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Blogging also takes confidence, that you have something substantial to say and that what you say is valid. Unfortunately, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect[1], a

Blogging also takes confidence, that you have something substantial to say and that what you say is valid. Unfortunately, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect[1], actual smart people have too much self-doubt, which would imply that not-so-smart people are overrepresented in the blogosphere/google search/messageboards. Couple that with the internet's popularity-contest dynamics and you have a larger problem than earlier publishing media (which required a substantial level of peer-review-by-experts)/ Take home message: read everything on the net with a grain of salt. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

delinka 14y ago
Also, writing requires a tremendous amount of effort. Effort I'd personally rather spend on creating my next project. When I get to a point that I feel writing would scratch an itch, I find that simply getting the thoughts out of my head and onto paper or into the computer is enough therapy for me to move on. Organizing that into coherent written English takes lots of effort I'd rather spend elsewhere; sharing it on the 'tubes then necessitates dealing with the things you mention. In short, being technical (and pretty decent at it at least), public writing just Isn't My Thing. That said, I find that spending a few moments organizing my thoughts into coherent English for commenting on HN encourages me in the direction of writing and could indeed possibly lead to be blogging. Eventually.
- NickPollard 14y ago
  I enjoy writing when I get the chance, but right now, working on my own software project, it's hard to take time away from developing in order to write blog posts. This even though I know that raising awareness about what I'm doing is as important as actually building the product. I look with awe upon people who manage to create amazing things whilst also writing eloquently about them - I just can't handle both at once.
- carlio 14y ago
  Exactly. Writing well is hard, and you have to spend a lot of time thinking, writing, editing. 'A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.' - Thomas Mann
  - raganwald 14y ago
    I don’t write because I can, I write because I can’t not write. Alas, looking at my Github projects, it seems that I underscore the problem described in the OP. I have done a lot of writing, but how good is my code, really? If I published the exact same Github projects under a pseudonym, would anyone who hasn’t read my writing care?
    - jamesbritt 14y ago
      I don’t write because I can, I write because I can’t not write. That seems a better definition of a writer than the Thomas Mann quote. If I published the exact same Github projects under a pseudonym, would anyone who hasn’t read my writing care? You can pull a Stephen King and try it. Start rolling out new code under a new name. See what happens. I think, however, that you'd run into the problem of getting lost in a sea of code, regardless of the quality of your work.
    - tomjen3 14y ago
      Raganwald, you are a computer philosopher more than you are a programmer. Blogs by you are always interesting, so don't worry too much about it.
discreteevent 14y ago
'Read everything on the net with a grain of salt.'. Agreed. A lot of the time the internet is about as representative as graffiti is of the majority of people living in an area you have never been to before.
zanny 14y ago
Since HN is full of smart people, I feel like asking - do you guys realize you're smart? Having never made anything worth talking about, I can't imagine someone who makes some great web property going on and saying "oh it was nothing, 5 million users or some number is insignificant" or "my page to the Kernel runs trillions of times a day on a billion devices worldwide, but that doesn't mean much".
- michaelt 14y ago
  > Since HN is full of smart people, I feel like asking - do you guys realize you're smart? When I go dancing in nightclubs, both men and women will come up to me when I stop to get a drink and they'll tell me they think I'm a really good dancer. But when I go to a dance class and beside me is someone who works for a world-famous dance company, I can look in the mirror and see my skills are only the crudest parody of theirs. There are certainly thousands of people in the world who can dance better than I can - probably tens of thousands. So it is with my programming achievements - one or two linux kernel patches for seldom-seen bugs in seldom-used subsystems? There are certainly thousands, probably tens of thousands of people who could have done the same thing easily - I was just the first to feel the itch I scratched. TLDR: I don't know if your question is even intended for me.
  - gpcz 14y ago
    If tens of thousands of people in the world can dance better than you, then let's assume the maximum number of "tens of thousands" before hitting "hundreds of thousands" -- 99999. Let's assume there are 7 billion people on Earth (not perfect, but good enough for back-of-the-napkin). That means you are (1-99999/7000000000)*100th percentile at dancing: 99.9986th percentile. If tens of thousands of people in the world are better than you at dancing, you're a really good dancer.

delinka 14y ago

Also, writing requires a tremendous amount of effort. Effort I'd personally rather spend on creating my next project. When I get to a point that I feel writing would scratch an itch, I find that simply getting the thoughts out of my head and onto paper or into the computer is enough therapy for me to move on. Organizing that into coherent written English takes lots of effort I'd rather spend elsewhere; sharing it on the 'tubes then necessitates dealing with the things you mention. In short, being technical (and pretty decent at it at least), public writing just Isn't My Thing. That said, I find that spending a few moments organizing my thoughts into coherent English for commenting on HN encourages me in the direction of writing and could indeed possibly lead to be blogging. Eventually.

NickPollard 14y ago
I enjoy writing when I get the chance, but right now, working on my own software project, it's hard to take time away from developing in order to write blog posts. This even though I know that raising awareness about what I'm doing is as important as actually building the product. I look with awe upon people who manage to create amazing things whilst also writing eloquently about them - I just can't handle both at once.
carlio 14y ago
Exactly. Writing well is hard, and you have to spend a lot of time thinking, writing, editing. 'A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.' - Thomas Mann
- raganwald 14y ago
  I don’t write because I can, I write because I can’t not write. Alas, looking at my Github projects, it seems that I underscore the problem described in the OP. I have done a lot of writing, but how good is my code, really? If I published the exact same Github projects under a pseudonym, would anyone who hasn’t read my writing care?
  - jamesbritt 14y ago
    I don’t write because I can, I write because I can’t not write. That seems a better definition of a writer than the Thomas Mann quote. If I published the exact same Github projects under a pseudonym, would anyone who hasn’t read my writing care? You can pull a Stephen King and try it. Start rolling out new code under a new name. See what happens. I think, however, that you'd run into the problem of getting lost in a sea of code, regardless of the quality of your work.
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    Raganwald, you are a computer philosopher more than you are a programmer. Blogs by you are always interesting, so don't worry too much about it.

discreteevent 14y ago

'Read everything on the net with a grain of salt.'. Agreed. A lot of the time the internet is about as representative as graffiti is of the majority of people living in an area you have never been to before.

zanny 14y ago

Since HN is full of smart people, I feel like asking - do you guys realize you're smart? Having never made anything worth talking about, I can't imagine someone who makes some great web property going on and saying "oh it was nothing, 5 million users or some number is insignificant" or "my page to the Kernel runs trillions of times a day on a billion devices worldwide, but that doesn't mean much".

michaelt 14y ago
> Since HN is full of smart people, I feel like asking - do you guys realize you're smart? When I go dancing in nightclubs, both men and women will come up to me when I stop to get a drink and they'll tell me they think I'm a really good dancer. But when I go to a dance class and beside me is someone who works for a world-famous dance company, I can look in the mirror and see my skills are only the crudest parody of theirs. There are certainly thousands of people in the world who can dance better than I can - probably tens of thousands. So it is with my programming achievements - one or two linux kernel patches for seldom-seen bugs in seldom-used subsystems? There are certainly thousands, probably tens of thousands of people who could have done the same thing easily - I was just the first to feel the itch I scratched. TLDR: I don't know if your question is even intended for me.
- gpcz 14y ago
  If tens of thousands of people in the world can dance better than you, then let's assume the maximum number of "tens of thousands" before hitting "hundreds of thousands" -- 99999. Let's assume there are 7 billion people on Earth (not perfect, but good enough for back-of-the-napkin). That means you are (1-99999/7000000000)*100th percentile at dancing: 99.9986th percentile. If tens of thousands of people in the world are better than you at dancing, you're a really good dancer.