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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. M
by thomashabets2 3y ago
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.
- alexmolas 3y agoAuthor 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 :)
- ozim 3y agoLooks like a lot of people read first list, got triggered started writing comment and did not think about full scope of the text.
- lapcat 3y ago> Looks like a lot of people read first list, got triggered started writing comment and did not think about full scope of the text. In other words... nobody cares about your blog. ;-)
- haswell 3y agoIf they’re triggered and writing angrily, they care. They just care about it for the wrong reasons. Reasons that can be eliminated by adapting the structure of the content to a modern audience.
- lapcat 3y ago> If they’re triggered and writing angrily, they care. They may care about the subject matter of the blog post, but they don't care about the blog post, which is just an excuse for them to rant about the subject matter. > Reasons that can be eliminated by adapting the structure of the content to a modern audience. c/modern/lazy
- haswell 3y ago> they don't care about the blog post, which is just an excuse for them to rant about the subject matter This kind of framing/sweeping generalization doesn’t make sense to me. There will always be people who will rant for the sake of ranting, but this isn’t universal, nor should it be the base assumption about a reader/commentor. > c/modern/lazy This carries the problematic generalization further. The modern media environment has drastically impacted people’s attention span. There are plenty of critical things to be said about the effects of this trend, but painting this as just a matter of laziness misses the bigger picture. Especially important if you want to create content that encourages people to cultivate attention and stop consuming attention-destroying content. Writing for a “modern” audience isn’t about catering to lazy people, but recognizing what people are up against in an information landscape that increasingly churns out bad information, making it necessary as a reader to assess the content quickly enough to know if it’s time to move on, because there isn’t enough time or attention in a day to give every post a full read. I’m not saying lazy readers don’t exist, but that’s not why I think it’s useful to think about content structure.
- romusha 3y agoSo basically, as the old saying goes, you were "merely pretending"?
- Given_47 3y agoThe point about providing ur own perspective is what makes blogs so (sadly) refreshing. I’ve stumbled onto so many random blogs and read a post on a topic I’m already familiar with because I hope to find a different perspective on it.
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- jimnotgym 3y agoI got that from reading it. I enjoyed the article. Nobody cares about comments from people reading things too literally ;)
- thomashabets2 3y agoYeah I sensed something like that. But I don't just think that the pros outweigh the cons, I think the cons are all wrong. :-)
- haswell 3y ago> these are things I was telling myself to stop writing I think some of the feedback here is because that’s not how you explain the cons in the post: > Here’s a list of why nobody cares about your blog While you do go on to tell people they shouldn’t care about these cons, I’d go a step further and say these aren’t even real things most people who encounter your blog will think. Your framing sets this up as a current of negative sentiment out there against which you must steel yourself to write. A different framing is that this negative sentiment primarily exists in your own mind (mine too), thus not a problem. I think there’s a meaningful difference between the two, especially if you’re not writing due to anxiety about reception. The overarching message is great. I just worry that your list kind of reifies the notion that those are real reasons.
- jasonlotito 3y agoHonestly, I think it’s the failing of the readers. It’s clear he doesn’t believe this list of cons, and rather, it’s illustrative of the things some people believe or say about writing a blog. These are all real things I’ve heard people say about creating. This is a perfectly acceptable style. This is a problem in comprehension. People aren’t thinking. “these aren’t even real things most people who encounter your blog will think” But these are real things real people think about a lot when they think about writing or creating and sharing it. Honestly, the lack of comprehension is a gentle reminder to me that HN isn’t any smarter than any other place. It just tends to lean toward topics I’m interested in, but the people making up the discussion aren’t necessarily smarter.
- haswell 3y ago> Honestly, I think it’s the failing of the readers. I'd argue that it's a failing of the engagement-driven information economy. The Internet is full of posts with lists of hot takes that are completely literal. It is in this landscape that a reader finding a post like this must decide how to interpret what the reader is trying to say. > It’s clear he doesn’t believe this list of cons For the reasons outlined, this was not clear at all. It was clear that the author felt someone shouldn't care about these cons, but that is quite different than concluding that the cons aren't even worth believing. There are times that cons are true, and those cons are outweighed by the pros. There are times when the cons win. This is a time when the cons are false. Mentioning that would be helpful. This is my primary point. > But these are real things real people think about a lot when they think about writing or creating and sharing it. Yes, and my point was that the issue can be very easily solved by just framing it as such with almost zero change to the overall content. "None of these are true" vs. "You shouldn't care about these cons". It's a small change that completely shifts the meaning of the list and brings more readers onboard. > Honestly, the lack of comprehension... And let's say for sake of argument that the primary problem is one of comprehension. That implies a broader trend that requires corrective behaviors, and concluding that "that's just their problem" doesn't seem to be very useful for anyone involved either. If this is the new state of readership, authors have some choices to make. I deeply support the underlying message the author is trying to convey: write stuff, and don't listen to bad reasons for not writing! I don't want my comments here to be misconstrued otherwise.
- analog31 3y agoI think there are many good reasons for people to write, even if they're not at the cutting edge of a field, or doing something totally original: * Information that's derivative of cutting edge knowledge, but not worth the bother for the academic researchers to work on, especially in the area of turning it into practical things. * Stuff that can't be documented by the experts because they can't write, unless it's for an audience of fellow experts, or they feel no reason to. Virtually all technical documentation is impenetrable without supporting commentary or explanation, often written by non-experts. * Practical projects, that might have only one interested user (myself), but whose pieces might be of interest to others. This is most of my blogging. * Keeping old arts and obscure techniques alive. * Invitation for critique. Am I wrong? Show me. Make my day. So far as writing papers or giving interviews, some folks might feel that the "overhead" of doing those things does not justify the benefits. For instance I have no academic career to advance.
- FourthProtocol 3y ago>> 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.html https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/offroading/Concepts/Gearing.htm...) gets more hits than all the other pages combined. I wrote it in 1998.
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- hef19898 3y agoI'll be damned, back when I stared off roading like six years ago, I did read that page!
- ly3xqhl8g9 3y agoThere 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. [1] Julien Green is probably the most famous for his Diary, 1919–1998 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Green https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Green
- camillomiller 3y ago> 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.
- mochaki 3y agowow i enjoyed your counter-points
- MichaelRo 3y ago>> 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!
- shadowgovt 3y agoIt'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.
- brightball 3y agoExactly. 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.
- anonzzzies 3y agoI think this is the most important; I write because it organises me and I remember things I wrote. If I didn’t journal and blog, I would forget things.
- Buttons840 3y ago> 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.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoI have found a lot of blogs, often written by people who are or could be professors, which are much higher quality than the average academic paper. Papers are honestly just a lot of work, and unless you want to be cited by other academic papers, putting your work in a blog just lowers the friction of publication.
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- jasonlotito 3y agoIt’s good to see you agreeing with the blog.
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- sanderjd 3y ago> 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.
- mooreds 3y agoBlogs 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.
- bjornasm 3y ago> 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).
- MonaroVXR 3y ago>Because it's mine. My friends care. Recruiters and hiring managers have cared (in a good way). Mines don't, because they don't understand it.
- snyda 3y agoTrue. The cons are just insulting, really.