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by polote 1790 days ago
If you don't promote it, how do you want people to discover it ? Long post do well on HN comparatively with other boards.

[1] is exactly the kind of post that I include in my newsletter, but if it is not posted on HN, I can't see it

(there is a typo in the link you posted)

[1] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel...

2 comments

I've completely given up on promoting my stuff. It used to be very easy and straightforward. Like minded folks could find new stuff without a problem. Nowadays, there's just way too much content, the vast majority of very low effort, and you get lost in the noise immediately.

For example, I have an old blog post that got featured in podcasts, on dailyjs, HN, is linked to from MDN, etc. When I wrote it in 2014 I pretty much just submitted it to Reddit, that's it. Nowadays I couldn't recreate that exposure -- or even a tiny fraction of it -- if my life depended on it.

I really don't mind if people find my stuff (thanks for the heads-up and the comment. It's fixed).

It's just that it is so crazy, with ego and money to be made. I really have neither interest, so I don't have the energy or the inclination to do much to promote.

I spend most of my time actively writing software, and my postings are occasional "breaks," where I spend a couple of days, writing about something. It gives me a chance to "regroup," and, sometimes, explaining stuff helps me to understand it, myself, better.

I agree that longform blogs are important and good, but it has been my experience that very few people are actually interested in them.

For example, I will sometimes write a comment (you may have noticed that my comments tend to be long), and a reply is made, highlighting one sentence; usually context-free, and adding some kind of "slap."

Often the "slap" is someone saying that I am not talking about the very thing that most of the comment was about. They didn't even bother to read the whole comment. What makes me think they would read one of my long-ass screeds?

These Romans are crazy.

https://memegenerator.net/img/images/13250908.jpg