5 ms·

How I decide if your website is worth a revisit

16 points by CodingThunder 3y ago

CodingThunder 3y ago
Hey, kinda new here. Would like to know your thoughts on this. Would be interested in knowing how you decide if some blog which you hop on from HN or elsewhere is worth a second visit. HN is one of the few places which is filled with people who use RSS a lot even today, so thought it would be worth submitting this article here I wrote to get some discussion going Also to make it clear, this is a self-submission. Although in future, I will also try to share some other things as well which I find interesting
- philipwhiuk 3y ago
  Two questions: 1. Where's the link to the RSS feed on your site 2. What RSS feed reader are you using?
  - CodingThunder 3y ago
    Here's the RSS: https://cd.is-a.dev/index.xml https://cd.is-a.dev/index.xml My site has the appropriate HTML tags to hint your browser about where the RSS feed is. Also it's also mentioned on the homepage along with my other social media links. For the RSS Reader, I am using Livemarks with FireFox, works pretty well for me
    - crtasm 3y ago
      The tag is present on https://cd.is-a.dev/posts/ https://cd.is-a.dev/posts/ but missing from the post pages.
      - CodingThunder 3y ago
        Thanks for pointing out! I'll try to fix it ASAP
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
edu 3y ago
The number one reason is good content, the other seem superfluous. It’s nice if it’s not published in a walled garden, but it’s not a stopper. Then I personally don’t care about needing JS to view the site (it’s 2024…) nor the RSS feed. And regarding the no-captcha, never found one to read the site besides Cloudfare versification from time to time, and it doesn’t bother me.
- blowski 3y ago
  Information foraging. If the effort to obtain the promised payoff is more than perceived value, then I won’t bother.
- uKVZe85V 3y ago
  > Then I personally don’t care about needing JS to view the site (it’s 2024…) In 2024, shouldn't hacker news visitors get that receiving a passive document to display locally is a thing, and having to run unaudited code from random strangers on your machine all the time is quite another? Then reopen the conversation about browser security? Or, instead, get that simplicity is our ally, but unneeded complexity is the root of much evil? Visit e.g. any stackexchange site with script disabled and be enlightened.
mariocesar 3y ago
I have a quick rule and is only rule #1 in your list: if a site or blog has posted interesting updates within the last two months, I'll follow, subscribe, or add it to my feed. Otherwise, it simply goes into my bookmarks. I've long stoped paying attention to, UI, ADs, fast responses or JavaScript, as you mention I also use Ad blockers, for me they always work, for the exceptions most probably the content is not worthy of searching for a workaround. For me, if it's interesting content and volume are key. If it captivates me and there's plenty of it, I'll follow. If it's interesting but scarce, it earns a spot in my bookmarks, for the rest, I will try to remember how to search it on Google
Shrezzing 3y ago
>Your site should be completely usable without JavaScript... If your site is not usable without JavaScript, I am not coming back in any way The search page on the site doesn't work with js disabled.
- CodingThunder 3y ago
  Thanks, I know that it requires JavaScript. I haven't framed that sentence properly in my blog, what I meant to say was "Your site should be usable without JS, it's fine if additional functionality needs JS but basic functionality should work without JS like viewing the content". Also the site's source code is available at: https://github.com/thunder-coding/CodingThunder https://github.com/thunder-coding/CodingThunder in case you want to checkout.
matt_heimer 3y ago
I've tried to follow people on medium, twitter, bluesky, mastodon, blog RSS feeds, youtube, etc and there is typically just too much off topic noise. I visit personal sites or individual posts on larger platforms when searching for topics. The places I revisit are curated (in some way) sites focusing on areas of interest. Hacker News, The Verge, sub reddits, various news portals, slashdot, etc. I'm hoping that following hashtags or similar will eventually work out.
- CodingThunder 3y ago
  > I've tried to follow people on medium, twitter, bluesky, mastodon, blog RSS feeds, youtube, etc and there is typically just too much off topic noise. Yeah totally agree that it produces a lot of noise. I too do checkout sites like HN, subreddits like r/cpp, r/webdev, etc periodically to discover stuff, and it really filters a lot of stuff. Also sorting RSS feeds into multiple folders in a tree like fashion has helped me so far. I started using RSS faily recently (like 2 months), got do know of it in January when on Mastodon people were remembering of Aaron Swartz. Loved the idea of RSS and instantly got addicted to it. So yeah, might end up with a unusable feed soon since I am quite new to this thing. Let's see what happens. > 'm hoping that following hashtags or similar will eventually work out. Following hashtags too produces a lot of noise for me, especially on the Fediverse, subreddits work much better. Also you can just follow subreddits using RSS, which is also a nice thing to have IMO.
speckx 3y ago
I need RSS to keep following a website.
xigoi 3y ago
How do I do RSS if I have mathematical articles on my website? RSS doesn’t seem to support MathML.
rchaud 3y ago
Doing all this is a great way to reduce your reading list to a bunch of boring developer blogs. If you love reading people's 2c about their favourite static site generator , you'll have a bottomless content goblet to drink from.
ahaucnx 3y ago
I think what's often underestimated is actually the performance improvement you get from removing trackers. I did so 2 months ago for our landing page and it now loads 4 times faster [1]. Fun fact. All the tracking I removed I am not missing at all because I actually never used it [2]. [1] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/load-times-improvement-without-tracking-scripts/ https://www.airgradient.com/blog/load-times-improvement-with... [2] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/why-do-we-need-so-much-tracking/ https://www.airgradient.com/blog/why-do-we-need-so-much-trac...

16 points by CodingThunder 3y ago

Hey, kinda new here. Would like to know your thoughts on this. Would be interested in knowing how you decide if some blog which you hop on from HN or elsewhere is worth a second visit. HN is one of the few places which is filled with people who use RSS a lot even today, so thought it would be worth submitting this article here I wrote to get some discussion going Also to make it clear, this is a self-submission. Although in future, I will also try to share some other things as well which I find interesting

philipwhiuk 3y ago
Two questions: 1. Where's the link to the RSS feed on your site 2. What RSS feed reader are you using?
- CodingThunder 3y ago
  Here's the RSS: https://cd.is-a.dev/index.xml https://cd.is-a.dev/index.xml My site has the appropriate HTML tags to hint your browser about where the RSS feed is. Also it's also mentioned on the homepage along with my other social media links. For the RSS Reader, I am using Livemarks with FireFox, works pretty well for me
  - crtasm 3y ago
    The tag is present on https://cd.is-a.dev/posts/ https://cd.is-a.dev/posts/ but missing from the post pages.
    - CodingThunder 3y ago
      Thanks for pointing out! I'll try to fix it ASAP
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

edu 3y ago

The number one reason is good content, the other seem superfluous. It’s nice if it’s not published in a walled garden, but it’s not a stopper. Then I personally don’t care about needing JS to view the site (it’s 2024…) nor the RSS feed. And regarding the no-captcha, never found one to read the site besides Cloudfare versification from time to time, and it doesn’t bother me.

blowski 3y ago
Information foraging. If the effort to obtain the promised payoff is more than perceived value, then I won’t bother.
uKVZe85V 3y ago
> Then I personally don’t care about needing JS to view the site (it’s 2024…) In 2024, shouldn't hacker news visitors get that receiving a passive document to display locally is a thing, and having to run unaudited code from random strangers on your machine all the time is quite another? Then reopen the conversation about browser security? Or, instead, get that simplicity is our ally, but unneeded complexity is the root of much evil? Visit e.g. any stackexchange site with script disabled and be enlightened.

mariocesar 3y ago

I have a quick rule and is only rule #1 in your list: if a site or blog has posted interesting updates within the last two months, I'll follow, subscribe, or add it to my feed. Otherwise, it simply goes into my bookmarks. I've long stoped paying attention to, UI, ADs, fast responses or JavaScript, as you mention I also use Ad blockers, for me they always work, for the exceptions most probably the content is not worthy of searching for a workaround. For me, if it's interesting content and volume are key. If it captivates me and there's plenty of it, I'll follow. If it's interesting but scarce, it earns a spot in my bookmarks, for the rest, I will try to remember how to search it on Google

Shrezzing 3y ago

>Your site should be completely usable without JavaScript... If your site is not usable without JavaScript, I am not coming back in any way The search page on the site doesn't work with js disabled.

CodingThunder 3y ago
Thanks, I know that it requires JavaScript. I haven't framed that sentence properly in my blog, what I meant to say was "Your site should be usable without JS, it's fine if additional functionality needs JS but basic functionality should work without JS like viewing the content". Also the site's source code is available at: https://github.com/thunder-coding/CodingThunder https://github.com/thunder-coding/CodingThunder in case you want to checkout.

matt_heimer 3y ago

I've tried to follow people on medium, twitter, bluesky, mastodon, blog RSS feeds, youtube, etc and there is typically just too much off topic noise. I visit personal sites or individual posts on larger platforms when searching for topics. The places I revisit are curated (in some way) sites focusing on areas of interest. Hacker News, The Verge, sub reddits, various news portals, slashdot, etc. I'm hoping that following hashtags or similar will eventually work out.

CodingThunder 3y ago
> I've tried to follow people on medium, twitter, bluesky, mastodon, blog RSS feeds, youtube, etc and there is typically just too much off topic noise. Yeah totally agree that it produces a lot of noise. I too do checkout sites like HN, subreddits like r/cpp, r/webdev, etc periodically to discover stuff, and it really filters a lot of stuff. Also sorting RSS feeds into multiple folders in a tree like fashion has helped me so far. I started using RSS faily recently (like 2 months), got do know of it in January when on Mastodon people were remembering of Aaron Swartz. Loved the idea of RSS and instantly got addicted to it. So yeah, might end up with a unusable feed soon since I am quite new to this thing. Let's see what happens. > 'm hoping that following hashtags or similar will eventually work out. Following hashtags too produces a lot of noise for me, especially on the Fediverse, subreddits work much better. Also you can just follow subreddits using RSS, which is also a nice thing to have IMO.

speckx 3y ago

I need RSS to keep following a website.

xigoi 3y ago

How do I do RSS if I have mathematical articles on my website? RSS doesn’t seem to support MathML.

rchaud 3y ago

Doing all this is a great way to reduce your reading list to a bunch of boring developer blogs. If you love reading people's 2c about their favourite static site generator , you'll have a bottomless content goblet to drink from.

ahaucnx 3y ago

I think what's often underestimated is actually the performance improvement you get from removing trackers. I did so 2 months ago for our landing page and it now loads 4 times faster [1]. Fun fact. All the tracking I removed I am not missing at all because I actually never used it [2]. [1] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/load-times-improvement-without-tracking-scripts/ https://www.airgradient.com/blog/load-times-improvement-with... [2] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/why-do-we-need-so-much-tracking/ https://www.airgradient.com/blog/why-do-we-need-so-much-trac...