4 ms·

I guess this reflects a view of blogging that maybe is more what people today would use twitter or mastodon for, with lots of blogposts with the same title like

I guess this reflects a view of blogging that maybe is more what people today would use twitter or mastodon for, with lots of blogposts with the same title like "open thread" or "links for sunday". Today people mostly use blogs to publish essays, and then a slug based on the title should be sufficient, since you're not going to publish two essays with the same title. That's what substack uses.

crazygringo 2y ago
I think the date is still extremely valuable. Knowing whether something is from last month or a decade ago makes a huge difference. It's also useful so that URL's can be sorted by date. Also, "you're not going to publish two essays with the same title" feels false. If you write 1,000 pieces and use short titles and tend to write about the same subjects, it feels extremely likely that you'll wind up repeating titles.
- freedomben 2y ago
  I agree, but I think it's important to note that the date in the URL can also be misleading. For example, it's often assigned at time of creation. If that page or post gets updated years later, even if almost entirely rewritten, it still has the original date in the URL
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    > even if almost entirely rewritten, it still has the original date in the URL If we're talking about blogs/news, they don't ever get almost entirely rewritten. The original publication is the only date that matters, and it matters a lot. If we're talking about evergreen content like documentation, then of course you don't put dates in the URL. A small "last updated" on the page itself is appropriate there.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      > If we're talking about blogs/news, they don't ever get almost entirely rewritten. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. It should be the case IMHO, but it (currently) isn't. The SEO/marketing people nowadays (ab)use popular pages for the search rankings and update them regularly to keep the content fresh and highly ranked (since search engines give much preference to new content). Also, even for strict blogs/news, it's not unusual for a particular post to be a draft for many months before publishing. Most serious blog will fix the date to match publish date, but that isn't what happens by default especially in Wordpress (which is the most important platform for blogs).
- didntcheck 2y ago
  And it's sad how often one needs to use the URL to find the date, since many authors just don't put it on the page (corporate sites are particularly scared of dating their stuff) Others seem to think just day and month is fine, as if the year isn't the most significant part. And if both numbers are <=12 then you have to go and find out what locale the author formats their dates in...
- dhosek 2y ago
  In fact, on my own blog, I have some recurring posts, e.g., https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-2/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-2/ ⋮ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-11/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-11/ Alas, the default URL scheme in Wordpress doesn’t include the date.
JohnFen 2y ago
> then a slug based on the title should be sufficient, since you're not going to publish two essays with the same title. Disambiguation is one thing, but as a reader, I really like having the date indicated in the URL for informational purporses. It's very helpful.
simonw 2y ago
A useful midpoint is to use just the year. That way you get a fresh namespace on January 1st. I use that for static files on my blog and it’s worked great for 20+ years: https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2024/mlx-whisper-gpu.jpg https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2024/mlx-whisper-gpu... https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2003/getElementsBySelector.html https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2003/getElementsBySe...
ttepasse 2y ago
You're onto something: Very early blogs around the millennium where often build around very short paragraphs; not big articles. Take a look at these; if one squints those looked far more like later Twitter streams: https://web.archive.org/web/20020603092331/http://www.kottke.org:80/99/06/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020603092331/http://www.kottke... http://scripting.com/2001/09/11.html http://scripting.com/2001/09/11.html (Every paragraph is in effect an "entry") Then in the early 2000s blogging resulted in a style with longer articles instead of paragraphs. In the middle 2000s a "retro" style begun with far shorter and differentiated entries, the so-called tumblelog: https://kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs https://kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs The original Tumblr may have been inspired by this, if not just the name. And then Twitter and other social media arrived on the scene and ate everything. :/

crazygringo 2y ago

I think the date is still extremely valuable. Knowing whether something is from last month or a decade ago makes a huge difference. It's also useful so that URL's can be sorted by date. Also, "you're not going to publish two essays with the same title" feels false. If you write 1,000 pieces and use short titles and tend to write about the same subjects, it feels extremely likely that you'll wind up repeating titles.

freedomben 2y ago
I agree, but I think it's important to note that the date in the URL can also be misleading. For example, it's often assigned at time of creation. If that page or post gets updated years later, even if almost entirely rewritten, it still has the original date in the URL
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > even if almost entirely rewritten, it still has the original date in the URL If we're talking about blogs/news, they don't ever get almost entirely rewritten. The original publication is the only date that matters, and it matters a lot. If we're talking about evergreen content like documentation, then of course you don't put dates in the URL. A small "last updated" on the page itself is appropriate there.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    > If we're talking about blogs/news, they don't ever get almost entirely rewritten. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. It should be the case IMHO, but it (currently) isn't. The SEO/marketing people nowadays (ab)use popular pages for the search rankings and update them regularly to keep the content fresh and highly ranked (since search engines give much preference to new content). Also, even for strict blogs/news, it's not unusual for a particular post to be a draft for many months before publishing. Most serious blog will fix the date to match publish date, but that isn't what happens by default especially in Wordpress (which is the most important platform for blogs).
didntcheck 2y ago
And it's sad how often one needs to use the URL to find the date, since many authors just don't put it on the page (corporate sites are particularly scared of dating their stuff) Others seem to think just day and month is fine, as if the year isn't the most significant part. And if both numbers are <=12 then you have to go and find out what locale the author formats their dates in...
dhosek 2y ago
In fact, on my own blog, I have some recurring posts, e.g., https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-2/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-2/ ⋮ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-11/ https://www.dahosek.com/the-big-countdown-11/ Alas, the default URL scheme in Wordpress doesn’t include the date.

JohnFen 2y ago

> then a slug based on the title should be sufficient, since you're not going to publish two essays with the same title. Disambiguation is one thing, but as a reader, I really like having the date indicated in the URL for informational purporses. It's very helpful.

simonw 2y ago

A useful midpoint is to use just the year. That way you get a fresh namespace on January 1st. I use that for static files on my blog and it’s worked great for 20+ years: https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2024/mlx-whisper-gpu.jpg https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2024/mlx-whisper-gpu... https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2003/getElementsBySelector.html https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2003/getElementsBySe...

ttepasse 2y ago

You're onto something: Very early blogs around the millennium where often build around very short paragraphs; not big articles. Take a look at these; if one squints those looked far more like later Twitter streams: https://web.archive.org/web/20020603092331/http://www.kottke.org:80/99/06/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020603092331/http://www.kottke... http://scripting.com/2001/09/11.html http://scripting.com/2001/09/11.html (Every paragraph is in effect an "entry") Then in the early 2000s blogging resulted in a style with longer articles instead of paragraphs. In the middle 2000s a "retro" style begun with far shorter and differentiated entries, the so-called tumblelog: https://kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs https://kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs The original Tumblr may have been inspired by this, if not just the name. And then Twitter and other social media arrived on the scene and ate everything. :/