The blog lists pros and cons. I disagree with all cons.
> There are hundreds of blogs out there, what makes you think yours is different?
Because it's mine. My friends care.
Recruiters and hiring managers have cared (in a good way).
> You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.
Maybe. But some are hidden in a locked library basement behind a door labelled "beware of the leopard". The information is not useful there.
Also I sometimes write the documentation I wish existed before I learned. Maybe it was written, but not in the way I found useful. If ever someone who thinks like me reads it, it'll save them more time than I took to write it. And people have thanked me, so I guess they exist.
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
So there is no need for teachers and textbook authors, because they don't advance state of the art?
And actually, when I've asked questions, I've had people refer me back to my own blog, as if it's a reference. (I'd not forgotten, I was asking about the next step)
> You are only showing the world how stupid you are.
I do that every day. The only way to become (and therefore look) smart is to look stupid. :-)
> If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it.
No. The only real criticism I get for my blog is from Bitcoin idiots telling me I'm stupid, but they never "have the time" to explain what exactly I'm not getting. Sure, buddy.
> Your work is trash, and exposing it will make people notice you’re trash as well
I'd rather leave a mark of who I actually am, than some fake Instagram persona lie of who I am.
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
This is a thought I had before I read many papers. After getting over my fear of reading papers (mostly) and actually starting to read them I've realized their quality varies greatly.
Taking a step back from the glamour of academia. The random blog without ads is written out of love. The published paper is written as part of a job, and probably to meet externally imposed deadlines (and there might be some love in the paper too). Judge for yourself which you want to read.
Sometimes, as a beginner I want a beginners perspective. We imagine that we only gain through study, but we lose our fresh perspective, and no amount of study can restore that fresh perspective, which does have some merit.
Author here. Tbh I don't actually believe all the cons, these are things I was telling myself to stop writing. It doesn't mean I believe they're right, but these were just excuses I was making to stop writing. The list of pros are the ones that were useful for me to continue writing on my blog :)
>> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
>So there is no need for teachers and textbook authors, because they don't advance state of the art?
This. I have a web site that in places you might call a blog. It's got a section for work stuff, some photos, hobbies, and random pages like explaining how to drive off-road. Those off-road pages (specifically this single page - https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/offroading/Concepts/Gearing.htm...) gets more hits than all the other pages combined. I wrote it in 1998.
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
I understand the point and why that could pop up in a blogger’s mind as a way to stop writing, but this is a wrong framing problem.
Academia for example is a gigantic citation game. The reason why you’re writing a paper is not necessarily because you’re an expert, but because you need to establish yourself as one in a very narrow field based on a self-reinforcing score scheme.
“Giving Interviews” also implies an objectivity that does not exist. Establishing yourself as an expert has a lot more to do with personal branding than actually being the best experts. Plus, especially fo TV, you don’t call the utmost experts of a field, you call someone who’s expert enough or prepared enough AND knows how to talk in front of a camera and for the tv interview format, which is a superficial medium.
Getting interviews or being perceived as an expert is a “business” that has its own marketing strategies.
A blog could even be part of that strategy and it’s been in many cases, but it has to be structured as such.
On the other hand, it’s ok to put your words out there without this specific agenda. In that case a blog and blogging shouldn’t be judged by the metrics of popularity, because it sits in a very different domain.
Blogs have value even if no one else ever reads them. The very act of publishing something to the world is an achievement and, I find, enforces a level of editing and quality beyond jotting notes.
>> There are hundreds of blogs out there, what makes you think yours is different?
Precisely this one. There are billions of people out there breathing, your own personal breathing is so unremarkable and trivial that since only being original at all costs matters in this world you should cease to breathe effective immediately!
There was a trend in the paper blogs, the diaries of 1930s [1], probably when they were at peak, of authors whining about authorship, perhaps due to an esprit du mal of the epoch: to whom does one write for? And the answers were usually, (i) one writes for the others of today to obtain worldly benefits, which is gauche in the eyes of the diary writer, (ii) one writes for the others of tomorrow, which is somewhat more acceptable, (iii) one writes for oneself, which is the pure form of the art.
However, a fourth option appears today: one writes for the language models. The language models will always care about your blog.
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
This one is especially far out there. Lots of experts in their fields write blogs or newsletters or articles for other publications, etc. Not every field is an academic discipline. And quite frankly, academics would themselves be far more impactful if they didn't only churn out academic papers, but also wrote in a blog-like format. And many of them do, and they increase the impact of their work by doing so.
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
Woah strongly disagree with this as well as it showcase a fundamental lack of knowledge on different communication formats. Blog posts can give an laymans introduction to a paper, it can expand on a part of a paper etc - talks and presentations can be summarized in blogposts. Even though I am mostly working on papers I have so many ideas on blogposts about stuff that is not really relevant for my field (like detailed information on how I work with subset of data) - nothing that is groundbreaking or a wide enough topic to warrant a paper. I mean, you could even write blogposts about great papers you read. That can be so helpfull for others. (Yes you could also write a big literary review but thats a lot more work).
It's interesting to me how even covering well-trod ground with a blogpost can be useful because the long tail of unique experiences is so long.
Mastodon has a well-documented setup process. I'm still going to do a blog post about setting mine up because I used an unusual hardware configuration and an unusual server config that aren't covered in the mainline-supported tutorial. I was only able to succeed because other people had done the same at some point.
Exactly. Thanks to articles that have made it here on HN, I’ve met people in different states that remembered my blog.
And one more…I write because it helps me organize my thoughts. When something is on my mind for a couple of months, I often can’t stop thinking about it until I write it down. That’s the entire reason I blog.
Kinda a strange post that I don't quite agree with. Particularly:
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
Blogs and self-pub are often the only ways some information is shared by nature of the fact that academic publications don't publish things that don't obviously advance the state-of-the-art.
For example, one area I'm close with is computer security. While academia does some quite interesting work here, most major journals balk at the papers which discuss security mitigation defeats unless they're particularly zany (say, breaking ASLR using transient side channel attacks). Blog posts which detail how these mitigations work (ex. Siguza's post on Apple's proprietary APRR [1]) and how they can be defeated (ex. Project Zero's post which builds on Siguza's work to explore how APRR can be defeated in Safari's JIT [2]) provide considerable value to both security researchers, people who develop mitigations, and software people in general who are interested in learning how attackers think.
These sorts of works don't really belong in journals but that doesn't make them any less valuable.
I think many people failed to get the message of the author: it’s not a discouragement to blogging. The first list is more of your “inner voice” that tells you to stop/don’t even start writing.
For me personally it did help a bit, as I was thinking about writing my first blog post for a long time, and I also have been fighting with quite a lot of items on the first list. (Especially about the being considered dumb part). While I find the title a bit click-bait-y and that’s likely the reason why many didn’t read the whole thing/misunderstood, by critiquing I would just confirm one of the negative items, so let’s leave it that :D
Lots of people throughout history - with names that are well-known today - have written at length about topics for which, in their day, the audience was very small. Herodotus, for one early example. Same is true for scores of important discoveries.
The audience for complex math proofs is very small. At first. Same applies to a lot of creative works ... paintings, photos, poetry. van Gogh sold almost nothing.
A composer once asked me 'what do you care more about - how many are listening, or who is listening?"
Amazing how many blogs have shut off their feedback.
I don't think comparing the writings of probably the most prominent figure of history writing to the platitudes (which is the 99% of 'blogs' being promoted here) generated by the average techbro grifter is the way to go with this...
I feel like it's a weird question that really wants you to say who but the situations where it's actually better is vanishingly small. If you want to be a professional musician you're way better off having a large fanbase making music snobs turn their noses up to then be a brilliant composer with 1000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Van Gogh realized none of the spoils of his work. I couldn't care less if I'm famous or influential after I'm dead, I only get these 80 years or so. Being the influential underground artist that inspired the people who got famous is an empty victory.
Even for something as simple as a blog having a large following is exposure. You have a better chance of finding quality discussion given more eyeballs.
I'm just an average programmer, and English isn't even my native language. But i had a blog since I was 18, and although it went through some new domains, some of the small blog posts evolved to more bigger things that I still affectionately work on.
- I wrote a blog post about a CloudFlare when they were just starting, which landed me a gig to provide a technical review for a printed book.
- Some reverse engineered router/phone IMEI unlock codes lead to a complete website to generate them.
- An Instagram photo/video download tool that got so popular Meta sent me a UDPR and a C&D demand to shut down.
- Various talks in conferences, some that even paid me.
- Small web sites that spun off to their own web sites.
I would argue that an average person is exactly who should have a blog. Because, majority of us are average, and having a blog or a blog post related to a particular topic (even a mediocre one) gives the boost to stand you out. Some of these opportunities may not generate a lot of money, if at all. But I like the excitement I get from them.
A blog is still a fine thing to have if you don't have any expectations for it. A couple of times a year I am moved by something I've seen or heard enough to post about it. The act of turning that need into a few coherent paragraphs is very satisfying even though no one reads it. But, someone might someday under a bizarre set of circumstances. It's a message-in-a-bottle without contaminating an actual ocean.
I do. I write not just for others but also myself.
My little blog of few posts exists to satisfy my expectations and fulfill my rare urge of writing and the need of getting some thoughts out of my head. As long as nobody cares enough about my blog to monetize it, I'm perfectly fine with the status quo.
> If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it.
And that's great! I may be able to learn something or at least I may get to know different view points.
Google penalizing sites for linking to other sites and people getting paranoid about bleeding pagerank and getting penalized for unknowingly linking to 'bad neighborhoods' - quickly changed how many people would peruse your blog..
Removing blog rolls, web rings, pingomatic, technorati... some blogs adapted, most did not.. google is the reason blogs aren't read these days.
Why write a blog when you can make a YouTube channel instead. You’re sure to get ranked well by Googs then. Hell, why write a blog when you can just TikTok it?
There’s lots of reasons not covered in the blog about not blogging trying to convince why to blog.
I like this post. When I restarted my personal site a while back, one thing I found mildly limiting was attaching it to my real name, which made me feel like I needed to present a semi professional vibe. I haven't stopped myself from the odd swear word, but there are things I'd like to write about that I would prefer to remain anonymous.
I've been considering starting a more freeform, anonymous site where I could cut loose a bit more. This post is somewhat encouraging in that direction.
Maybe personal websites should be the "public square", not third party "social media" websites. Most folks probably won't bother with maintaining personal websites because they do not have anything meaningful to say. Instead, "social media" websites encourage all people, many of whom are only using these sites to communicate with friends and family, who otherwise have nothing worthwhile to say to the general public, to "share" their every thought. All in the name of exploiting these serfs/sharecroppers as ad targets for obscene profit. We have seen the results. It isn't pretty.
Just because "[y]ou can say whatever the fuck you want" to the entire web does not necessarily mean everyone will. At least, this is how I remember the web before so-called "tech" companies and "social media" hijacked it. The social media websites are desperate for others to create content for them, for free.
But last week, someone contacted me via e-mail to tell me that a workaround I published to run interferometry software under MacOS was now not needed anymore because he made the porting work to run this software natively.
I then realized I ranked high for "<software> mac" and updated my post so people easily find his work.
Agree with the title. Strong disagree with every bullet point. Those bullet points are seemingly true for the authors blog. But they don’t have to be true for yours!
Blogs are superior to conferences imho. A decent blog post will get about 10,000 views via HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc. A conference will only have dozens to hundreds of attendees.
I only make a few posts per year. I mostly avoid hot takes. Most of my posts I could have turned into conference talks. But conferences are kinda gross and blog posts are better so meh.
I agree. Don't use font sizes relative to the viewport size. Furthermore, it is unlikely that anything should ever be relative to the vertical viewport size (except in paged media, perhaps). Font sizes should not be relative to the horizontal or vertical viewport size. However, maybe there is exception if you want to set a maximum font size based on a percentage of the width so that all of the letters will fit. But, in my opinion it would usually be better to just avoid setting them by CSS anyways so that it uses the user settings or default settings instead, which should hopefully be set up for the specific display and user. (I often just disable CSS because of the mess they have made.)
The original blogs were about utterly mundane topics. One of the favorites was a guy who blogged what he ate for lunch every day. There may or may not have been photographs. And the audiences came because the WWW was a novel medium, and we just thought it was hilarious to have such a personal glimpse into a minor feature of a stranger's life.
My supervisor at my last job said I should start a blog. I suppose because I always ate at restaurants and I liked describing the food and stuff. But I'm not really a foodie, or eloquent like a food critic. Perhaps she just said that because I talk so much.
"But all of these things [reasons why people don't care about your blog] are not a problem, because you shouldn’t care even a little bit about what other think."
I mean... Maybe you should care sometimes? Maybe it is good to try and not repeat others and try to express original and useful thoughts?
I have written some stuff in the past that was purely for me, but have also written explainers and other stuff that was actually meant to be of benefit to people who found or read it* (even if very few people did read it). This all-or-nothing stance is kind of silly. The title is also rather misleading, but I guess that's good for upvotes...
* I won't link to it as I don't mean for this to be a plug, but just as an example - I wrote "Things Everyone Should Know About Depression", because I found most articles of that sort lacking. And I put in a lot of work into making that a good post because I did care about its impact on potential readers, and I do think it probably helped some people.
Not everything has to be just written with only yourself in mind, even if fundamentally the reason to write should be that you want to write moreso than for the potential of getting lots of readers.
> I mean... Maybe you should care sometimes? Maybe it is good to try and not repeat others and try to express original and useful thoughts?
reminded of dfw: "true heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care — with no one there to see or cheer. this is the world."
I love this post. This perfectly lays out why I have operated my own blog for over 20 years now.
I liking having my own space where I can say what I want. There is also real value in me going back and reading what I said a year, five years or even ten years back. My blog posts have proven to be a useful way of reminding future Jay of what past Jay was going through as I have a tendency to look at the past through rose tinted glasses.
This morning's blog post is no different, though more self-deprecating than most of the things I have written.
I dare to dream of a world where I can reread that years later and say, "It's okay past Jay - it's all going to work out for the best, just stay the course"
> You can say whatever the fuck you want. It’s your blog, you don’t need to follow any rules. I just cursed and you can’t do nothing about it, because this is my blog and I do what I want. This will give you a sense of freedom that’s really cool imho.
This is unfortunately not true in many parts of the world.
Even here in Germany, any blog, including private ones, need to come with an imprint section including your full name, residential address, mobile phone number et cetera.
Even though realistically, nobody would care if I omitted this imprint section, it makes you think again whether you should actually go trough with self-hosting a blog.
In other countries it's of course way worse (think censorship and social scoring), so blogging just because you can seems to me as good a reason as any.
I disagree. Nobody cares about your blog … until they do. You might think everything you ever said could trivially be published on the front page of the New York Times, and yet, a journalist courting a well-placed source, who happens to not like you and is in the habit of working with journalists, might find bits in there, over time, to use against you.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t write a blog. But keep in mind your future self’s wellbeing. Your very future, responsible for hundreds of employees, 2 kids, a spouse, and significant economic or national responsibilities.
Exactly, and the author's list of reasons "why you should care about your blog" are reasons to care about your _journal_ because none of them argue in favor of making what you write public on the web...
My blog is 15 years old and entirely private. It's a great way to process thoughts. Looking back, I am amazed at how often I revisit the same questions and musings.
This realisation of recursion has led me to create mini manifestos. For example, a lot of my financial thinking/planning is summed up in half a dozen points in one of my blog posts.
I would recommend blogging for circular thinkers as myself as a way of maturing your thought process.
I blog about some things I do at work. A mix of things I found particularly interesting and some others asked me to write about.
It's partly a way to get approval to talk about some work details outside of the office, but also a bit of a behind the scenes thing from games I work on because I love reading that from others.
While I enjoyed this post, I can't say I agree with the motivating bullet points.
> Your blog is not original. [...] You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.
I'm usually not writing fluffy think pieces, but rather detailing specific technical solutions from a game I worked on. My solutions may not be original, but the context definitely is and this serves as a vehicle to share details about my work and start discussions of it with my friends.
> You’re not an expert in your field
I am certainly not a leading expert, but I do have expert knowledge which I know some find interesting and have learned from. Several blog posts are based on lectures I've held at work which fellow programmers seemed to really enjoy, so I'm happy I get to post about them publicly.
> You are only showing the world how stupid you are.
> If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it.
These two points were my biggest worries before I started my blog. Luckily, it's proven unfounded. People generally have positive things to say about it and the one time someone questioned something led to an interesting discussion from which I learned a valuable trick I've since used in my work.
I even published a tool I made at work and got some encouraging comments and a few stars on GitHub, which is fun given how ridiculously niche it was.
[+] [-] thomashabets2|2 years ago|reply
> There are hundreds of blogs out there, what makes you think yours is different?
Because it's mine. My friends care. Recruiters and hiring managers have cared (in a good way).
> You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.
Maybe. But some are hidden in a locked library basement behind a door labelled "beware of the leopard". The information is not useful there.
Also I sometimes write the documentation I wish existed before I learned. Maybe it was written, but not in the way I found useful. If ever someone who thinks like me reads it, it'll save them more time than I took to write it. And people have thanked me, so I guess they exist.
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
So there is no need for teachers and textbook authors, because they don't advance state of the art?
And actually, when I've asked questions, I've had people refer me back to my own blog, as if it's a reference. (I'd not forgotten, I was asking about the next step)
> You are only showing the world how stupid you are.
I do that every day. The only way to become (and therefore look) smart is to look stupid. :-)
> If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it.
No. The only real criticism I get for my blog is from Bitcoin idiots telling me I'm stupid, but they never "have the time" to explain what exactly I'm not getting. Sure, buddy.
> Your work is trash, and exposing it will make people notice you’re trash as well
I'd rather leave a mark of who I actually am, than some fake Instagram persona lie of who I am.
[+] [-] Buttons840|2 years ago|reply
This is a thought I had before I read many papers. After getting over my fear of reading papers (mostly) and actually starting to read them I've realized their quality varies greatly.
Taking a step back from the glamour of academia. The random blog without ads is written out of love. The published paper is written as part of a job, and probably to meet externally imposed deadlines (and there might be some love in the paper too). Judge for yourself which you want to read.
Sometimes, as a beginner I want a beginners perspective. We imagine that we only gain through study, but we lose our fresh perspective, and no amount of study can restore that fresh perspective, which does have some merit.
[+] [-] alexmolas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FourthProtocol|2 years ago|reply
>So there is no need for teachers and textbook authors, because they don't advance state of the art?
This. I have a web site that in places you might call a blog. It's got a section for work stuff, some photos, hobbies, and random pages like explaining how to drive off-road. Those off-road pages (specifically this single page - https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/offroading/Concepts/Gearing.htm...) gets more hits than all the other pages combined. I wrote it in 1998.
[+] [-] camillomiller|2 years ago|reply
I understand the point and why that could pop up in a blogger’s mind as a way to stop writing, but this is a wrong framing problem.
Academia for example is a gigantic citation game. The reason why you’re writing a paper is not necessarily because you’re an expert, but because you need to establish yourself as one in a very narrow field based on a self-reinforcing score scheme.
“Giving Interviews” also implies an objectivity that does not exist. Establishing yourself as an expert has a lot more to do with personal branding than actually being the best experts. Plus, especially fo TV, you don’t call the utmost experts of a field, you call someone who’s expert enough or prepared enough AND knows how to talk in front of a camera and for the tv interview format, which is a superficial medium.
Getting interviews or being perceived as an expert is a “business” that has its own marketing strategies. A blog could even be part of that strategy and it’s been in many cases, but it has to be structured as such. On the other hand, it’s ok to put your words out there without this specific agenda. In that case a blog and blogging shouldn’t be judged by the metrics of popularity, because it sits in a very different domain.
[+] [-] mooreds|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelRo|2 years ago|reply
Precisely this one. There are billions of people out there breathing, your own personal breathing is so unremarkable and trivial that since only being original at all costs matters in this world you should cease to breathe effective immediately!
[+] [-] ly3xqhl8g9|2 years ago|reply
However, a fourth option appears today: one writes for the language models. The language models will always care about your blog.
[1] Julien Green is probably the most famous for his Diary, 1919–1998 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Green
[+] [-] sanderjd|2 years ago|reply
This one is especially far out there. Lots of experts in their fields write blogs or newsletters or articles for other publications, etc. Not every field is an academic discipline. And quite frankly, academics would themselves be far more impactful if they didn't only churn out academic papers, but also wrote in a blog-like format. And many of them do, and they increase the impact of their work by doing so.
[+] [-] bjornasm|2 years ago|reply
Woah strongly disagree with this as well as it showcase a fundamental lack of knowledge on different communication formats. Blog posts can give an laymans introduction to a paper, it can expand on a part of a paper etc - talks and presentations can be summarized in blogposts. Even though I am mostly working on papers I have so many ideas on blogposts about stuff that is not really relevant for my field (like detailed information on how I work with subset of data) - nothing that is groundbreaking or a wide enough topic to warrant a paper. I mean, you could even write blogposts about great papers you read. That can be so helpfull for others. (Yes you could also write a big literary review but thats a lot more work).
[+] [-] shadowgovt|2 years ago|reply
Mastodon has a well-documented setup process. I'm still going to do a blog post about setting mine up because I used an unusual hardware configuration and an unusual server config that aren't covered in the mainline-supported tutorial. I was only able to succeed because other people had done the same at some point.
[+] [-] brightball|2 years ago|reply
And one more…I write because it helps me organize my thoughts. When something is on my mind for a couple of months, I often can’t stop thinking about it until I write it down. That’s the entire reason I blog.
[+] [-] MonaroVXR|2 years ago|reply
Mines don't, because they don't understand it.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] snyda|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mochaki|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonlotito|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sweetjuly|2 years ago|reply
> You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
Blogs and self-pub are often the only ways some information is shared by nature of the fact that academic publications don't publish things that don't obviously advance the state-of-the-art.
For example, one area I'm close with is computer security. While academia does some quite interesting work here, most major journals balk at the papers which discuss security mitigation defeats unless they're particularly zany (say, breaking ASLR using transient side channel attacks). Blog posts which detail how these mitigations work (ex. Siguza's post on Apple's proprietary APRR [1]) and how they can be defeated (ex. Project Zero's post which builds on Siguza's work to explore how APRR can be defeated in Safari's JIT [2]) provide considerable value to both security researchers, people who develop mitigations, and software people in general who are interested in learning how attackers think.
These sorts of works don't really belong in journals but that doesn't make them any less valuable.
[1] https://blog.siguza.net/APRR/
[2] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2020/09/jitsploitatio...
[+] [-] kaba0|2 years ago|reply
For me personally it did help a bit, as I was thinking about writing my first blog post for a long time, and I also have been fighting with quite a lot of items on the first list. (Especially about the being considered dumb part). While I find the title a bit click-bait-y and that’s likely the reason why many didn’t read the whole thing/misunderstood, by critiquing I would just confirm one of the negative items, so let’s leave it that :D
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|2 years ago|reply
The audience for complex math proofs is very small. At first. Same applies to a lot of creative works ... paintings, photos, poetry. van Gogh sold almost nothing.
A composer once asked me 'what do you care more about - how many are listening, or who is listening?"
Amazing how many blogs have shut off their feedback.
[+] [-] antegamisou|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] impissedoff1|2 years ago|reply
Physical publications have a chance at existence though
[+] [-] Spivak|2 years ago|reply
Even for something as simple as a blog having a large following is exposure. You have a better chance of finding quality discussion given more eyeballs.
[+] [-] Ayesh|2 years ago|reply
- I wrote a blog post about a CloudFlare when they were just starting, which landed me a gig to provide a technical review for a printed book.
- Some reverse engineered router/phone IMEI unlock codes lead to a complete website to generate them.
- An Instagram photo/video download tool that got so popular Meta sent me a UDPR and a C&D demand to shut down.
- Various talks in conferences, some that even paid me.
- Small web sites that spun off to their own web sites.
I would argue that an average person is exactly who should have a blog. Because, majority of us are average, and having a blog or a blog post related to a particular topic (even a mediocre one) gives the boost to stand you out. Some of these opportunities may not generate a lot of money, if at all. But I like the excitement I get from them.
[+] [-] qumpis|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moneywoes|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OldGuyInTheClub|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voytec|2 years ago|reply
I do. I write not just for others but also myself.
My little blog of few posts exists to satisfy my expectations and fulfill my rare urge of writing and the need of getting some thoughts out of my head. As long as nobody cares enough about my blog to monetize it, I'm perfectly fine with the status quo.
> If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it.
And that's great! I may be able to learn something or at least I may get to know different view points.
[+] [-] stevenicr|2 years ago|reply
There was a time when sites promoted blogs via web rings and blog rolls - recent discussion -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36728870
Google penalizing sites for linking to other sites and people getting paranoid about bleeding pagerank and getting penalized for unknowingly linking to 'bad neighborhoods' - quickly changed how many people would peruse your blog..
Removing blog rolls, web rings, pingomatic, technorati... some blogs adapted, most did not.. google is the reason blogs aren't read these days.
On top of things mentioned in the post.
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
There’s lots of reasons not covered in the blog about not blogging trying to convince why to blog.
[+] [-] epiccoleman|2 years ago|reply
I've been considering starting a more freeform, anonymous site where I could cut loose a bit more. This post is somewhat encouraging in that direction.
[+] [-] 1vuio0pswjnm7|2 years ago|reply
Maybe personal websites should be the "public square", not third party "social media" websites. Most folks probably won't bother with maintaining personal websites because they do not have anything meaningful to say. Instead, "social media" websites encourage all people, many of whom are only using these sites to communicate with friends and family, who otherwise have nothing worthwhile to say to the general public, to "share" their every thought. All in the name of exploiting these serfs/sharecroppers as ad targets for obscene profit. We have seen the results. It isn't pretty.
Just because "[y]ou can say whatever the fuck you want" to the entire web does not necessarily mean everyone will. At least, this is how I remember the web before so-called "tech" companies and "social media" hijacked it. The social media websites are desperate for others to create content for them, for free.
[+] [-] chantepierre|2 years ago|reply
But last week, someone contacted me via e-mail to tell me that a workaround I published to run interferometry software under MacOS was now not needed anymore because he made the porting work to run this software natively.
I then realized I ranked high for "<software> mac" and updated my post so people easily find his work.
That's a win to me !
[+] [-] forrestthewoods|2 years ago|reply
Blogs are superior to conferences imho. A decent blog post will get about 10,000 views via HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc. A conference will only have dozens to hundreds of attendees.
I only make a few posts per year. I mostly avoid hot takes. Most of my posts I could have turned into conference talks. But conferences are kinda gross and blog posts are better so meh.
[+] [-] 38|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzo38computer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] julianlam|2 years ago|reply
But that's ok, he doesn't care about what we think ;)
[+] [-] the-printer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoZebra120vClip|2 years ago|reply
My supervisor at my last job said I should start a blog. I suppose because I always ate at restaurants and I liked describing the food and stuff. But I'm not really a foodie, or eloquent like a food critic. Perhaps she just said that because I talk so much.
[+] [-] andreyk|2 years ago|reply
I mean... Maybe you should care sometimes? Maybe it is good to try and not repeat others and try to express original and useful thoughts?
I have written some stuff in the past that was purely for me, but have also written explainers and other stuff that was actually meant to be of benefit to people who found or read it* (even if very few people did read it). This all-or-nothing stance is kind of silly. The title is also rather misleading, but I guess that's good for upvotes...
* I won't link to it as I don't mean for this to be a plug, but just as an example - I wrote "Things Everyone Should Know About Depression", because I found most articles of that sort lacking. And I put in a lot of work into making that a good post because I did care about its impact on potential readers, and I do think it probably helped some people.
Not everything has to be just written with only yourself in mind, even if fundamentally the reason to write should be that you want to write moreso than for the potential of getting lots of readers.
[+] [-] 50|2 years ago|reply
reminded of dfw: "true heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care — with no one there to see or cheer. this is the world."
[+] [-] jaylittle|2 years ago|reply
I liking having my own space where I can say what I want. There is also real value in me going back and reading what I said a year, five years or even ten years back. My blog posts have proven to be a useful way of reminding future Jay of what past Jay was going through as I have a tendency to look at the past through rose tinted glasses.
This morning's blog post is no different, though more self-deprecating than most of the things I have written.
https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2023/7/i-am-on-the-mcnulty-s...
I dare to dream of a world where I can reread that years later and say, "It's okay past Jay - it's all going to work out for the best, just stay the course"
[+] [-] mbwgh|2 years ago|reply
This is unfortunately not true in many parts of the world. Even here in Germany, any blog, including private ones, need to come with an imprint section including your full name, residential address, mobile phone number et cetera.
Even though realistically, nobody would care if I omitted this imprint section, it makes you think again whether you should actually go trough with self-hosting a blog.
In other countries it's of course way worse (think censorship and social scoring), so blogging just because you can seems to me as good a reason as any.
[+] [-] killjoywashere|2 years ago|reply
I’m not saying you shouldn’t write a blog. But keep in mind your future self’s wellbeing. Your very future, responsible for hundreds of employees, 2 kids, a spouse, and significant economic or national responsibilities.
[+] [-] flashback2199|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p0d|2 years ago|reply
My blog is 15 years old and entirely private. It's a great way to process thoughts. Looking back, I am amazed at how often I revisit the same questions and musings.
This realisation of recursion has led me to create mini manifestos. For example, a lot of my financial thinking/planning is summed up in half a dozen points in one of my blog posts.
I would recommend blogging for circular thinkers as myself as a way of maturing your thought process.
[+] [-] Agentlien|2 years ago|reply
It's partly a way to get approval to talk about some work details outside of the office, but also a bit of a behind the scenes thing from games I work on because I love reading that from others.
While I enjoyed this post, I can't say I agree with the motivating bullet points.
> Your blog is not original. [...] You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.
I'm usually not writing fluffy think pieces, but rather detailing specific technical solutions from a game I worked on. My solutions may not be original, but the context definitely is and this serves as a vehicle to share details about my work and start discussions of it with my friends.
> You’re not an expert in your field
I am certainly not a leading expert, but I do have expert knowledge which I know some find interesting and have learned from. Several blog posts are based on lectures I've held at work which fellow programmers seemed to really enjoy, so I'm happy I get to post about them publicly.
> You are only showing the world how stupid you are.
> If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it.
These two points were my biggest worries before I started my blog. Luckily, it's proven unfounded. People generally have positive things to say about it and the one time someone questioned something led to an interesting discussion from which I learned a valuable trick I've since used in my work.
I even published a tool I made at work and got some encouraging comments and a few stars on GitHub, which is fun given how ridiculously niche it was.