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What to blog about

simonwillison.net

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Re: What to blog about

#11

Post by rpastuszak »

twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

> half the reason why searches for technical questions now just turn up endless blogspam instead of answers.

To me this sounds more like a discoverability/curation issue[^1]. Most of the useless technical content I find is either spam from a content farm or poorly written, superficial articles with a higher SEO ranking due to the platform they were published on (e.g. dev.to).

What I find very rarely is crappy content placed at the top of the search results and coming from an obscure low-quality blog.

> No! It's absolutely correct and considerate!

I do agree that it's considerate, that it's a question worth asking, but the reasons people might decide that it's not worth sharing their knowledge might not reflect reality (impostor syndrome, shyness, Dunning-Kruger effect). We're missing on those more considerate people not sharing their knowledge, so I'd say the more the merrier, it's still a net-positive.

Developers are notorious for underestimating the value of clear communication. It's apparent even here on HN, where people _express_ themselves in a precise manner but often don't think/care how to _communicate_, i.e. their response will be understood by other commenters (symptoms: nitpicking, hermetic language, ignoring the context of a post, tone deafness, lack of empathy). Writing, as a means of communication provides the best avenue to acquire this skill.

[^1] And, for that I blame mainly ad-tech. An ad-free search engine with blocklists would improve the situation drastically.

Re: What to blog about

#12

Post by rpastuszak »

mcbishop wrote: post #5
twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

It really depends on the writer's motivation. Practicing regular public writing... awesome. Trying to rank for keywords... blah. You have zero obligation to engage with someone's personal blog (that most likely will never show up in search results).

Precisely, I get the sentiment/frustration expressed in the parent comment, but this is a curation, discoverability issue.

Re: What to blog about

#13

Post by tomashubelbauer »

twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

I apologize, but this is complete bullshit. I think everyone should write for themselves first, as a way to reference your jotted down knowledge at a later time or to summarize your thoughts on something and see how well you've mapped it out. Or just for joy. It is the responsibility of the reader/follower of the blog to only subscribe to blogs that post articles that they appreciate and stop reading them if they no longer feel like they do.

Re: What to blog about

#15

Post by tomashubelbauer »

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

My problem is I get stuck at the very last step: publishing. I take copious, detailed, organized notes for everything I do (house renovations, DIY projects, programming projects) with a robust system that I've fine tuned over the years. This habit has proven to be invaluable for me, as I continuously reference notes and learnings from many years prior. However, by the time it comes to editing and publishing, I've alr…

I think writing in public might work for you. Don't do drafts, instead, start an article with just a title if you have to and progressively refine it. IMO an article's lifetime is much more than just the initial day or so after publishing it. Sure, that's when it will most likely get the most attention, and if you're optimizing for that, this might not be the best advice, but if not, it sounds like something that might work well for you.

Re: What to blog about

#16

Post by cpach »

twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

Yeah but the spam blogs are there because people are trying to make money from ads, those are not authors that are writing a journal or want to practise their writing skills.

Re: What to blog about

#17

Post by rpastuszak »

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

My problem is I get stuck at the very last step: publishing. I take copious, detailed, organized notes for everything I do (house renovations, DIY projects, programming projects) with a robust system that I've fine tuned over the years. This habit has proven to be invaluable for me, as I continuously reference notes and learnings from many years prior. However, by the time it comes to editing and publishing, I've alr…

Like with every habit, there's less and less friction with every finished attempt. (speaking from personal experience, I'm terrible at publishing consistently)

>This might work? Sometimes it's a tiny mental shift that changes everything.

Could be. What works for me is finding something small enough that I can't overcomplicate it (write today, edit and publish tomorrow, done!). Then, I will (obviously) overcomplicate it, but instead of ending up with a week-long commitment, I spend 3-4 evenings instead of 2. (example: https://sonnet.io/posts/reactive-hole/)

I would also suggest treating writing a post (or a series) as a project itself.

I feel like we're struggling with a similar problem. Good luck!

Re: What to blog about

#18

Post by NikolaNovak »

fm2606 wrote: post #9
twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

So my very first thought of reading this comment is "I 100% whole-hardily agree". But... I have read a few posts from different people who say blog about it even if it isn't new or unique. The thought being is that it 1) improves writing skill and 2) if learning something, helps cements the concepts of what was learned. It appears the Simon Wilson shared the same feeling about posts being new and unique as can seen h…

Agreed.

Also, there's a bit of "you can't get there from here" problem : maybe you need to start writing familiar, personal stuff, to practice, get into a habit, develop better writing skills, gain confidence, etc - so that when you do have something truly unique, you are ready and capable of putting it down in an engaging and I understandable.

(also, "style" matters. James Mickens does not necessarily say anything "new", but he says it in a way that's entertaining and enables you to see things from a new perspective. I enjoy Terry pratchett and patio11 for their writing style even when they're not sharing extraordinary insights. Not every piece of writing needs to be cutting edge technical research. And practice is important for that).

Re: What to blog about

#19

Post by baxtr »

twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

No! Absolutely not.

Because: you might think it’s nothing new. But it’s only nothing new for you! For most people it’s entirely new.

Sure, somewhere someone already farted about it lot an earlier than you. But guess what, it’s the f*ing internet. Ofc someone else was faster.

This advice you’re giving is actually exactly why there is so much BS on the internet.

Because smart people like us who have something to share won’t because it’s not new enough!!!

And guess what: all the morons not thinking 1/10 as much publish away and get followers because they dare to expose themselves often and repeatedly.

Btw I think it’s called imposter syndrome.

Re: What to blog about

#20

Post by boyter »

I have always found that my blog is a place for me to dump my thought process and ideas behind things. A journal I can refer back to, with myself being the main audience first. As such I also put in the answers to annoying problems such as overcoming “The "clang" command requires the command line developer tools” issue oh M1 macs.

I have found over time that the posts solving those sort of issues tend to get the most traffic, and give me the most positive responses with people online too.

In either case I strongly suggest to everyone I work with to just write those sort of posts. Keep them online and over years they build up into something you can show off.

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