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This scratches an itch I've had for some time now. I've been off and on with a blog of my own. The problem is, I change my answers to the following questions al

by HSO 16y ago

This scratches an itch I've had for some time now. I've been off and on with a blog of my own. The problem is, I change my answers to the following questions all the time, so I've been trapped in a cycle for some time now, put it online, take it down again, put it back up, take it down,... Here are some of the negative ones, how do you guys answer these (or do they never even come up for you)? - "I know writing is good for me. But why write for other people, why open myself up like this? If it's all in the process, why post or publish it, after all, when I'm done writing, I'm done." - "If I write something, expose myself, and nobody reads it, will I not look ridiculous?" - "There is so much noise out there, why would I think I'm not just adding to it? Let's all be quiet for a time." - "If I have a good insight, why put it out there and take the risk that someone will come and 'steal' it or adapt it and win big?" - "Will I not be easily manipulable if I put my thoughts and preferences out there? Someone could take me for a ride by using this material to their advantage or fun" - "Ok, blogging/writing/publishing stuff can make you known and perhaps even popular. Now, shouldn't you optimize for 'what people want'? Or leave out unpopular things?" (but where is the fun in writing if you can't say what you just want to say anymore?) Also, I sometimes read what I wrote years back and cringe at the stupidity or attitude. How embarrassing if all this was online and somehow remained available even after I took it down. But by definition, you don't know that what you are writing is stupid or full of shit while you are writing it.

dan00 16y ago
"There is so much noise out there, why would I think I'm not just adding to it? Let's all be quiet for a time." Most of the noise is generated by people who never ask themselves this question.
dpapathanasiou 16y ago
There have been many, many times where I was struggling with some technical issue and I found a solution to the same (or similar) problem on someone's blog. Even if you don't get a lot of traffic or comments, you may be able to help someone in the future. That alone is a good reason to do it.
- ora600 16y ago
  Actually, I found more and better solutions in blogs than in official documentation and books. Especially the topic of edge cases or documentation that doesn't work as advertised or error messages that don't mean what they think they mean. No official install guide will say "But if you are running this on Ubuntu 8.0.4, it will throw off a spurious error message about wrong xpong version. you can ignore it and everything will be fine or you can fix this by running the install with --xpong-compatible", but bloggers say things like that all the time. I try to blog every time I run into misleading documentation and every time I run into an error and there are no useful results when googling for that error message. The error messages and install guides are probably the biggest traffic generators for my blog.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
> "I know writing is good for me. But why write for other people, why open myself up like this? If it's all in the process, why post or publish it, after all, when I'm done writing, I'm done." The feedback is important. You improve your writing skills by honing them against the whetstone of your readers. > "If I write something, expose myself, and nobody reads it, will I not look ridiculous?" If nobody reads it, no one will think it's ridiculous. > "There is so much noise out there, why would I think I'm not just adding to it? Let's all be quiet for a time." If there's too much noise, the solution is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio by broadcasting more signal. > "If I have a good insight, why put it out there and take the risk that someone will come and 'steal' it or adapt it and win big?" Ideas are a dime a dozen. Value comes from how carefully and persistently you put an idea into practice. > "Will I not be easily manipulable if I put my thoughts and preferences out there? Someone could take me for a ride by using this material to their advantage or fun" The more you interact with others, the better you'll get at spotting people who just want to take you for a ride. > "Ok, blogging/writing/publishing stuff can make you known and perhaps even popular. Now, shouldn't you optimize for 'what people want'? Or leave out unpopular things?" (but where is the fun in writing if you can't say what you just want to say anymore?) Optimize for what turns your crank. Your readership will figure itself out.
- HSO 16y ago
  Hey, I like some of these comebacks ;) > If nobody reads it, no one will think it's ridiculous. Ok, you got me here. Still, if you have a blog and there's tens and tens of entries and nary a comment to be seen, doesn't that look sad somehow?
  - frossie 16y ago
    if you have a blog and there's tens and tens of entries and nary a comment to be seen, doesn't that look sad somehow? Some people blog on locked-down (private) blogs. You don't have to make it public.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    This is why I turn off comments. On publicly trafficked blogs threads are often an idiotic menace--among people who know me, Facebook suffices.
scott_s 16y ago
Regarding your point that if it's all in the process why publish? consider that publishing makes the writing happen. You might already be familiar with Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com http://www.penny-arcade.com). If not, it's a videogame themed webcomic that's been around for about 12 years now. They're successful - in fact, they have defined what "success" means for a webcomic. They recently put out a anniversary book to celebrate how long they've been around. In an interview, the two guys responsible for the comic are asked how they've kept up with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday comic schedule for over a decade. How does that deadline impact their work? Both the writer and the artists are clear on the idea that the deadlines are necessary. The writer compares the deadlines to a beast that must be fed. He goes on to state that the deadlines make the comic. Without the deadlines, there would be no comic. Similarly, I was talking to a physics friend a bit ago, and mentioned I was working towards a conference submission deadline. Her field doesn't have hard deadlines for papers, and she envied having a date at which you had to just say "It's done."
- hrabago 16y ago
  It works better if there's someone to hold you to that deadline. I've set deadlines on personal projects before, but with no one to call me on it or check, it just goes by without me meeting it.
  - c0riander 16y ago
    It doesn't necessarily have to be a specific person, either -- just a public commitment. If you say "look for a new post on my blog every Monday," you'll feel pressure to deliver.

by HSO 16y ago

dan00 16y ago

"There is so much noise out there, why would I think I'm not just adding to it? Let's all be quiet for a time." Most of the noise is generated by people who never ask themselves this question.

dpapathanasiou 16y ago

There have been many, many times where I was struggling with some technical issue and I found a solution to the same (or similar) problem on someone's blog. Even if you don't get a lot of traffic or comments, you may be able to help someone in the future. That alone is a good reason to do it.

ora600 16y ago
Actually, I found more and better solutions in blogs than in official documentation and books. Especially the topic of edge cases or documentation that doesn't work as advertised or error messages that don't mean what they think they mean. No official install guide will say "But if you are running this on Ubuntu 8.0.4, it will throw off a spurious error message about wrong xpong version. you can ignore it and everything will be fine or you can fix this by running the install with --xpong-compatible", but bloggers say things like that all the time. I try to blog every time I run into misleading documentation and every time I run into an error and there are no useful results when googling for that error message. The error messages and install guides are probably the biggest traffic generators for my blog.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

> "I know writing is good for me. But why write for other people, why open myself up like this? If it's all in the process, why post or publish it, after all, when I'm done writing, I'm done." The feedback is important. You improve your writing skills by honing them against the whetstone of your readers. > "If I write something, expose myself, and nobody reads it, will I not look ridiculous?" If nobody reads it, no one will think it's ridiculous. > "There is so much noise out there, why would I think I'm not just adding to it? Let's all be quiet for a time." If there's too much noise, the solution is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio by broadcasting more signal. > "If I have a good insight, why put it out there and take the risk that someone will come and 'steal' it or adapt it and win big?" Ideas are a dime a dozen. Value comes from how carefully and persistently you put an idea into practice. > "Will I not be easily manipulable if I put my thoughts and preferences out there? Someone could take me for a ride by using this material to their advantage or fun" The more you interact with others, the better you'll get at spotting people who just want to take you for a ride. > "Ok, blogging/writing/publishing stuff can make you known and perhaps even popular. Now, shouldn't you optimize for 'what people want'? Or leave out unpopular things?" (but where is the fun in writing if you can't say what you just want to say anymore?) Optimize for what turns your crank. Your readership will figure itself out.

HSO 16y ago
Hey, I like some of these comebacks ;) > If nobody reads it, no one will think it's ridiculous. Ok, you got me here. Still, if you have a blog and there's tens and tens of entries and nary a comment to be seen, doesn't that look sad somehow?
- frossie 16y ago
  if you have a blog and there's tens and tens of entries and nary a comment to be seen, doesn't that look sad somehow? Some people blog on locked-down (private) blogs. You don't have to make it public.
- philwelch 16y ago
  This is why I turn off comments. On publicly trafficked blogs threads are often an idiotic menace--among people who know me, Facebook suffices.

scott_s 16y ago

Regarding your point that if it's all in the process why publish? consider that publishing makes the writing happen. You might already be familiar with Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com http://www.penny-arcade.com). If not, it's a videogame themed webcomic that's been around for about 12 years now. They're successful - in fact, they have defined what "success" means for a webcomic. They recently put out a anniversary book to celebrate how long they've been around. In an interview, the two guys responsible for the comic are asked how they've kept up with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday comic schedule for over a decade. How does that deadline impact their work? Both the writer and the artists are clear on the idea that the deadlines are necessary. The writer compares the deadlines to a beast that must be fed. He goes on to state that the deadlines make the comic. Without the deadlines, there would be no comic. Similarly, I was talking to a physics friend a bit ago, and mentioned I was working towards a conference submission deadline. Her field doesn't have hard deadlines for papers, and she envied having a date at which you had to just say "It's done."

hrabago 16y ago
It works better if there's someone to hold you to that deadline. I've set deadlines on personal projects before, but with no one to call me on it or check, it just goes by without me meeting it.
- c0riander 16y ago
  It doesn't necessarily have to be a specific person, either -- just a public commitment. If you say "look for a new post on my blog every Monday," you'll feel pressure to deliver.