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> Do you ever feel guilty being a lurker? No, not when it comes to the decision not to have a blog, or a facebook page, or a twitter account, or a non-throwawa
by lurkamabob 10y ago
> Do you ever feel guilty being a lurker?
No, not when it comes to the decision not to have a blog, or a facebook page, or a twitter account, or a non-throwaway HN login.
Others may disagree, but I see profound narcissism in the popularity of these (plat)forms of expression, which are mostly about signalling.
If you feel guilty about "not contributing" then contribute in some meaningful way. Contribute features, support, and/or bug fixes to open-source projects (or start one from scratch if you've an unreachable itch.) Teach people how to do stuff. And have enough self-confidence not to need to "share" literal or metaphorical selfies.
- uep 10y agoI think you're right about narcissism being the motivation for a lot of the posts on those social media platforms, but I disagree with your stance. Particularly because I think blog posts are a significant source of technical information[1]. Those that are not, I don't find that they get in my way too much. If someone wants to keep what amounts to an online technical journal... search engines are pretty good at filtering chaff. I do not participate in those social activities, but I don't consider it a great virtue that I do not. It would probably be good practice for writing documentation for my fellow developers. [1] Cloudflare and randomascii's blog posts being some of my favorites; and I don't think the motivation is much different if at all.