I've had a blog at the same URL since 2000. Search engines are disallowed, comments are closed, I'm not on social media to announce it. I don't talk about it. Twice a week I publish something, but it's meant as a record for me rather than other people. The only reason it's on the web is so I can access it easily from different computers. Once I checked in Feedly, and it said that there were two people subscribed to it. To the best of my knowledge that's the readership.
Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
111–120 of 131 posts
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#112All the important ones
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#113I kinda get it, but the opening paragraphs betray the author's problematic, arrogant attitude --- passive-aggressively complaining about his wife for not appreciating the grand genius of his blog. My wife, my parents, my friends etc are all aware of my website. My wife enthusiastically shows my website to our friends. I have a blog post about food recommendations that is very popular with my friends.
An alternative interpretation (and the way in which I read it) was that the author is incredibly passionate about something mundane and his wife is very obviously not interested anywhere near as much or at all, just like everyone else who likely stumbles across his blog. I don't think it was attempting to show disdain but acceptance, admitting that he builds a blog because he cares about it alone; even his wife doesn't read it.
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#114I love personal websites but I don't really like blogs. I prefer when people can rework/refine some of their pages instead of publishing new blog posts related to previous ones when revisiting a topic. And as a writer it allows me to write whenever I feel like to. With a blog you kind of feel guilty if you don't publish on a regular basis, and end up abandoning it altogether too easily if you cannot sustain a rhythm.…
like a wiki-blog? But then, when is a refinement to something a new work (like a part 2), a small refinement to the original, or a noteworthy modification e.g. such that subscribers would be notified of the change?
You don't need dated entries, just a topic name, a few subheadings for different parts of related text, and a history page; but presenting update notifications can still be a problem? maybe different levels of notification, or subscribing to specific articles(subheading)/topics?
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#115The thing about irl blogs is how, if it's tech related, then it kinda follows you. So there's a pressure to keep things corporate to not scare away job opportunities. There's a reason why LinkedIn reads like garbage, and even if it's obvious, people neither point it out or stop.
It’s funny how different lives can be. I’ve never been part of the corporate world, been self employed basically my whole working life and my blog is not even a thought when it comes to work. I’d honestly be super happy if someone I interact with for work asked me about something I wrote because I write about things I care about and I’m always happy to chat with people.
> I’d honestly be super happy if someone I interact with for work asked me about something I wrote
As a student (who also has no corporate experience), I share this feeling. The few times I've been asked by other students about my blog, I've always been excited (perhaps a little too much) to share my thoughts and opinions in a conservation.
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#116Since 2016 I publish a new blog post once a month. A long lost friend (20 years no contact) found it, read a handful of my deep dives and then offered me what I consider a dream job based on my content and perceived writing ability. I got to jump from an IC track to an executive role. My then company of 15 years did not offer that opportunity. I recommend a blog just to show the world your chops. You don't know who might read it.
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#117I love personal websites but I don't really like blogs. I prefer when people can rework/refine some of their pages instead of publishing new blog posts related to previous ones when revisiting a topic. And as a writer it allows me to write whenever I feel like to. With a blog you kind of feel guilty if you don't publish on a regular basis, and end up abandoning it altogether too easily if you cannot sustain a rhythm.…
Agreed completely. From a reader perspective, blogs are also often not friendly to new visitors. How do I find the best entry point? Which entries are fluff and which are deep dives? The best you can usually hope for is some tagging mechanism, but blogs generally expend little to no effort thinking about architecture, discovery, browsability, or the reader’s progression through the site. Don’t get me wrong - that’s a…
>From a reader perspective, blogs are also often not friendly to new visitors. How do I find the best entry point? Which entries are fluff and which are deep dives?
A lot of that is a flaw in the blogging software and the failure of the author to realize they need to customize the design to make it accessible to readers.
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s funny how different lives can be. I’ve never been part of the corporate world, been self employed basically my whole working life and my blog is not even a thought when it comes to work. I’d honestly be super happy if someone I interact with for work asked me about something I wrote because I write about things I care about and I’m always happy to chat with people.
> I’d honestly be super happy if someone I interact with for work asked me about something I wrote As a student (who also has no corporate experience), I share this feeling. The few times I've been asked by other students about my blog, I've always been excited (perhaps a little too much) to share my thoughts and opinions in a conservation.
Well ping me via email and send me your blog and I’ll be more than happy to ask you about it because I love reading blogs.
My address is on my profile here on HN
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#119The thing about irl blogs is how, if it's tech related, then it kinda follows you. So there's a pressure to keep things corporate to not scare away job opportunities. There's a reason why LinkedIn reads like garbage, and even if it's obvious, people neither point it out or stop.
I am using a pseudonym on my blog and I tend to use a different pseudonym on all websites/services/medias I use. I have often pondered wether I should just publish under my own name or not. The thing is once you do that, there is no going back and I have never felt ready for that. I know it puts off some people who mistake that for anonymity and think this is ruining the web, that people can't behave if they aren't t…
Pseudonyms are nice too because they are, for all practical purposes, identities, just not real life identities. You can build a brand around a pseudonym, even if you can't necessarily convert that to real life cachet. That is somewhat different from pure anonymity, because if you act like a dick eventually no one will take you seriously and you'll lose something of value, even if that value is just the goodwill of your readers.
Re: Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was growing up in the 90s and early 00s anonymity online was the whole point. Everything online was behind usernames, and usernames weren't expected to be connected to your real identity at all. You consider that the norm because that's what you grew up with. Before then, people would sign everything on the internet (and its predecessor networks) with their real names, work/home addresses, phone numbers, and m…
It's what the internet grew up with, actually. > That's why when you create a new user on a *nix box, it asks for that information. That's your local account, not information that is visible to anyone outside of your network.
>That's your local account, not information that is visible to anyone outside of your network.
There are a lot of unix tools to ask networks to query that information and they'll happily do it for other unix systems they connect to. When I was in college in the last 90s, I'd often lookup phone numbers and such of students at other universities using command line unix utilities.