4 ms·

What was the point of putting it online if you didn't mean for anyone to read it?

by tjogin 17y ago

unalone 17y ago
Storage? Ease of access? There're a lot of advantages the Internet brings you even when you're not trying to whore for attention.
raganwald 17y ago
I think you misunderstand. I'm fine with people reading my unfinished, half-baked ideas, but that is not the same thing as publishing them or claiming they are finished. I have a directory structure on my hard drive. The "dumping ground" is like a folder of drafts. Have a look, there's all kinds of unfinished and half-baked ideas in there. I publish it to git I have no problem with people reading it. It's just as if you came by my house and looked at my pond while I was building it. It isn't a secret that I was working on it. However, allowing people to read my half-baked stuff is not the same thing as publishing them. Whoever posted this actively went there and linked to it. This is very different from when I actively publish a post in my RSS feed, or tweet it, or whatever. The point being, is this my opinion? Yes. Do I have a problem with you reading my opinion? No. Am I forcing my opinion on other people by publishing it? Also no. FWIW, my opinion is that HN was clogged with posts about iPhone development, and that I didn't want to meta-clog it with posts about posts. So I wrote this to get the idea off my chest and left it alone. Besides, I was too busy writing code to polish those few paragraphs up and turn them into an essay!
- Hexstream 17y ago
  I think you should make it way more obvious than this is "unpublished". Even after reading you saying it here, looking back at the page it took me several seconds to notice "homoiconic / dumping_ground / nobody_cares.md", which is the only clue that this isn't meant for general circulation. You can't expect thousands of potential visitors automagically guessing the context of a post.

What was the point of putting it online if you didn't mean for anyone to read it?

by tjogin 17y ago

What was the point of putting it online if you didn't mean for anyone to read it?

Storage? Ease of access? There're a lot of advantages the Internet brings you even when you're not trying to whore for attention.

raganwald 17y ago

I think you misunderstand. I'm fine with people reading my unfinished, half-baked ideas, but that is not the same thing as publishing them or claiming they are finished. I have a directory structure on my hard drive. The "dumping ground" is like a folder of drafts. Have a look, there's all kinds of unfinished and half-baked ideas in there. I publish it to git I have no problem with people reading it. It's just as if you came by my house and looked at my pond while I was building it. It isn't a secret that I was working on it. However, allowing people to read my half-baked stuff is not the same thing as publishing them. Whoever posted this actively went there and linked to it. This is very different from when I actively publish a post in my RSS feed, or tweet it, or whatever. The point being, is this my opinion? Yes. Do I have a problem with you reading my opinion? No. Am I forcing my opinion on other people by publishing it? Also no. FWIW, my opinion is that HN was clogged with posts about iPhone development, and that I didn't want to meta-clog it with posts about posts. So I wrote this to get the idea off my chest and left it alone. Besides, I was too busy writing code to polish those few paragraphs up and turn them into an essay!

Hexstream 17y ago
I think you should make it way more obvious than this is "unpublished". Even after reading you saying it here, looking back at the page it took me several seconds to notice "homoiconic / dumping_ground / nobody_cares.md", which is the only clue that this isn't meant for general circulation. You can't expect thousands of potential visitors automagically guessing the context of a post.