retrying can help.
“My article exists on Nostr but DN can’t find it”
Most commonly: it’s on relays outside DN’s default crawl set. The shortest import path is pasting an naddr/nevent into DN’s Explore search. Active Indexing is the “make sure DN fetches my declared relays” solution.
“I’m seeing an older version of my page”
Refresh once, or revisit shortly—DN prioritizes speed, then revalidates.
Need help?
Use DN’s Send Feedback link for bug reports and support.