Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by themodelplumber | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

themodelplumber

Nice post, how do you like your Zettelcloud so far? I'm always interested to hear.

Looking at Mike's article:

> Because the shorter it is, the more people will read it.

What.

> Because of the Pareto principle: 80% of the value is in 20% of the length (hence “5x shorter”).

WHAT.

I guess a lot of us write so that other people will read...I guess.

But also, a lot of us write to exorcise our informational/emotional demons (to use a metaphor). It's taking care of oneself. And a lot of the time that looks like piles of words. Especially given a nice amount of intuition-stimulant like caffeine.

Writing/blogging has headed more this way for me personally, the longer I've been writing & blogging. But I also don't blog for leads or income anymore, and don't care as much about my audience dynamics. Is that where the cutoff is?

If somebody really wants the short version I find that they'll email me and probably get a disappointing reply...

View on HN

> But also, a lot of us write to exorcise our informational/emotional demons (to use a metaphor). It's taking care of oneself. And a lot of the time that looks like piles of words.

I find in my old age that I have little patience for people who publicly write for themselves and not for others. If you want to masturbate, cool, I love it, do it in private. If you want to enrich others, the less you waste their time the more people you'll be able to reach.

It depends where you do your writing. I don't think there should be any expectation that a personal blog is anything other than "writing for yourself."

One of the requirements of achieving the top levels within the analytics team at my company is to be considered a thought leader and evangelist. This is accomplished by blogging, tweeting, LinkedIn posts, and speaking at conferences.

It’s very obvious when it comes up in my feeds that people are doing it to appeal to their managers and review committee.

We are in no way a leader in analytics, so I feel bad for those who consume this content, which is put out by people with 3-6 months of professional experience who are trying to pass it off as authoritative and universal.

Do your analysts help with causality? Top companies have some people that talk a lot and others listen to. So if we have our employees talk more and get people to listen to them, we'll be a top company. Brilliant! Could there be a confound? No way!

We pay below market where we are. If we are considered a top analytics company because our people promote themselves, then jokes on me and I need to put myself out there.

I think your comment presumes a well-defined difference between "public" and "private" that doesn't really exist.

It's not like web pages spontaneously run into your home and throw themselves in your face. Simply publishing a blog to the web for those who happen to seek it out lets the audience themselves decide what is public what is private.

The audience still has complete control over the use of their own time.

Web pages which are accessible without a login are public.

So are advertisements posted on the street outside your house.

> So are advertisements posted on the street outside your house.

Those take up physical space and a region of my visual field, which are both finite resources in ways that the web is clearly not.

I have a good middle ground between your positions: conversational writing. Contrasted with public journaling and lecturing. Some people have to start with one or the other to get the writing out, but editing it into a conversation with the reader makes for better reading.

How would you know which type you are currently reading?

I think that type of writing is more like digestion... the author is enriched by the process, but the product is not fit for consumption.

I think most journaling falls under this category -- there is a reason it is called a "brain dump", heh.

This is funny because a lot of the classics fit in that category, especially the ones that was dug after the author's death and was published despite the author's will. If what you say is true, then some lovers of classic literature are nothing but voyeuristic consumers.

When I write "to myself" I try to be clear and concise. It actually helps me more to encapsulate my experience than free association writing does.

There's a reason "tl;dr" is a saying. As the meme says: "I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened."

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-aint-reading-all-that

Reply on news.ycombinator.com