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Poll: Is it OK to submit stories from your own blog?

18 points by mixmax ↗ HN
Around a week ago someone submitted an old story from my blog - probably from going to my site through my profile. I haven't updated it in ages and mainly kept it for exercising clear writing in English.

Since it actually got a few votes and some good comments I'm thinking about taking it up again and updating it regularly. I just don't really have the time to promote it, and it's so much more fun when you have readers.

So my question is: Is it OK to submit something from your own blog that you think would be of interest to the community or would that be seen as somewhat self-serving or spamming behaviour?

15 comments

[ 10.2 ms ] story [ 83.7 ms ] thread
rms
It's definitely ok to submit your own stories. There's a point when you can could be submitting too much from your own blog but it is probably the same point as submitting too much from the nytimes.
davidw
Exactly. How are you going to promote your own startup if you're too afraid to post something you sunk some effort and thought into?

This should be a FAQ.

cperciva
I've submitted entries from my blog -- "Think before you code", "Wuala: Willful ignorance, or fraud?" (which started out as a reply to a post here), and "The Depenguinator, version 2.0" -- when I've thought that they would be of interest to the community here. Many other posts -- mostly concerning FreeBSD Update -- I haven't submitted because I thought they were of interest to too small a niche.

In short: Motives matter. Submitting blog entries because you think they'll be of interest to people here is good; submitting blog entries because you want to attract readers to your blog is bad.

raganwald
"Submitting blog entries because you think they'll be of interest to people here is good; submitting blog entries because you want to attract readers to your blog is bad."

My feeling is that you should submit everything you write. Let us decide what is worth reading, thats' why we vote.

My suggestion--for your own optimization--is to submit articles slowly, there is such a thing as "raganwald fatigue" or "coding horror fatigue," where reading several articles from the same person on the same day becomes tiresome even if the content is good.

But I don't care why you submit for the same reason I don't care why you write. You want to make money from ads? As long as you write well, what do I care? You want to be famous? As long as you write well, what do I care?

It's the same thing with programs and start ups. What, are we supposed to shun the YCombinator startups that market themselves? I say judge programs on their merits, I say judge posts on their merits.

pchristensen
Here's my thought process when reading that comment:

"...raganwald fatigue" - ? No one ever complains about raganwald. Who wrote this comme... oh, Reg, you rascal!

spydez
I think it's ok, to a point, but... You get bonus points in my book for /not/ submitting it, and then replying to everyone's questions in the comments when it does get submitted.
iamdave
I think a lot of great blog entries have started off as comments to thought provoking questions. My most recent entry about strategic ads started off as a reply when someone asked if placing ads on a site would even work if the blog is targeted for techies.
pchristensen
I've submitted stuff from my blog before (maybe 1 in 10 of my posts) but this week someone submitted one of my posts for me for the first time (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=128805). It was actually lifted from a comment I made on YCNews that got some votes so I thought it would be a decent blog post. Nothing special so I didn't submit it. Well, it hit the front page of Reddit and YCNews and it my most viewed post ever (over 4K in one day)!

I felt a little cheesy submitting my posts before, but since no one knew I had a blog, I figured it was worthwhile (turned out well, four posts with over 3K views compared with ~200 for the other posts). Now that I've had others submit me, if I write something that I want to submit, I'll give it a few days to see if anyone else does it for me.

And spydez, I replied to all of the comments!

eusman
I just read some of your past blog posts and I'd be interested to read anything new you will write.
yters
Yes, I thought mixmax's writings were pretty good.
buro9
Yes! No! I don't care!

I love that you can vote for all three.

vanekl
As long as it is on-topic, it's fair game, because if the blog entry would not look out of place if posted in the forum, it's ok to put a short and tastful note of its existence. If done correctly, you are strengthening the community by making pertinent information available by sharing high-value links.

Three exceptions.

Exception one: you shouldn't explicitly charge or ask for money on the blog entry (modicum amount of ads are ok, though, to help defray bandwidth expenses).

Exception two: if there is a more appropriate venue, such as a Planet <X/Lisp/Ruby/etc.> that acts as a syndicate for blogs and covers your area of interest, then the blog syndicate should be used instead since most people understand that that's the place to go if they want to read blog entries.

Exception three: don't bother spamming your lesser blog entries that hold little new value.

pchristensen
...#2) Not sure how to get included in those aggregations

...#3) This should be #1. It's my main criteria for deciding to post something

FatBastard
Yes. Isn't that what the karma thingy is for, to punish spam? If you suck, they will let you know.