4 ms·

Don't use any 'blogging platform'. Use a static blogging system. The best one currently is probably Octopress[1] which is based on Jekyll[2]. But you could roll

by veidr 15y ago

Don't use any 'blogging platform'. Use a static blogging system. The best one currently is probably Octopress[1] which is based on Jekyll[2]. But you could roll your own, and it would still be much better than blogger, wordpress, walmart.com, google+, facebook, tubmlr, etc. Such systems just render your conveniently created post content into a static HTML website than can be published on various free systems (github pages etc) or $2/month VPS. Or an Amazon S3 bucket. Why? 1. It is not anyore significantly harder or more inconvenient than using a 'platform' like wordpress.com 2. A static site is 10000000% more resistant to idiotic exploits (which unless you are some kind of PROFESSIONAL blogger, keeping up with is more trouble than its worth on any dynamic 'blogging platform' type of system) 3. A static blog system can serve your blogs with any web server in 2012, and will be able to in 2112, whereas none of the free or even for-money 'blogging platforms' is likely to exist in 2112. Which in terms of your life (unless we are lucky and get the gerontological life-extending technology soon) is essentially 'forever. 4. Why on earth would you cede control of your personal output to walmart.com or google+ or similar? [1]: http://octopress.org/ http://octopress.org/ [2]: http://jekyllrb.com/ http://jekyllrb.com/ EDIT: meant to mention somewhere in there that comments, one of the raisons d'être for these dynamic blogging systems, can now be superbly handled by off-site add ons like disqus.

mgualt 15y ago
re: comments, I strongly disagree that they are handled "superbly". For many important blogs, the comments are central to the whole endeavour. Why on earth would you cede control of your comments to disqus? Why do you keep your content and your comments separate? Will disqus be around in 2112? This is what I mean when I say that a "static blog system" is not a blog system at all. It is a partially thought-out solution which doesn't have the required functionality.
- veidr 15y ago
  I guess that's a good point if comments are truly important to you. Which they perhaps are, for a tiny minority of blogs. (I personally don't find comments important at all, and even take advantage of the various browser extensions[1] to hide them on various sites that do have them.) [1]: e.g. http://stevenf.com/pages/shutup.css.html http://stevenf.com/pages/shutup.css.html
  - mgualt 15y ago
    I claim that comments are integral to the activity of blogging. In fact, most bloggers are chomping at the bit to get more comments, often they will do anything to get more comments, and not necessarily because there's a financial incentive. If you look at the best blogs, I mean top blogs in their niche such as http://www.thesartorialist.com/ http://www.thesartorialist.com/ http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/ http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/ http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/ http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/ you will see that they are comment heavy. In fact there are very interesting discussions in the comments. You may think comments are "unimportant" for most blogs, but that is not up to you, it is up to the blogger, and I guarantee that blogger would rather have some comments. And it might help to have a half-decent comment system.
    - veidr 15y ago
      I hear you, and I more or less understand the arguments for your position, but I don't agree. I personally am not much of a blogger, so my own proclivities as a blog writer ('fuck no I don't allow comments on any blog for which I am responsible for picking up the dogshit and spam') aren't too relevant. But many of the blogs I find most valuable do not feature comments, or if they do, they are 99.9% what you'd expect: utterly worthless, time-wasting digital turds. I think the whole comment thing is misguided. If you really had something worthwhile to say, why on earth would you entrust that to whatever crap-ass 'blogging platform' that blogger in question happened to be using at the moment? Say it somewhere that you control, and link it. That's how the web works. Of course, I have seen worthwhile comments (especially on blogs where the author takes the time/effort to aggressively police them). But that's far and away the exception, and not the rule.
      - glimcat 15y ago
        Rather than a comments system, I'd prefer something which polls around for copies of the link to see if it turns up on HN or whatever, then includes those. Free moderation, better validation. Comments can be important if you're trying to build a community or what have you and want people to stay on site longer. But most people use aggregators of one stripe or another, whether RSS or a link site or Facebook.

by veidr 15y ago

mgualt 15y ago

re: comments, I strongly disagree that they are handled "superbly". For many important blogs, the comments are central to the whole endeavour. Why on earth would you cede control of your comments to disqus? Why do you keep your content and your comments separate? Will disqus be around in 2112? This is what I mean when I say that a "static blog system" is not a blog system at all. It is a partially thought-out solution which doesn't have the required functionality.

veidr 15y ago
I guess that's a good point if comments are truly important to you. Which they perhaps are, for a tiny minority of blogs. (I personally don't find comments important at all, and even take advantage of the various browser extensions[1] to hide them on various sites that do have them.) [1]: e.g. http://stevenf.com/pages/shutup.css.html http://stevenf.com/pages/shutup.css.html
- mgualt 15y ago
  I claim that comments are integral to the activity of blogging. In fact, most bloggers are chomping at the bit to get more comments, often they will do anything to get more comments, and not necessarily because there's a financial incentive. If you look at the best blogs, I mean top blogs in their niche such as http://www.thesartorialist.com/ http://www.thesartorialist.com/ http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/ http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/ http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/ http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/ you will see that they are comment heavy. In fact there are very interesting discussions in the comments. You may think comments are "unimportant" for most blogs, but that is not up to you, it is up to the blogger, and I guarantee that blogger would rather have some comments. And it might help to have a half-decent comment system.
  - veidr 15y ago
    I hear you, and I more or less understand the arguments for your position, but I don't agree. I personally am not much of a blogger, so my own proclivities as a blog writer ('fuck no I don't allow comments on any blog for which I am responsible for picking up the dogshit and spam') aren't too relevant. But many of the blogs I find most valuable do not feature comments, or if they do, they are 99.9% what you'd expect: utterly worthless, time-wasting digital turds. I think the whole comment thing is misguided. If you really had something worthwhile to say, why on earth would you entrust that to whatever crap-ass 'blogging platform' that blogger in question happened to be using at the moment? Say it somewhere that you control, and link it. That's how the web works. Of course, I have seen worthwhile comments (especially on blogs where the author takes the time/effort to aggressively police them). But that's far and away the exception, and not the rule.
    - glimcat 15y ago
      Rather than a comments system, I'd prefer something which polls around for copies of the link to see if it turns up on HN or whatever, then includes those. Free moderation, better validation. Comments can be important if you're trying to build a community or what have you and want people to stay on site longer. But most people use aggregators of one stripe or another, whether RSS or a link site or Facebook.