Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

tttthis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 637 posts

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#311

Post by dredmorbius »

zhdc1 wrote: post #161
keenmaster wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if the premise is correct here. What metric is Reddit being judged by? What if the various fashion subreddits, in aggregate, have more users, more content (both good and bad), and more innovation than websites like AskAndy? I suspect what you’re looking for is: 1. The intimate small town feel of the early internet, and 2. The higher average post quality (because of the type of person that both had intern…

The issue with Reddit is that there's little to no user engagement with older content. Comments on posts older than a day in pretty much every reasonably active subreddit are ignored. This is also an issue on HN. This kills informed discussion - some topics need more than one or two minutes of thought for a thoughtful and articulated response. This simply isn't possible when you know that the person you're replying t…

So much this.

For a discussion site, Reddit's a really shitty discussion site. Good conversations rarely even begin, and die rapidly. I've discussed this a few times and places.

On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16865105

It was a problem I'd identified when first trialing a Reddit-as-blog dynamic:

The Reddit Notifications dynamic is proving to be a very strong negative. Something Google+ got right is to keep re-engaging people with active, productive, posts. Days, weeks, months, even years later. This isn't something you want in _all cases (and can opt out of), but it is often useful, and means that conversations can develop. Reddit, sadly (after some five years or so of trying) is proving to be a Flying Purple Conversation Eater. This is a major site frustration.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/faq#wiki_so.2C_red...

That's from 5-6 years ago.

True conversation is fragile, rare, and scales poorly.

And, as noted in both links, Google+ managed this surprisingly well.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#312

Post by rolandtshen »

There are countless blogging platforms, but surprisingly, I don't think anything hits the nail yet, which is why I think blogs are dying.

There's WordPress, Ghost, and static site builders, all amazing self-hosted solutions. They're hosted on your own domain, meaning you own your content and control your audience. This type of decentralized blogging makes it difficult for writers to find audiences, and it's typically hard for readers to find relevant content. These blogs are all over the internet, and only a few can make it to the top of Google. Setup, maintenance, and server administration are large barriers for those simply looking for a place to write something.

Of course, there's also Tumblr and Medium. I'm actually a fan of the idea of having more centralized blogging platforms, because they give writers audiences right out of the box. It takes just a few minutes to start a blog and begin writing your first post. But these platforms limit creators' ability to own their content, and even go to lengths to make content less accessible to readers. I especially don't like Medium's paywall approach, nor their policy towards not allowing custom domains.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#314

Post by losvedir »

arthurcolle wrote: post #255
podestapizza wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a website that does as the article mentions: you can immediately blog with just an e-mail. It also supports HTML, CSS and Javascript for instant hosting. https://podesta.pizza/

Is the URL supposed to be funny?

I don't see a problem with it? The poster's name is probably Podesta, and pizza is a fun TLD.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#315

Post by passthejoe »

_uvvk wrote: post #191
asplake wrote: post #101

It’s not so much that blogging died but that commenting on them directly did, and with it blog culture. Commenting now takes place in other venues, not visible to the blog’s reader unless that venue is where they came from. HN is part of that of course.

Shameless plug: I wrote my own blog engine in Python ( https://github.com/betodealmeida/nefelibata ). It generates static pages, but publishes a snippet to Twitter/Mastodon/etc., linking back to the blog post. People can only comment on the social media sites, and periodically the comments get scraped and appended to the blog post. Here's an example: https://blog.taoetc.org/mastodon_integration/index.html This way, p…

This is a great way to go -- bringing self-hosted blogging and social media together.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#316

Post by svantana »

losvedir wrote: post #314
arthurcolle wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the URL supposed to be funny?

I don't see a problem with it? The poster's name is probably Podesta, and pizza is a fun TLD.

It's possible but more likely it's a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#317

Post by throwaway9482 »

losvedir wrote: post #314
arthurcolle wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the URL supposed to be funny?

I don't see a problem with it? The poster's name is probably Podesta, and pizza is a fun TLD.

Some conspiracy theories say John Podesta is a child trafficker who uses the term pizza as code for what he sells.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#318

Post by juststeve »

jerrac wrote: post #130

Heh. I remember the days before blogs. Everyone posted on community forums. You'd get some amazing, long, and lasting conversations that way. Then everyone who posted in the forums started blogging, and I saw the forums dry up. Sure, part of it was that teenagers grew up and went to college and didn't have time for the forums, but a good portion was due to blogs. I suppose good communities still exist out there, some…

My feeling is that a lot of tech forums have become Q and A / code support, and not a place for discussion.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#319

Post by DoreenMichele »

juststeve wrote: post #318
jerrac wrote: post #130

Heh. I remember the days before blogs. Everyone posted on community forums. You'd get some amazing, long, and lasting conversations that way. Then everyone who posted in the forums started blogging, and I saw the forums dry up. Sure, part of it was that teenagers grew up and went to college and didn't have time for the forums, but a good portion was due to blogs. I suppose good communities still exist out there, some…

My feeling is that a lot of tech forums have become Q and A / code support, and not a place for discussion.

The art of conversation is more or less dead.

Re: If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

#320

Post by losvedir »

svantana wrote: post #316
losvedir wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a problem with it? The poster's name is probably Podesta, and pizza is a fun TLD.

It's possible but more likely it's a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory

Oh, wow, then I guess I'm lucky to have missed that reference... I understand why it was flagged and killed now.
Post reply on HN