Ask HN: How do you organize posts on personal website?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35677676

by dieselgate • 3 years ago

5 12 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

On my personal website I don't have really an intentional blog but make posts about current projects etc. Have been doing this for about a year and have maybe a dozen posts - so far a chronological ordering has been fine. I'm starting to cross reference posts and go more in depth into certain topics that were introduced before and the chrono-ordering seems to make less sense now. Anyone have ideas/suggestions on how to break out into "topic sections" or something else? I don't want to end up having many topics but at the same time chrono order doesn't make sense because older posts may still updated

taubek• 3 years ago

Use tags/categories. Depending on what does your CMS support.

MilnerRoute2• 3 years ago

I was going to suggest this - most content management systems have some kind of built-in tag system.

If yours doesn't, then you're facing the prospect of migrating to a new CMS and importing posts. But then I'd ask the question: what's your ultimate goal? If you're trying to maximize views to monetize content, then it matters. (Or if you're using it for professional visibility/hoping to attract recruiters or something.) But if it's just a personal site to put your views online - then maybe you don't need to worry about SEO.

dieselgate3• 3 years ago

Yeah I don’t worry about promoting or performance really (although they’re decent already I think). Just a low key web presence.

But i would like to organize posts better - will consider the tags and categories as that’s the most pragmatic but still not fully in on it

dieselgate3• 3 years ago

That’s a good idea. The code is vanilla js/html so no cms; and hosted on GitHub pages so not even a direct server layer. Have been considering adding a server but not really necessary so far as it’s just low key web presence.

labarilem• 3 years ago

I was using tags and categories but recently I've switched to just chrono order to simplify things.

dieselgate3• 3 years ago

Grass is always greener eh? Good data point to consider

rozenmd• 3 years ago

"all articles", with title and excerpt listed on a single super long page. no complaints.

FLpxpyJ• 3 years ago

In my opinion, in a “perfect world”, a site could be navigated in any way the visitor wishes.

~ Thematically (by Category) ~ ideally in the manner / order the webmasters considers most valuable / important.

~ Via Sitemap ~

~ With search ~ And good search, mind you. Ideally, having indexed every word on the site.

~ Through sorting ~ via date, via last modified, via page title, etc.

~ By tags & “contributors” ~

Those are the ways that come to mind, and I believe are most common. Each with their own pros and cons. But if you have them all, I guess the cons don’t really matter. Obviously, that is quite difficult and certainly asking too much of (some) hobbyist web developers.

I organize my content thematically (by category). I acknowledge that it makes it difficult for the visitor to find what they’re looking for; to easily reach the things that interest them. But I see my site as art. I will organize it in a manner that best reflects that art. Dear visitor, finding the things you are looking for is important, but so is finding the things you are not.

I take great pleasure in navigating personal web pages. I can only go through so many in a day; I try my best to dedicate the time necessary to have felt that I properly explored another’s invested time and effort, their world, their message. Perhaps there is some value in encouraging people to take the time to slow down, in addition to improving navigation.

To anyone that perhaps find themselves consumed in this conundrum: your site is probably more important than its navigation, don’t let this stop or delay you from making it. Time is so valuable.

ezedv• 3 years ago

I think the idea is to put yourself in the user's shoes and try to create the website you, as a user, would enjoy revisiting.

For example, our website, https://www.ratherlabs.com, is made for future customers. So, in this case, it's divided by categories.

clusmore• 3 years ago

I like Joel on Software's reading lists. Basically tags but only for a very small subset of posts which are very good, hand-curated with purpose.

As for "older posts may still updated", I suggest don't do this, unless your site really is more like a wiki than a blog. It's annoying for readers to have to reread old posts and try to spot the difference, it means they can't bookmark a post they like and send it to friends without fear it might change. It's annoying for you because you will end up obsessively trying to perfect old posts. I prefer the approach of just writing a new post if you think you have a substantial amount of new/different information to add, and then you can also show what changed and why. This also means you can go back through your archives and see how your thoughts have changed over time.

swami108• 3 years ago

- chronological and categories.

- pin the best ones on top for each category.

- have an “all” category, which could be your default.

Ask HN: How do you organize posts on personal website?

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