3 ms·
Sure, though the title doesn’t say ‘your personal blog’, so if it was meant for a subset of blogs, that’s another way it’s making assumptions and could have bee
by dahart 3y ago
Sure, though the title doesn’t say ‘your personal blog’, so if it was meant for a subset of blogs, that’s another way it’s making assumptions and could have been more specific… but then it wouldn’t have people reacting to it! ;) Personally, I think my point is valid for personal blogs too. Writers who would like to grow their audience can benefit from seeing the analytics.
I don’t know what healthy writing habits are… I suspect my HN commenting habits aren’t super healthy. ;) It’s definitely possible to focus too much on analytics, my point is simply that saying “you” don’t need them at all is perhaps silly. They’re a useful tool, one of many.
- woodruffw 3y agoThe second sentence of the post says that it's about personal blogs. You're right that "I don't need analytics on my personal blog" would be a strictly more descriptive title. But I don't write blog posts for titles, I write them for their content, expecting people to actually read the content and contextualize it as necessary. One reasonable form of contextualization would be a value judgment like "actually, I do care about reader numbers" and ignoring the rest of the post's prescriptions.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dahart 3y agoYou’re right. This is all in fun, the post is being a little cheeky. My crit is too. I don’t write posts for the titles either, but you know as well as I do that titles are especially important. There’s nothing wrong with trying to be a little intriguing or dramatic with a title, that is one of the valid functions of a title, but I think it’s fair game to call it out when the title is misleading or inaccurate or makes assumptions, no? The fact of the matter is there are plenty of people who like seeing analytics on their personal blogs.