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Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

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Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#41
As Todd Snider once said, "I might share some of my opinions with you over the course of the evening. I'm not gonna share them with you 'cause I think they're smart, or 'cause I think you need to know 'em; I'm gonna share 'em with you because they rhyme.".

You don't need to worry about negative feedback if you don't have a comments section. I implemented my blog myself with Django, and the reason it doesn't have a comments section is because I didn't write it, because I am lazy. But a side-effect of that is that the minimal effort it takes to open up a mail client and write something to the email address in the footer tends to weed out the lowest-effort shitposts & flames.

As for me, I started one (link in bio, as the kids say these days) thinking that it might become a tech blog, because tech is what I do all week, and probably what I know most about. And then it actually became me mostly writing occasionally about my car projects, because that is what I love. Don't worry too much about staying on topic, is what I'm getting at. "Be yourself" is a silly cliche (arguably not really a meaningful concept, either), but like, be yourself; regardless of the topic I can always read someone who writes about the things they are really passionate for.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#43
post #8

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback. Then don't. Don't add a comment section. Unless you have built an extensive community around your site, having open comments just invites drive-by criticism or generally people demanding, rather than stopping by to say nice things. What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end, where one can directly write to…

> What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end I just list my email address. FastMail's spam filters are good enough that I rarely get spam so it hasn't been a problem. Occasionally I'll get an email from a dev asking following up questions or if I can help them with their code. It's nice to know that it's not just my mom reading the site.

> I just list my email address.

That's what I did too. I added a mailto: link to the Hugo post template that also prefills the subject line with the title of the post when you click on it. The interactions I've had with this method feel much more meaningful to me than the average comment thread, for all the reasons @sph already mentioned.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#44
Good writers know everything's already been said before in different ways, but not in different ways /by them/. In other words, we all have a unique voice and style, and it's useful for humanity if people hear that voice and style. So blog. Get out of your own way and share your voice.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#45
post #8

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback. Then don't. Don't add a comment section. Unless you have built an extensive community around your site, having open comments just invites drive-by criticism or generally people demanding, rather than stopping by to say nice things. What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end, where one can directly write to…

> What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end I just list my email address. FastMail's spam filters are good enough that I rarely get spam so it hasn't been a problem. Occasionally I'll get an email from a dev asking following up questions or if I can help them with their code. It's nice to know that it's not just my mom reading the site.

I do this too—every post has a footer telling people they can email me with feedback, along with a mailto link. I maybe see one piece of spam every few months because of it. And once in a while I get feedback that I really enjoy. As the top-level comment mentioned, there are advantages to 1-on-1 communication.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#46
I just made one last week (revamped) and started tracking analytics using self-hosted Plausible.

It’s pretty neat, I’ve been able to get thousands of views due to a couple popular articles. I added comments as well to get any feedback. Link in bio.

Dev wise I just wrote it from scratch and ship minimal JavaScript for a better UX.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#47
Just write, and remember that it's your choice whether you want to read the comments. We have a blog and while we get all sorts of commentary, I've found that the overwhelming majority of commenters are positive. For direct mail commentary to our email address it's 100% positive or positive leaning.

The hardest part of blogging is not giving up, I'd work on that.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#48

I have got several BigTech interviews as well as jobs through regular posting long form posts on LinkedIn. One of the best framings I have learned is to teach yourself by writing. Think of it as a conversation with your friends and you are learning together. Take the negative comments as a motivation to improve. Go for it.

My question is how do you go from posting to interviews/offers? I've been blogging for years and I do it for my own sake, but I wouldn't mind these fringe benefits.

Write a short synopsis/summary/teaser to blogs posts that are germane to work areas/technologies/languages that you'd like to work on at a future employer. Post these to LinkedIn with a link to your original long form blog post. If you know anyone who works at employers you're interested in, ask if they could pass these along as well as inquiring about what kinds of content they think would be of interest to them and others inside the organization. Do the same as above with content you discover is relevant to insiders; if you haven't already written such content, plan to make future posts on these topics, as you already know you have a target audience for such.

I'm working on this myself, for myself, as I hope to become self-sufficient and not dependent on any one employer, and also to increase the reach of content for its own sake for the benefit of all, not just a single team/group/org.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#49
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love your website design! When I opened it just now I said “oh wow nice” out loud.

Thanks! :D

I second that! It's a very clear and concise site, it feels personal in voice and tone, and yet it is to-the-point without being pushy or stuffy. Great job.

Re: Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

#50
I will echo the sentiments of writing for yourself as the intended audience. Write content that would benefit and interest you — especially when you solve problems that aren’t super well documented yet. I also just put an email address on my blog and let people reach out to me that way.

I would say my last three job positions I got because of my GitHub and my blog. I do not have a degree, so my GH and blog are where I am able to demonstrate my technical know-how. My most recent job interview, the people interviewing me used my blog (which was listed on my resume) as content for questions about my skills and interests.

Regarding negative feedback, I would say that you may encounter some, however, in my experience, people just won’t read your blog if they aren’t interested. Additionally, you likely will only get people who really care about your content if they have to email you — and everyone who has reached out to me via email has been thoughtful and constructive in their feedback to me.

Additionally, many people in my real-life circles don’t really find what I blog about as that interesting. That’s why writing for you and nobody else is critical.

If curious, you can find my blog in my HN bio, and my GitHub handle is the same as my handle here :)

Good luck!

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