5 ms·

I feel a $('#if-you-read-this-you-should-follow-me-on-twitter').remove() would be appropriate for this blog post. In any case - good to see the HN community

I feel a $('#if-you-read-this-you-should-follow-me-on-twitter').remove() would be appropriate for this blog post. In any case - good to see the HN community really coming through in a time of need.

edanm 14y ago
I get where you're coming from, but I really think most people just would never think of that kind of thing in a situation like this. There might even be people who want updates from jacques after this post, and appreciate that link being there.
buf 14y ago
I'm sure that's a static footer.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Correct. Also, this wasn't meant to be a blog post to begin with but HN didn't accept the text as it was and I don't have time to re-write it keeping the essence but making it much shorter.
  - Kliment 14y ago
    It annoys me in all your other posts as well. I read essentially everything you write, and it throws me off every time. Sounds cheap and insincere, which is precisely the opposite of the actual stuff you write.
    - michaelhoffman 14y ago
      That's the problem with metrics that only measure part of the situation. Maybe having cheap, insincere boilerplate does increase the number of people following through to one's Twitter page, something that is easily measured. But it can't measure the number of people who lose trust in you due to it.
pepve 14y ago
I feel postscripts like that are not appropriate in general. I think it's the "should" that grates me most. It sounds arrogant to me. I know they do it to get a following. But please just let your content do the talking. And then give your readers the option to read more without being so pushy.
- zach 14y ago
  The "you should" formulation is a Dustin Curtis invention from several years back: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704738 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704738
  - Evbn 14y ago
    It was an experiment with results that he told everyone not to blindly copy. But tons of fools copied him anyway, tweaking the wording to be more grating and obnoxious, littering the Internet with trash.
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      Well, as long as those fools are littering their own pages I think the problem isn't as bad as you make it look. As for whether it works or not: yes, it works. A 'call to action' as it is called has been proven to work long before Drew Curtis added his to his twitter button.
jacquesm 14y ago
I agree with you. But what with the re-generation time of the blog and the fact that this wasn't meant to be a blog post to begin with (HN has an upper limit to the length of the text in an article header) I feel that leaving it in there is ok. It would be a ton of work to get it excised for just that one posting and frankly I have more urgent things to do than to worry about being perceived as politically incorrect. Those who know me do not care and those who don't are probably not going to be persuaded that this wasn't a ploy to get some more twitter followers or karma points. So, now that we have that out of the way, and since you started it: I personally don't like it - even if I agree - when people are bitching all the time about formatting and things external to the body of the article that is posted. It isn't rare at all to see a whole thread about an interesting or important text unravel into a discussion about fonts, style sheets in general, various plugs for readability or suggestions like yours. It's off-topic and detracts from the original message, which was a simple, genuine and heartfelt 'thank you', without any ulterior motive or other ploy. I'm not selling you anything, not trying to get people to click on advertising and I frankly couldn't care less about how this impacts what people think of me. I simply felt that we owed HN a sign of gratitude and found the easiest way to express that. Of course it is much easier to nit-pick about style and format rather than to contribute positively (or even negatively) on the substance. And so you'll find lots of people vote such non-contributing stuff up, which often crowds out the real discussion. I used to work in a bike repair shop where they had a large sign that said 'if you've got nothing to do, don't do it here'. Something similar applies to off topic gripes about the format instead of the message.
- kami8845 14y ago
  Hi Jacques - it's nice talking to you, you have some good stuff on your blog. >external to the body of the article that is posted. Well you see, that is EXACTLY the problem. The way you formatted the blog, the "you should follow me on twitter" thing it is COMPLETELY indistinguishable from the body of the post. I can promise you that every single person that reads that blog post to the end also reads "you should follow me on twitter". It's even the same freaking spacing as another paragraph. I'm pretty sure this is intentional, hell, I'm doing much a similar thing on my own blog: http://doda.co/7-python-libraries-you-should-know-about http://doda.co/7-python-libraries-you-should-know-about >It would be a ton of work to get it excised for just that one posting Really? I feel now you're just talking from the rear. Here. I took a look at your blog. jQuery is already included. It's even simpler than what I wrote above. Just put this inside your thank-you-hn.md file: <script>$(document).ready(function () { $('footer').remove()})</script> I tested that script by inserting it in your blog. Took me about 45 seconds and will probably take you even less. Certainly less time than it took you to write this big response, where you agree with me but lament that what I wrote above is just too much damn work. Really, even if you won't do it for this blog post, just change the wording to "Follow me on Twitter". Really do you care about these few percentage points of followers that only would've followed you had you had that more aggressive wording in your footer? You put some great content on your blog - I feel you should do it justice by letting it shine on its own without the personal marketing tactics at the bottom.

I feel a $('#if-you-read-this-you-should-follow-me-on-twitter').remove() would be appropriate for this blog post. In any case - good to see the HN community really coming through in a time of need.

edanm 14y ago

I get where you're coming from, but I really think most people just would never think of that kind of thing in a situation like this. There might even be people who want updates from jacques after this post, and appreciate that link being there.

buf 14y ago

I'm sure that's a static footer.

jacquesm 14y ago
Correct. Also, this wasn't meant to be a blog post to begin with but HN didn't accept the text as it was and I don't have time to re-write it keeping the essence but making it much shorter.
- Kliment 14y ago
  It annoys me in all your other posts as well. I read essentially everything you write, and it throws me off every time. Sounds cheap and insincere, which is precisely the opposite of the actual stuff you write.
  - michaelhoffman 14y ago
    That's the problem with metrics that only measure part of the situation. Maybe having cheap, insincere boilerplate does increase the number of people following through to one's Twitter page, something that is easily measured. But it can't measure the number of people who lose trust in you due to it.

pepve 14y ago

I feel postscripts like that are not appropriate in general. I think it's the "should" that grates me most. It sounds arrogant to me. I know they do it to get a following. But please just let your content do the talking. And then give your readers the option to read more without being so pushy.

zach 14y ago
The "you should" formulation is a Dustin Curtis invention from several years back: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704738 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704738
- Evbn 14y ago
  It was an experiment with results that he told everyone not to blindly copy. But tons of fools copied him anyway, tweaking the wording to be more grating and obnoxious, littering the Internet with trash.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Well, as long as those fools are littering their own pages I think the problem isn't as bad as you make it look. As for whether it works or not: yes, it works. A 'call to action' as it is called has been proven to work long before Drew Curtis added his to his twitter button.

jacquesm 14y ago

I agree with you. But what with the re-generation time of the blog and the fact that this wasn't meant to be a blog post to begin with (HN has an upper limit to the length of the text in an article header) I feel that leaving it in there is ok. It would be a ton of work to get it excised for just that one posting and frankly I have more urgent things to do than to worry about being perceived as politically incorrect. Those who know me do not care and those who don't are probably not going to be persuaded that this wasn't a ploy to get some more twitter followers or karma points. So, now that we have that out of the way, and since you started it: I personally don't like it - even if I agree - when people are bitching all the time about formatting and things external to the body of the article that is posted. It isn't rare at all to see a whole thread about an interesting or important text unravel into a discussion about fonts, style sheets in general, various plugs for readability or suggestions like yours. It's off-topic and detracts from the original message, which was a simple, genuine and heartfelt 'thank you', without any ulterior motive or other ploy. I'm not selling you anything, not trying to get people to click on advertising and I frankly couldn't care less about how this impacts what people think of me. I simply felt that we owed HN a sign of gratitude and found the easiest way to express that. Of course it is much easier to nit-pick about style and format rather than to contribute positively (or even negatively) on the substance. And so you'll find lots of people vote such non-contributing stuff up, which often crowds out the real discussion. I used to work in a bike repair shop where they had a large sign that said 'if you've got nothing to do, don't do it here'. Something similar applies to off topic gripes about the format instead of the message.

kami8845 14y ago
Hi Jacques - it's nice talking to you, you have some good stuff on your blog. >external to the body of the article that is posted. Well you see, that is EXACTLY the problem. The way you formatted the blog, the "you should follow me on twitter" thing it is COMPLETELY indistinguishable from the body of the post. I can promise you that every single person that reads that blog post to the end also reads "you should follow me on twitter". It's even the same freaking spacing as another paragraph. I'm pretty sure this is intentional, hell, I'm doing much a similar thing on my own blog: http://doda.co/7-python-libraries-you-should-know-about http://doda.co/7-python-libraries-you-should-know-about >It would be a ton of work to get it excised for just that one posting Really? I feel now you're just talking from the rear. Here. I took a look at your blog. jQuery is already included. It's even simpler than what I wrote above. Just put this inside your thank-you-hn.md file: <script>$(document).ready(function () { $('footer').remove()})</script> I tested that script by inserting it in your blog. Took me about 45 seconds and will probably take you even less. Certainly less time than it took you to write this big response, where you agree with me but lament that what I wrote above is just too much damn work. Really, even if you won't do it for this blog post, just change the wording to "Follow me on Twitter". Really do you care about these few percentage points of followers that only would've followed you had you had that more aggressive wording in your footer? You put some great content on your blog - I feel you should do it justice by letting it shine on its own without the personal marketing tactics at the bottom.