4 ms·

The writing interest paradox

64 points by xylon 10y ago

Pitarou 10y ago
I think this is one of Stack Exchange's great successes: persuading knowledgeable people to answer beginners' questions. There are plenty of other things going on there, too, but that's part of the success story.
- thr0waway1239 10y ago
  If you are familiar with Jon Skeet (who last time I saw had #1 rep on StackOverflow), I will add one more - the most knowledgeable people frequently were also just damn good writers. You can quite literally see the evolution in Jon's answers - as time went by his recent answers started becoming better. Today, most of his answers a) have almost zero ambiguity and b) round off the knowledge you gained by adding a few related points, preventing future ambiguity too. Obviously I am a big fan of his writing, but I think he puts a lot of effort into his answers and even reflecting on those answers. For example, I saw an interview where he mentions the tradeoff between precision and concision in writing, and then making it readable on top of that! Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing.
  - Pitarou 10y ago
    I reckon this is another interesting consequence of the feedback system. Stack Exchange encourages fair writers to get really good, and discourages poor writers until they give up. > Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing. Indeed! A successful writer needn't be a brilliant writer. It's more important that they know which combinations of precision, concision and readability they can achieve, and they select the combination that is best suited to the task at hand. More talented writers can achieve better trade offs, but even Vladimir Nabokov would get downvoted if he answered a hello world question with exhaustive documentation of compiler flags.
soared 10y ago
I've absolutely noticed this. The only reason I write blog posts now are to (1) show off a project that I'm surprised I was capable of completing or (2) "bullshitting" about marketing because my work pays me $50 a post. I would add a third explanation: Too technical for laymen, not technical enough for cutting edge experts. I sure do know a lot about my field, but the things I would write about are too complicated for beginners, and have been done before by experts. But I can definitely toss out a hypothetical and write 500 words about it once a week..
- JasonSage 10y ago
  There was a recent episode of the Bikeshed podcast where the hosts had Sandi Metz on as a guest for their RubyConf panel. At one point they took an audience question along the lines of "What should I do a talk on? I'm sure everybody already knows whatever I'm going to talk about." Sandi Metz had a great answer. Something like "What have you learned in the last year? Do your talk on that. No matter where you are now, there's somebody out there now who is where you were a year ago. They still have those things to learn." I think this is a really healthy way of looking at blog posts as well. You may say what you want to write about is too complicated for beginners but been done before by experts, but that also means there are plenty of people out there that just don't know it yet, even though they are ready. It doesn't matter if you've been in your technical field 2 years or 10, there are other people out there just behind you waiting to learn the same things you have. If you wrote about everything that came to mind in this manner I am sure you'd have some writing that goes over some basic stuff, but also writing that is extremely relevant to some readers and will help them immensely.
  - vog 10y ago
    I've had a similar experience. I occasionally give talks, and often my best talks were about topics where I didn't have to prepare much, because I'm deeply familar their topic. It's a win-win situation. Preparation mostly reduces to deciding on the order of topics. Maybe researching some details I don't feel confident about. Maybe drawing some diagrams and/or looking for nice pictures. That's it. The only "trick" is to have an audience to which my topic is all news.
rdtsc 10y ago
That's basically why I don't have a blog. I know I would end up with a few posts and then a multi-year gap in it. But I like discussions on HN. There is just enough variety and interesting mix of topics. Also the style is more conversational, while a blog is more narrative (fire-side chat vs a presentation in front of an audience). There should be an "HN-post-history-to-blog-format" library or service. Maybe something that picks the most interesting discussions in last X years.
- aethertron 10y ago
  That sounds like a cool idea. HN has an API [0] ... not sure if this is possible or allowed though. [0] https://github.com/HackerNews/API https://github.com/HackerNews/API Also, there's nothing really wrong with having a blog with no recent updates. I know there's this idea that a blog needs to be regularly updated. But a blog with just 2 valuable posts made 2 years ago, is a valuable thing! If you just want to write some stuff and put it online, without the feeling of some ongoing obligation -- here are a few options: https://medium.com/@jason.sackey/apps-for-super-fast-web-publishing-e1e3d96756e9#.3oq3y2q9t https://medium.com/@jason.sackey/apps-for-super-fast-web-pub... I hope you will be encouraged to post some stuff.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Thanks!
- Noseshine 10y ago
  > That's basically why I don't have a blog. A reason why I gave up on my own Internet presence entirely, including my own domains was that years ago when I got them I put a lot of effort into them - and got very little people to visit. Multimedia too, and I still think it was actually pretty nice (interactive learning content - I would not use multimedia for what could better be done with text, I love a minimalist approach). The problem was nobody even got there. I am not complaining! It was important to see what works and what doesn't. I now think it is far better to jointly contribute on a big project/website rather than piecemeal individually. Of course there will always be examples of people for whom it works, this is a "statistical" statement. Part of the reason I in particular got nowhere was the kind of content. Too many people trying to provide learning content, you can see it on Youtube, a lot of channels with sometimes great lectures started big for a few years but now have not been updated in years because the authors noticed the big gap between effort and reward (a few hundred viewers and a few comments). My conclusion was that I would instead go to sites like reddit (technical and science subreddits mostly) and HN, and if I really think it's worth writing up something larger there are plenty of sites to choose from. An important part of this is a conscious decision to give up creating my own brand. Instead, it was important for me personally to be perfectly okay, even to actually desire it, to disappear in the anonymity of the masses.
glenndebacker 10y ago
At work we are forced to spend some of our free time writing "commercial interesting" articles mostly of topics that doesn't say a lot to me. It's something that I (and a lot of my coworkers) dread a lot. On the other hand I have my own blog where I have the freedom to write about what I want and when I want. I'm having a lot more fun when writing for the latter. I also get a lot more reactions regarding articles that I write for my own so I assume that fun or interest also shows in the quality of my writings.
Mz 10y ago
I think there is some truth to this, but it isn't universally true. I have spent a lot of years trying to sort out certain things and I am finding myself blogging more these days on various topics. I remain interested in exploring and communicating about a number of different things. Different strokes for different folks.
ForFreedom 10y ago
That 2-3 mins read on black background and green font killed my eye for a second there. Anyone else got the feel?
- wodenokoto 10y ago
  Both Firefox and safari come with a built-in feature to display Web articles in a readable manner. Almost every article I read on the Web benefit from using this function, and I'd recommend you start using it too, and save yourself from looking at the next horribly layed out article.
  - Chinjut 10y ago
    What is the function called? And is there a Chrome equivalent, by any chance?
  - ForFreedom 10y ago
    hmm.. point
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  Stylesheet editing is a surprisingly quick and handy skill to pick up.
aethertron 10y ago
I like this author's style. I don't think he's shown that blogging is a doomed project. Having interest in a topic may compromise one's objectivity. But we can become aware of this, and correct for it. Other people's viewpoints can be helpful here. And having experience in a topic doesn't necessarily mean you're bored of it. I've been web-developing for ~5 years and there's a whole bunch of stuff here I want to explore and write about. Regarding writing for the sake of money, Schopenhauer had some commentary: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter1.html https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/...
jbpetersen 10y ago
Two possible exceptions: Posts that are intended as a launching point for critical discussion. Posts that journal a learning process such as an original project.
unabst 10y ago
You can be inexperienced and still be completely objective, and vice versa. Objectivity is the skill, and experience is the asset. Interest is also a separate asset. The author seems to assume we get bored and lose interest with experience, which is observable, but I think this rings truer with entertainment (games) rather than craft (art, music, programming). I wish I could be more entertaining, but the truth is not that exciting. That's probably another writing paradox. Most of our entertainment is fiction. (Personally, I write to think and to document. There is also no way of knowing what people think of your thoughts if you don't share them.)
cousin_it 10y ago
That's why it's a good idea to ask some experienced folks for feedback on your passionate writing before showing it to the public. The internet sentiment of "yay we don't need editors or reviewers" is certainly inspiring, but it also leads to a lot of writing that's passionate and wrong.
hliyan 10y ago
I think the reverse becomes true when you replace "writing" with "speaking" -- most people love to talk about things they have a lot of experience in. So the solution would be... videos and podcasts?
pjc50 10y ago
Objectivity is not only overrated, but the desire for it is part of the problem here. Objectivity must be passionless, which bores the reader. It's also very hard to achieve, which is why you find people going around calling themselves "objective" when they're just refusing to acknowledge their prejudices and privileges.
CM30 10y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like it's perfectly possible to be interested in something and yet still have a lot of experience in the subject matter. Lots of experts want to share their knowledge either to help the field move along a bit or to get more people interested in whatever their expertise is in. The person on YouTube that makes tons of videos about the minute technical details of Super Mario 64 and talks about half button presses and parallel universes is obviously highly interested in the game and its mechanics and also has a lot of experience with it. There are people whose main passion remains the same for 20+ years and who never get bored of learning more and more about the same subject till they retire or die. And no, I don't think objectivity must be passionless or bore the reader. It's possible to present 'just the facts' in a way that's enjoyable to read and doesn't try and pass off any viewpoints as objective. A good nature documentary could still be interesting to watch after all.

64 points by xylon 10y ago

I think this is one of Stack Exchange's great successes: persuading knowledgeable people to answer beginners' questions. There are plenty of other things going on there, too, but that's part of the success story.

thr0waway1239 10y ago
If you are familiar with Jon Skeet (who last time I saw had #1 rep on StackOverflow), I will add one more - the most knowledgeable people frequently were also just damn good writers. You can quite literally see the evolution in Jon's answers - as time went by his recent answers started becoming better. Today, most of his answers a) have almost zero ambiguity and b) round off the knowledge you gained by adding a few related points, preventing future ambiguity too. Obviously I am a big fan of his writing, but I think he puts a lot of effort into his answers and even reflecting on those answers. For example, I saw an interview where he mentions the tradeoff between precision and concision in writing, and then making it readable on top of that! Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing.
- Pitarou 10y ago
  I reckon this is another interesting consequence of the feedback system. Stack Exchange encourages fair writers to get really good, and discourages poor writers until they give up. > Very, very few people can succeed on all three fronts in technical writing. Indeed! A successful writer needn't be a brilliant writer. It's more important that they know which combinations of precision, concision and readability they can achieve, and they select the combination that is best suited to the task at hand. More talented writers can achieve better trade offs, but even Vladimir Nabokov would get downvoted if he answered a hello world question with exhaustive documentation of compiler flags.

soared 10y ago

I've absolutely noticed this. The only reason I write blog posts now are to (1) show off a project that I'm surprised I was capable of completing or (2) "bullshitting" about marketing because my work pays me $50 a post. I would add a third explanation: Too technical for laymen, not technical enough for cutting edge experts. I sure do know a lot about my field, but the things I would write about are too complicated for beginners, and have been done before by experts. But I can definitely toss out a hypothetical and write 500 words about it once a week..

JasonSage 10y ago
There was a recent episode of the Bikeshed podcast where the hosts had Sandi Metz on as a guest for their RubyConf panel. At one point they took an audience question along the lines of "What should I do a talk on? I'm sure everybody already knows whatever I'm going to talk about." Sandi Metz had a great answer. Something like "What have you learned in the last year? Do your talk on that. No matter where you are now, there's somebody out there now who is where you were a year ago. They still have those things to learn." I think this is a really healthy way of looking at blog posts as well. You may say what you want to write about is too complicated for beginners but been done before by experts, but that also means there are plenty of people out there that just don't know it yet, even though they are ready. It doesn't matter if you've been in your technical field 2 years or 10, there are other people out there just behind you waiting to learn the same things you have. If you wrote about everything that came to mind in this manner I am sure you'd have some writing that goes over some basic stuff, but also writing that is extremely relevant to some readers and will help them immensely.
- vog 10y ago
  I've had a similar experience. I occasionally give talks, and often my best talks were about topics where I didn't have to prepare much, because I'm deeply familar their topic. It's a win-win situation. Preparation mostly reduces to deciding on the order of topics. Maybe researching some details I don't feel confident about. Maybe drawing some diagrams and/or looking for nice pictures. That's it. The only "trick" is to have an audience to which my topic is all news.

rdtsc 10y ago

That's basically why I don't have a blog. I know I would end up with a few posts and then a multi-year gap in it. But I like discussions on HN. There is just enough variety and interesting mix of topics. Also the style is more conversational, while a blog is more narrative (fire-side chat vs a presentation in front of an audience). There should be an "HN-post-history-to-blog-format" library or service. Maybe something that picks the most interesting discussions in last X years.

aethertron 10y ago
That sounds like a cool idea. HN has an API [0] ... not sure if this is possible or allowed though. [0] https://github.com/HackerNews/API https://github.com/HackerNews/API Also, there's nothing really wrong with having a blog with no recent updates. I know there's this idea that a blog needs to be regularly updated. But a blog with just 2 valuable posts made 2 years ago, is a valuable thing! If you just want to write some stuff and put it online, without the feeling of some ongoing obligation -- here are a few options: https://medium.com/@jason.sackey/apps-for-super-fast-web-publishing-e1e3d96756e9#.3oq3y2q9t https://medium.com/@jason.sackey/apps-for-super-fast-web-pub... I hope you will be encouraged to post some stuff.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Thanks!
Noseshine 10y ago
> That's basically why I don't have a blog. A reason why I gave up on my own Internet presence entirely, including my own domains was that years ago when I got them I put a lot of effort into them - and got very little people to visit. Multimedia too, and I still think it was actually pretty nice (interactive learning content - I would not use multimedia for what could better be done with text, I love a minimalist approach). The problem was nobody even got there. I am not complaining! It was important to see what works and what doesn't. I now think it is far better to jointly contribute on a big project/website rather than piecemeal individually. Of course there will always be examples of people for whom it works, this is a "statistical" statement. Part of the reason I in particular got nowhere was the kind of content. Too many people trying to provide learning content, you can see it on Youtube, a lot of channels with sometimes great lectures started big for a few years but now have not been updated in years because the authors noticed the big gap between effort and reward (a few hundred viewers and a few comments). My conclusion was that I would instead go to sites like reddit (technical and science subreddits mostly) and HN, and if I really think it's worth writing up something larger there are plenty of sites to choose from. An important part of this is a conscious decision to give up creating my own brand. Instead, it was important for me personally to be perfectly okay, even to actually desire it, to disappear in the anonymity of the masses.

glenndebacker 10y ago

At work we are forced to spend some of our free time writing "commercial interesting" articles mostly of topics that doesn't say a lot to me. It's something that I (and a lot of my coworkers) dread a lot. On the other hand I have my own blog where I have the freedom to write about what I want and when I want. I'm having a lot more fun when writing for the latter. I also get a lot more reactions regarding articles that I write for my own so I assume that fun or interest also shows in the quality of my writings.

Mz 10y ago

I think there is some truth to this, but it isn't universally true. I have spent a lot of years trying to sort out certain things and I am finding myself blogging more these days on various topics. I remain interested in exploring and communicating about a number of different things. Different strokes for different folks.

ForFreedom 10y ago

That 2-3 mins read on black background and green font killed my eye for a second there. Anyone else got the feel?

wodenokoto 10y ago
Both Firefox and safari come with a built-in feature to display Web articles in a readable manner. Almost every article I read on the Web benefit from using this function, and I'd recommend you start using it too, and save yourself from looking at the next horribly layed out article.
- Chinjut 10y ago
  What is the function called? And is there a Chrome equivalent, by any chance?
- ForFreedom 10y ago
  hmm.. point
jbpetersen 10y ago
Stylesheet editing is a surprisingly quick and handy skill to pick up.

aethertron 10y ago

I like this author's style. I don't think he's shown that blogging is a doomed project. Having interest in a topic may compromise one's objectivity. But we can become aware of this, and correct for it. Other people's viewpoints can be helpful here. And having experience in a topic doesn't necessarily mean you're bored of it. I've been web-developing for ~5 years and there's a whole bunch of stuff here I want to explore and write about. Regarding writing for the sake of money, Schopenhauer had some commentary: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter1.html https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/...

jbpetersen 10y ago

Two possible exceptions: Posts that are intended as a launching point for critical discussion. Posts that journal a learning process such as an original project.

unabst 10y ago

You can be inexperienced and still be completely objective, and vice versa. Objectivity is the skill, and experience is the asset. Interest is also a separate asset. The author seems to assume we get bored and lose interest with experience, which is observable, but I think this rings truer with entertainment (games) rather than craft (art, music, programming). I wish I could be more entertaining, but the truth is not that exciting. That's probably another writing paradox. Most of our entertainment is fiction. (Personally, I write to think and to document. There is also no way of knowing what people think of your thoughts if you don't share them.)

cousin_it 10y ago

That's why it's a good idea to ask some experienced folks for feedback on your passionate writing before showing it to the public. The internet sentiment of "yay we don't need editors or reviewers" is certainly inspiring, but it also leads to a lot of writing that's passionate and wrong.

hliyan 10y ago

I think the reverse becomes true when you replace "writing" with "speaking" -- most people love to talk about things they have a lot of experience in. So the solution would be... videos and podcasts?

pjc50 10y ago

Objectivity is not only overrated, but the desire for it is part of the problem here. Objectivity must be passionless, which bores the reader. It's also very hard to achieve, which is why you find people going around calling themselves "objective" when they're just refusing to acknowledge their prejudices and privileges.

CM30 10y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like it's perfectly possible to be interested in something and yet still have a lot of experience in the subject matter. Lots of experts want to share their knowledge either to help the field move along a bit or to get more people interested in whatever their expertise is in. The person on YouTube that makes tons of videos about the minute technical details of Super Mario 64 and talks about half button presses and parallel universes is obviously highly interested in the game and its mechanics and also has a lot of experience with it. There are people whose main passion remains the same for 20+ years and who never get bored of learning more and more about the same subject till they retire or die. And no, I don't think objectivity must be passionless or bore the reader. It's possible to present 'just the facts' in a way that's enjoyable to read and doesn't try and pass off any viewpoints as objective. A good nature documentary could still be interesting to watch after all.