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Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

dannysalzman.com

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Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#41

Post by bovermyer »

goatinaboat wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Of those who responded to the 'what is your blog and why should I read it' thread. HN is large. Likely larger than many of its visitors realize because the participants are a relatively small fraction of the readership. So HN readers are not necessarily contributors. And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. If you want to get an idea of the HN readership rather than of the HN…

And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. Exactly. On a pseudanonymous forum that’s as good as asking people to doxx themselves!

There is a difference between acknowledging publicly who you are and doxxing, which I consider to be publicly releasing your phone number and physical address (at least).

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#42

Post by dsalzman »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

Of those who responded to the 'what is your blog and why should I read it' thread. HN is large. Likely larger than many of its visitors realize because the participants are a relatively small fraction of the readership. So HN readers are not necessarily contributors. And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. If you want to get an idea of the HN readership rather than of the HN…

That’s a fair point! I would have to read HN’s terms of use though. Not sure if that’s allowed or not. I felt good scrapping the comments section since everyone there “opted in “ to share their website to the broader community.

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#44

Post by vasco »

dsalzman wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Of those who responded to the 'what is your blog and why should I read it' thread. HN is large. Likely larger than many of its visitors realize because the participants are a relatively small fraction of the readership. So HN readers are not necessarily contributors. And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. If you want to get an idea of the HN readership rather than of the HN…

That’s a fair point! I would have to read HN’s terms of use though. Not sure if that’s allowed or not. I felt good scrapping the comments section since everyone there “opted in “ to share their website to the broader community.

Use this https://github.com/HackerNews/API

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#45

Post by jamieweb »

It would also be interesting to analyse the domain name registrars and DNS hosting providers used.

Based on my experience with the HN crowd, I'd predict that Gandi + Cloudflare would be a common one, with NameCheap closely behind.

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#46

Post by jacquesm »

dsalzman wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Of those who responded to the 'what is your blog and why should I read it' thread. HN is large. Likely larger than many of its visitors realize because the participants are a relatively small fraction of the readership. So HN readers are not necessarily contributors. And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. If you want to get an idea of the HN readership rather than of the HN…

That’s a fair point! I would have to read HN’s terms of use though. Not sure if that’s allowed or not. I felt good scrapping the comments section since everyone there “opted in “ to share their website to the broader community.

You can take it as read that people who write blog posts do that to share them with the broader community.

Could one of you downvoters please explain why you think people would post blog posts if they do not want to share them? I fail to see how that would be possible.

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#47

Post by dsalzman »

stared wrote: post #18

I like the analysis. However, I am curious why entries are not sorted by counts. As a rule of thumb, sorting alphabetically makes no sense! Also, 382 sounds like a very small number, given the size of HN. I did try to find many blogs I read, but couldn't find one. So, crucially - was it a random sample? Or sample from top-liked, or from a particular month? some findings (e.g. the prevalence of Wordpress) may depend o…

Thanks for the advice! I went in and sorted the tables. I love Markdown for its simplicity and forces me to focus on the content, but sometimes simple things like sorting a table are a pain. Such is life.

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#48

Post by DoreenMichele »

bovermyer wrote: post #41
goatinaboat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. Exactly. On a pseudanonymous forum that’s as good as asking people to doxx themselves!

There is a difference between acknowledging publicly who you are and doxxing, which I consider to be publicly releasing your phone number and physical address (at least).

If you participate under a handle here and use your real name on your blog, it may effectively amount to the same thing.

People can have a variety of personal concerns, from a nutcase stalker ex to "I work for BigCo and want to spout off online without getting fired" to "I happen to have some bizarrely unique name, so using my real name anywhere amounts to doxxing myself."

Lots of people on HN use a throwaway email just for HN and don't want general HN readership to know much about their lives.

People use a wide variety of approaches to having an online life while looking out for their own specific privacy concerns. Please note that most people with privacy concerns will not chime in to this discussion to explain to you why they make the specific choices they make as that would tend to be counterproductive and undermine their goals of protecting their privacy.

Re: Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs

#49

Post by 12yrprogrammer »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

Of those who responded to the 'what is your blog and why should I read it' thread. HN is large. Likely larger than many of its visitors realize because the participants are a relatively small fraction of the readership. So HN readers are not necessarily contributors. And not all contributors would plug their blogs in a thread asking them to do so. If you want to get an idea of the HN readership rather than of the HN…

Yes. I'm afraid to post my website because the mods might ban my account because they know me and don't like me.

I run a popular website, but I remind people Apple is Evil.

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