4 ms·

My approach to running a link blog

53 points by prawn 2y ago

windowsnmore 2y ago
[dead]
pell 2y ago
> A slightly self-involved concern I have is that I like to prove that I’ve read it. This is more for me than for anyone else: I don’t like to recommend something if I’ve not read that thing myself, and sticking in a detail that shows I read past the first paragraph helps keep me honest about that. I really like this approach. As a reader it also makes me more likely to click on a link when there’s some detail that goes beyond the headline.
ssn 2y ago
Please share other technical setups for keeping a link blog. Static Site Generators seem like a perfect fit.
- hailpixel 2y ago
  Simon's site runs on Django: https://github.com/simonw/simonwillisonblog https://github.com/simonw/simonwillisonblog, which is unsurprising as he is one of Django's co-creators. But I agree with you, a great use case for a Next.js-esque static site.
- rednafi 2y ago
  SSG are indeed a perfect fit for this. But you do need to figure out a few things like search (client side), RSS, and how to organize things. I didn't want to maintain a dedicated backend for my blog and integrated a link blog to my static site. Wrote about it here: https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/ https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/
- cmdtab 2y ago
  Why not use notion and their website feature with custom domain? It has an extension to clip pages as bookmarks. You could add it as a subdomain (bookmarks.website.com) It’s easier to update compared to hosting your own CMS and frontend.
1dom 2y ago
Wasn't aware of link blogs. I did some googling, and practically, how is this different from a microblog? It feels like the intent and practicality are both pretty similar. The only real difference I can identify is that a microblog post doesn't always have a link. I like it though. I come to HN as it's basically just an aggregated linkblog from smart people.
- ttepasse 2y ago
  Bother Willisons and Grubers links blogs predate microblogging, afair. In the end, everything you post on a website is a post. But of course they a different, not just in content but also in form.
- buzzardbait 2y ago
  Apologies, I didn't see your comment in the below thread until now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379970#42385296## https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379970#42385296## That thread is now closed to replies, so hope you don't mind me replying to your question here. > Do you have any nice, foolproof ways to reliably source new info online? I don't think there is one, and I think anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. If you apply critical thinking and analysis to every new piece of info that you get, you can get close to the truth, but you may not necessarily arrive at it. No source is 100% accurate 100% of the time. Not even the most prestigious scientific journals. Knowing this helps keep me grounded so that I hold on to my opinions lightly instead of grasping them. It's a wonderful thing to be able to change your mind in light of new information.
  - 1dom 2y ago
    I didn't realise HN locked posts - I have a few posts I keep meaning to respond to that I'm terrified I've missed the opportunity now! Thanks for the reply though, I really appreciate it! I was worried you might say something like that. I want to be like that, and I generally respect people who say what you're saying (basically, have informed views, weakly held). But we've gone full circle: the problem was the flood of disinformation making it hard to find reliable new sources of info. Your proposed solution of "think critically" and "be prepared to change your mind in light of new information" is the essence of most philosophy of thought or knowledge since Socrates and that lot. I think a lot of modern stress comes from the idea that our brains can't apply this approach any more to the scale of society and information we have to cope with today. I think I could even go as far as suggesting modern disinformation tactics actively exploit this approach to knowledge by overloading us with so much confusing information that we don't feel we find enough legitimate information to feel like we really know anything. And sure, there are benefits in saying "I don't know" - science needs that sometimes - but if we know nothing, that means we have no knowledge to build on, which generally slows progress.
AndrewDucker 2y ago
I capture things I find interesting at https://pinboard.in/u:andrewducker https://pinboard.in/u:andrewducker - I then post them automatically to various socials (BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook, Threads, and X) and once a day to a link roundup post at https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/ https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/
- spondyl 2y ago
  Just an FYI that Pinboard pages aren't public anymore, only being visible to those who are logged in to Pinboard. Marciej mentioned the following when I noticed myself and asked what the cause was: > Unfortunately you've run into a necessary anti-crawling measure that keeps the site from getting overwhelmed. About four months ago I started getting hammered by distributed crawlers from Chinese IPs, with no real way to block them short of blocking the entire IP range. Putting things behind a login is a stopgap while I try to figure out a more durable and friendly solution that makes it possible to have public-facing pages again.
  - notachatbot123 2y ago
    Another FYI: Requesting one's archive seems to go nowhere nowadays.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Hmm. I still use pinboard pretty actively although I don't usually link post any longer. I'll have to take a look.
    - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
      I'm sure that was more convenient, but did it provide anything that the API doesn't? Asking because I'm planning to use the API to get a dump of all my bookmarks soon—I've always had a very pleasant experience using the Pinboard API, compared to many others. Edit: I just checked and it's a single http call to get all bookmarks, very simple. Granted I 'only' have ~800 bookmarks, so it may get tricker with larger archives.
  - 2y ago
rednafi 2y ago
If you have a dynamic website with a dedicated backend, adding link blogs are fairly easy. But I'm too lazy to maintain a backend for my blog. At the same time, I didn't want to pollute my RSS and spam the readers. So I went with the simplest possible route in my Hugo site. - Add a dedicated page per year and add the links reverse chronologically - Group the detail pages in a list view - Filter out the link posts from the main RSS not to spam the readers I started this in August last year and it's working splendidly. Wrote a quick note here: - https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/ https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/ - https://rednafi.com/feed/2025/ https://rednafi.com/feed/2025/ - https://rednafi.com/feed/2024/ https://rednafi.com/feed/2024/
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mtrovo 2y ago
This feels like an easy way to stay accountable for what I'm consuming and to leave a record of my personal growth over time. I never considered link blogging as its own category, but now that you've put a name on it I really wanna try it out. Anybody familiar with a simple blogging setup that could be used for this purpose? I looked at Hugo in the past but its structure looked a little bit too weird for a simple blogging use case.
- stavros 2y ago
  Zola is fast, simple, and quick to get started with.
- freetonik 2y ago
  Not a self-hosted solution, but having an account at Minifeed comes with a linkblog, example: https://minifeed.net/l/rakhim https://minifeed.net/l/rakhim The feature is under development, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

53 points by prawn 2y ago

[dead]

pell 2y ago

> A slightly self-involved concern I have is that I like to prove that I’ve read it. This is more for me than for anyone else: I don’t like to recommend something if I’ve not read that thing myself, and sticking in a detail that shows I read past the first paragraph helps keep me honest about that. I really like this approach. As a reader it also makes me more likely to click on a link when there’s some detail that goes beyond the headline.

ssn 2y ago

Please share other technical setups for keeping a link blog. Static Site Generators seem like a perfect fit.

hailpixel 2y ago
Simon's site runs on Django: https://github.com/simonw/simonwillisonblog https://github.com/simonw/simonwillisonblog, which is unsurprising as he is one of Django's co-creators. But I agree with you, a great use case for a Next.js-esque static site.
rednafi 2y ago
SSG are indeed a perfect fit for this. But you do need to figure out a few things like search (client side), RSS, and how to organize things. I didn't want to maintain a dedicated backend for my blog and integrated a link blog to my static site. Wrote about it here: https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/ https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/
cmdtab 2y ago
Why not use notion and their website feature with custom domain? It has an extension to clip pages as bookmarks. You could add it as a subdomain (bookmarks.website.com) It’s easier to update compared to hosting your own CMS and frontend.

1dom 2y ago

Wasn't aware of link blogs. I did some googling, and practically, how is this different from a microblog? It feels like the intent and practicality are both pretty similar. The only real difference I can identify is that a microblog post doesn't always have a link. I like it though. I come to HN as it's basically just an aggregated linkblog from smart people.

ttepasse 2y ago
Bother Willisons and Grubers links blogs predate microblogging, afair. In the end, everything you post on a website is a post. But of course they a different, not just in content but also in form.
buzzardbait 2y ago
Apologies, I didn't see your comment in the below thread until now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379970#42385296## https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379970#42385296## That thread is now closed to replies, so hope you don't mind me replying to your question here. > Do you have any nice, foolproof ways to reliably source new info online? I don't think there is one, and I think anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. If you apply critical thinking and analysis to every new piece of info that you get, you can get close to the truth, but you may not necessarily arrive at it. No source is 100% accurate 100% of the time. Not even the most prestigious scientific journals. Knowing this helps keep me grounded so that I hold on to my opinions lightly instead of grasping them. It's a wonderful thing to be able to change your mind in light of new information.
- 1dom 2y ago
  I didn't realise HN locked posts - I have a few posts I keep meaning to respond to that I'm terrified I've missed the opportunity now! Thanks for the reply though, I really appreciate it! I was worried you might say something like that. I want to be like that, and I generally respect people who say what you're saying (basically, have informed views, weakly held). But we've gone full circle: the problem was the flood of disinformation making it hard to find reliable new sources of info. Your proposed solution of "think critically" and "be prepared to change your mind in light of new information" is the essence of most philosophy of thought or knowledge since Socrates and that lot. I think a lot of modern stress comes from the idea that our brains can't apply this approach any more to the scale of society and information we have to cope with today. I think I could even go as far as suggesting modern disinformation tactics actively exploit this approach to knowledge by overloading us with so much confusing information that we don't feel we find enough legitimate information to feel like we really know anything. And sure, there are benefits in saying "I don't know" - science needs that sometimes - but if we know nothing, that means we have no knowledge to build on, which generally slows progress.

AndrewDucker 2y ago

I capture things I find interesting at https://pinboard.in/u:andrewducker https://pinboard.in/u:andrewducker - I then post them automatically to various socials (BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook, Threads, and X) and once a day to a link roundup post at https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/ https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/

spondyl 2y ago
Just an FYI that Pinboard pages aren't public anymore, only being visible to those who are logged in to Pinboard. Marciej mentioned the following when I noticed myself and asked what the cause was: > Unfortunately you've run into a necessary anti-crawling measure that keeps the site from getting overwhelmed. About four months ago I started getting hammered by distributed crawlers from Chinese IPs, with no real way to block them short of blocking the entire IP range. Putting things behind a login is a stopgap while I try to figure out a more durable and friendly solution that makes it possible to have public-facing pages again.
- notachatbot123 2y ago
  Another FYI: Requesting one's archive seems to go nowhere nowadays.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Hmm. I still use pinboard pretty actively although I don't usually link post any longer. I'll have to take a look.
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    I'm sure that was more convenient, but did it provide anything that the API doesn't? Asking because I'm planning to use the API to get a dump of all my bookmarks soon—I've always had a very pleasant experience using the Pinboard API, compared to many others. Edit: I just checked and it's a single http call to get all bookmarks, very simple. Granted I 'only' have ~800 bookmarks, so it may get tricker with larger archives.
- 2y ago

rednafi 2y ago

If you have a dynamic website with a dedicated backend, adding link blogs are fairly easy. But I'm too lazy to maintain a backend for my blog. At the same time, I didn't want to pollute my RSS and spam the readers. So I went with the simplest possible route in my Hugo site. - Add a dedicated page per year and add the links reverse chronologically - Group the detail pages in a list view - Filter out the link posts from the main RSS not to spam the readers I started this in August last year and it's working splendidly. Wrote a quick note here: - https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/ https://rednafi.com/misc/link_blog/ - https://rednafi.com/feed/2025/ https://rednafi.com/feed/2025/ - https://rednafi.com/feed/2024/ https://rednafi.com/feed/2024/

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mtrovo 2y ago

This feels like an easy way to stay accountable for what I'm consuming and to leave a record of my personal growth over time. I never considered link blogging as its own category, but now that you've put a name on it I really wanna try it out. Anybody familiar with a simple blogging setup that could be used for this purpose? I looked at Hugo in the past but its structure looked a little bit too weird for a simple blogging use case.

stavros 2y ago
Zola is fast, simple, and quick to get started with.
freetonik 2y ago
Not a self-hosted solution, but having an account at Minifeed comes with a linkblog, example: https://minifeed.net/l/rakhim https://minifeed.net/l/rakhim The feature is under development, any feedback is greatly appreciated!