Ask HN: What to do, blog post or HN post ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=802091

by jacquesm • 17 years ago

3 9 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm working on a fairly large posting, I expect it to be ~20K characters when it is done.

Is there a limit on HN post size that I should observe ?

Is the preferred method to post elsewhere then post a link on HN ? (that seems rather blog spammy)

slater2• 17 years ago

i vote for blogging it, and NOT posting a link to that blog on HN.

jacquesm• 17 years ago

Why ?

The subject is a switch from the PHP environment to Django/python, after asking a lot of questions here regarding this subject I figured I would give something back for all the help I got (including unsolicited emails with great advice).

slater2• 17 years ago

wow, i got downvoted :) sorry i didn't reply earlier.

for some reason, i thought there was some (un)written rule of not linking to your own stuff, like on metafilter and other sites. I checked the HN guidelines again and didn't see any such rule. That mix-up was the reason for my "and DON'T post it to HN" line. Sorry for the snark, and maybe just post it with a small intro text in the HN post?

mooism22• 17 years ago

Post it on your blog, then post the link on HN.

Whether you post it here or on your blog doesn't affect whether we will find it interesting (you have already decided that some of us will), but it will affect how easy it is for us to read: mid-grey on light grey is not that legible in large quantities, and it is nice to be able to click on links.

dsteinweg• 17 years ago

Regarding the colors and un-linkability... why is that? To discourage lengthy "Ask HN" posts?

While I appreciate the commenters who do it, I think it's kind of silly to have to comment a "clickable link" for HN submissions that need it. Why not just change that?

mooism22• 17 years ago

The unlinkability is to prevent people who post a link from essentially posting a (biased) comment that can't be voted down.

The colours is just to discourage lengthy "Ask HN" posts I think, yes.

cperciva• 17 years ago

that seems rather blog spammy

Don't worry about that. This point has been raised on many occasions, and the conclusion every time has always been the same: Submit interesting material, and ignore where it comes from. If you've written something which you would submit if it had been written by someone else, you should submit it anyway.

mechanical_fish• 17 years ago

that seems rather blog spammy

Only if you do it several times a day, or several times for the same post.

And you definitely shouldn't write something that long on HN itself.

Ask HN: What to do, blog post or HN post ?

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