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Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

macwright.com

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Re: Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

#71

Post by vogt »

js2 wrote: post #27
mjb wrote: post #10

I agree with all of that. The defensiveness that comes with writing for HN (and Twitter) makes me a worse writer too. It's not just about being careful and precise, but about being super defensive to avoid the most uncharitable possible reading. Perhaps more unfortunately, I find that writing for academic conferences and journals makes me a worse writer too. It's different, but having to laser focus on 'selling' the…

For every comment I’ve written here and clicked reply, I’ve written 10x more and just closed the tab. But that’s okay. Usually someone makes my point better than I ever could anyway.

Makes me feel a little better seeing someone with my same thought process. I don't know why. But I do the same thing, and think the same thing.

Re: Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

#73

Post by [deleted] »

joemi wrote: post #15

Did he disable it for this article? Because I got through without doing anything unusual. But also: I don't really get why he'd want to do that. I read the article, and I get his complaints, but they don't really seem to have anything to do with other people reading his site. They sound like reasons for _him_ to not post to and engage on HN, not reasons to try to stop people coming from HN from reading his site. His…

[deleted]

Re: Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

#74

Post by derac »

catach wrote: post #30
mjb wrote: post #10

I agree with all of that. The defensiveness that comes with writing for HN (and Twitter) makes me a worse writer too. It's not just about being careful and precise, but about being super defensive to avoid the most uncharitable possible reading. Perhaps more unfortunately, I find that writing for academic conferences and journals makes me a worse writer too. It's different, but having to laser focus on 'selling' the…

> being super defensive to avoid the most uncharitable possible reading. Had my eyes opened recently by just how wild people can get with their inferences. Defense is impossible when you're asserting X, but also have to explicitly assert the entire universe of not-X.

It's difficult, 1000 people can see what you wrote and it just takes one to misunderstand or jump to conclusions. That will motivate someone to respond (to feel self-righteous or helpful) more than someone agreeing with what you say. To me it's just the physics of a message board and you have to accept that reality while not taking it all too seriously.

Re: Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

#75

Post by brightball »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #58
brightball wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the middle of writing a series of security articles on my blog and a couple of people have told me that some of them are too long. They are long because I was trying to be thorough, but more so I was trying to make sure I pre-addressed all of the arguments I knew would come (particularly in my enterprise DMARC deployment article). I realize that what the author talks about here is part of why I do that.

Imo, as long as you organize your writing elegantly, it doesn't matter how long the final product is. As a reader, I really appreciate the table of contents. Maybe what your friends meant was that your piece was too long without a table of contents, from which they could jump to a place for reference, or skip it because they were already familiar with the material.

That's possible. Here's the Enterprise DMARC if you're interested.

I probably should add a TOC. I don't largely because it's setup to flow and I don't really want people to skip to a specific section.

https://www.brightball.com/articles/enterprise-challenges-wi...

Re: Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

#76

Post by brightball »

eyeareque wrote: post #42
brightball wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the middle of writing a series of security articles on my blog and a couple of people have told me that some of them are too long. They are long because I was trying to be thorough, but more so I was trying to make sure I pre-addressed all of the arguments I knew would come (particularly in my enterprise DMARC deployment article). I realize that what the author talks about here is part of why I do that.

I recommend posting the articles as you intended to. You’ll never make everyone happy anyway.

I definitely did that. Just in reading this guy I realize I'm trying to logical address arguments I know will come.

Don't know that it's actually due to HN feedback or just knowing how internet discussions tend to go.

Re: Macwright.com redirects HN readers away

#77

Post by tmpz22 »

addicted wrote: post #56
tmpz22 wrote: post #8

Eloquently explains how I’m increasingly starting to feel about link aggregators and how they impact my own behavior

I’m not sure why I thought HN would be different. The same thing happened to /., Digg, Fark, etc. I guess it’s just in the nature of aggregators that get really popular and allow comments.

I think the fundamental truth is ~80% of discussion is personal anecdotes. This has a very strong appeal because you can make whatever you want from it, you can validate your own opinions or dismiss it off hand. Intellectual validation a la carte.
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