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Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#11

Post by iandinwoodie »

Personally, I dislike how Gists are so isolated. I just created a public test Gist and can’t seem to find a way to navigate to it when I view my GitHub profile from a private browser session. From my Gists profile there is a “View GitHub Profile” button, but I do not see a button to do the reverse.

I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure.

Additionally, I think that edits to a Gist should count as contributions. The current arrangement disincentives those who are concerned with contribution counts.

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#12

Post by sitkack »

iandinwoodie wrote: post #11

Personally, I dislike how Gists are so isolated. I just created a public test Gist and can’t seem to find a way to navigate to it when I view my GitHub profile from a private browser session. From my Gists profile there is a “View GitHub Profile” button, but I do not see a button to do the reverse. I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure. Additionally…

Searching your own gists is harder than search for a public one. I think it might be easier to make a gist repo and use comments for gists or the inline editor.

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#13

Post by mel_llaguno »

softwaredoug wrote: post #9

If the goal of a blog is to get people to know you better, not just share knowledge, then gist isn’t a great platform for that. People would rather have a blog with clearer branding and personality, that promises more polish, and an offers to give you many ways to get to know the blogger. I use gist for informal things I don’t have time to turn into a great blog article yet. Or half constructed notes that can live in…

Mostly a question of simplicity. I don't want to spend a tonne of time maintaining a personal blog site if I can find a quick way to publish material quickly using gists with an editor (like Obsidian) which is tolerable ;-).

I've used Jekyll before on github.io, but am looking for an even lighter-weight solution (if possible).

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#14

Post by mel_llaguno »

iandinwoodie wrote: post #11

Personally, I dislike how Gists are so isolated. I just created a public test Gist and can’t seem to find a way to navigate to it when I view my GitHub profile from a private browser session. From my Gists profile there is a “View GitHub Profile” button, but I do not see a button to do the reverse. I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure. Additionally…

I agree that there is a disconnect between Github repos and Gists. Unifying them with Github profiles would probably increase both the visibility and adoption (particularly if they were listed with your repos).

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#15

Post by mel_llaguno »

sitkack wrote: post #12
iandinwoodie wrote: post #11

Personally, I dislike how Gists are so isolated. I just created a public test Gist and can’t seem to find a way to navigate to it when I view my GitHub profile from a private browser session. From my Gists profile there is a “View GitHub Profile” button, but I do not see a button to do the reverse. I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure. Additionally…

Searching your own gists is harder than search for a public one. I think it might be easier to make a gist repo and use comments for gists or the inline editor.

Agreed. That's where I was hoping Obsidian would be helpful in terms of providing a way to tag/index individual gists.

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#17

Post by mel_llaguno »

bjord wrote: post #16

There is a significant amount of content on Medium that's readable without an account. I think, if the goal is to get eyes on your content, Medium's recommendation of your stuff to other people is a great way to achieve that.

Unfortunately, reading Medium articles (even free ones) after a certain number of visits drops the registration banner and prevents you from continuing/reading without an account as a reader.

To me, this engagement model is parasitic and suggests that their valuation/monetization strategy is "eyeballs". Not sure this necessarily helps writers but it certainly helps Medium to drive sign-ups with free content.

Gists do not require an account/login for readers AFAIK.

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#18

Post by mel_llaguno »

dahdum wrote: post #10

You can open an article for no paywall on Medium, but they purposely make it difficult by requiring you to sign up for their partner program (and provide all your taxpayer / payment information) to do so. So I think it's a split between people who want to try and generate some revenue, and those that don't want to sign up for that program and are too used to Medium to switch away.

I'm just curious to know what the revenue accessibility trade-off is ;-). Exactly how much money does an article on Medium make for a writer?

Re: Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?

#20

Post by akulbe »

sitkack wrote: post #12
iandinwoodie wrote: post #11

Personally, I dislike how Gists are so isolated. I just created a public test Gist and can’t seem to find a way to navigate to it when I view my GitHub profile from a private browser session. From my Gists profile there is a “View GitHub Profile” button, but I do not see a button to do the reverse. I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure. Additionally…

Searching your own gists is harder than search for a public one. I think it might be easier to make a gist repo and use comments for gists or the inline editor.

I know the gh cli tool helped me find some stuff a lot easier than pointy-clicky through the UI. Maybe it would work for this use case?
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