Alex Payne, a Twitter engineer, is shutting down his personal blog(al3x.net)
al3x.net
Alex Payne, a Twitter engineer, is shutting down his personal blog
http://al3x.net/2010/03/02/hiatus.html
72 comments
Not reading the linked article I expect, but not reading the one-word summary in the article's URL?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hiatus
Edit: to be fair, the title of this submission is misrepresenting.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hiatus
Edit: to be fair, the title of this submission is misrepresenting.
Way too much cynicism in this thread! I thought that was a great way to put on hold a blog I've always enjoyed reading over the last few years.
Congrats and best of luck, Alex.
Congrats and best of luck, Alex.
Way too much indeed. We should remember that blogs are written for an audience and that audience may not be HN. If a post doesn't satisfy us as a community, the fault is not with the author's composition but with the choice to submit the link to HN.
A similar thing happened to me when I wrote a rememberence-day post. Some people reasonably suggested it wasn't Hacker News. I explained why I thought it was tangentially relevant. There was a discussion about that, but nobody suggested that I shouldn't have written the post, we were merely discussing whether it belonged in HN.
I can understand the argument that meta-blogging doesn't belong in HN. But I don't believe it shouldn't be written in the first place.
A similar thing happened to me when I wrote a rememberence-day post. Some people reasonably suggested it wasn't Hacker News. I explained why I thought it was tangentially relevant. There was a discussion about that, but nobody suggested that I shouldn't have written the post, we were merely discussing whether it belonged in HN.
I can understand the argument that meta-blogging doesn't belong in HN. But I don't believe it shouldn't be written in the first place.
So?
Maybe flippant, but that's the nature of the blogging beast. Blogs come and go, new ones replace old ones and somehow equilibrium is maintained.
Maybe flippant, but that's the nature of the blogging beast. Blogs come and go, new ones replace old ones and somehow equilibrium is maintained.
The So? is that Alex is a member of our community and some people here will care about why he chose to stop.
an advice to the next person that wants to stop blogging. just stop. really. don't blog about you wanting to stop. thanks.
Really? Let's say you're a loyal reader. You have him RSSed, and you get excited whenever you see his posts show up in your feed reader. How would you feel if after a month or 2 you said "hm, Alex Payne hasn't blogged in a long time, wonder what the deal is."
You go to twitter: "@al3x why haven't you been blogging recently?"
"@you I decided to stop blogging"
Wouldn't you wish he had written one final blog post letting you know instead of waiting for people to figure it out?
To an outsider who just sees his posts occasionally on HN, it may seem dumb, but it makes more sense for his loyal readers, I assume.
A lot of HN readers and empathize like so: what if pg "just stopped" writing/publishing essays. Wouldn't you wish he had at least written one last amazing essay describing his rationale for stopping and letting everyone know?
You go to twitter: "@al3x why haven't you been blogging recently?"
"@you I decided to stop blogging"
Wouldn't you wish he had written one final blog post letting you know instead of waiting for people to figure it out?
To an outsider who just sees his posts occasionally on HN, it may seem dumb, but it makes more sense for his loyal readers, I assume.
A lot of HN readers and empathize like so: what if pg "just stopped" writing/publishing essays. Wouldn't you wish he had at least written one last amazing essay describing his rationale for stopping and letting everyone know?
That's pretty much it. I have people who read my blog regularly, and if I didn't explain why I was taking a break, they'd want to know.
I didn't intend the post to be on HN. I didn't submit the post to HN. I didn't upvote the post on HN.
I didn't intend the post to be on HN. I didn't submit the post to HN. I didn't upvote the post on HN.
The real WTF, as they say, is that this would shoot up the HN main page. It's good for his loyal readers that he makes a conclusion posts, but there's not really a point in posting this on HN so that people who don't read his blog can know.
And my advice to you about giving advice: Explain why he should do as you suggest. What's in it for him? What's in it for you? The tone of your comment, espcially the "thanks" at the end makes this seem like a request for your benefit rather than a suggestion for his benefit.
Is that the case? If so, you may find it more effective to explain why his blogging about stopping blogging is harmful to you. It may be that another solution presents itself. For example, if you aren't subscribed to his blog but are annoyed to have this post taking up space on HN, perhaps the solution is to appeal to HN readers not to upvote this kind of post rather than to appeal to the author not to write it.
Likewise, if there's something in it for the author, explaining that will be a lot more effective as it will appeal to his self-interest. He explains quite clearly that he writes the blog for himself, not for you or I. Therefore,he presumably has already decided that this post is a personal benefit for him. If you can think of a compelling reason for him to eschew such a post, it's best to tell him so rather than making him guess.
That way you will get what you want by helping him get what he wants. Win win!
JM2C on giving advice...
Is that the case? If so, you may find it more effective to explain why his blogging about stopping blogging is harmful to you. It may be that another solution presents itself. For example, if you aren't subscribed to his blog but are annoyed to have this post taking up space on HN, perhaps the solution is to appeal to HN readers not to upvote this kind of post rather than to appeal to the author not to write it.
Likewise, if there's something in it for the author, explaining that will be a lot more effective as it will appeal to his self-interest. He explains quite clearly that he writes the blog for himself, not for you or I. Therefore,he presumably has already decided that this post is a personal benefit for him. If you can think of a compelling reason for him to eschew such a post, it's best to tell him so rather than making him guess.
That way you will get what you want by helping him get what he wants. Win win!
JM2C on giving advice...
Are you supposed to just disappear? I think it's polite to your readers to mention it. How you write the mention is entirely up to you and your style.
You're barking up the wrong tree. It's unlikely that 'the next person that wants to stop blogging' reads HN (yes I know about spolsky and al3x). In response to this story, you could ask us not to vote for such stories or even urge us to flag it. Although such metacomments are discouraged, it's still more useful than wildly addressing a bunch of people that probably won't be reached.
I shut down my blog Jan 1. Privacy is the new sharing.
You're joking, but honestly, I really do think there's going to be a wave of private/closed-community products that counterbalance the boom in highly social technology over the past few years.
Like http://pinboard.in - "Social bookmarking for introverts"
P'sha, the cool kids shut down their social network accounts in '08.
P'sha is actually "pshaw" and it goes back to 1656: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pshaw
That's a solid 93/100 on the etymology awesome scale.
"When we started dating, marriage was the furthest thing from my mind. True love will sneak up on you. Let it."
True and beautifully put.
True and beautifully put.
Alex, I know you contribute on HN, and I'd just like to say I think some of the people here are being rude.
With that said, some (unsolicited, I know) advice for if you want to get back into blogging. Try getting feedback from your peers before publishing something, then use their input to edit. That should improve the writing, of course, but it can also indicate to you if the ideas you want to get across are apparent to the readers you care about.
Not everyone who reads your essays will even be willing to meet you on your own terms. Getting feedback from peers - as opposed to random people who feel it's okay to dismiss soemthing out-of-hand - may help with the feeling that your writing doesn't provide the insight you want it to.
This is, I think, closer to how PG approaches his essays. Notice, too, that we don't consider those blogs, but essays that pop up periodically.
With that said, some (unsolicited, I know) advice for if you want to get back into blogging. Try getting feedback from your peers before publishing something, then use their input to edit. That should improve the writing, of course, but it can also indicate to you if the ideas you want to get across are apparent to the readers you care about.
Not everyone who reads your essays will even be willing to meet you on your own terms. Getting feedback from peers - as opposed to random people who feel it's okay to dismiss soemthing out-of-hand - may help with the feeling that your writing doesn't provide the insight you want it to.
This is, I think, closer to how PG approaches his essays. Notice, too, that we don't consider those blogs, but essays that pop up periodically.
Getting feedback on posts before I publish has been valuable. If and when I get back to blogging, I'll be soliciting that peer feedback for each and every post. Great advice. Thanks!
This is Alex's best post since he bashed SF. All is forgiven, sorry for getting unintentionally inflamed!
Of course, I’ll be tweeting away. Over time, I’m coming to realize what sort of messages I can communicate effectively via Twitter, and what sort I can’t. Twitter works least well for me when I try to cram big arguments down to 140 characters.
But isn't twitter the medium which caused him the most grief (the techcrunch manufactured-drama of last week) specifically when he tried to convey a big idea in too short a space?
But isn't twitter the medium which caused him the most grief (the techcrunch manufactured-drama of last week) specifically when he tried to convey a big idea in too short a space?
I wonder if Joel Spolsky had some influence on Alex. I really enjoyed his blog.
I'm sure the blatant misreading of his tweet by techcrunch last week had something to do with it.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/27/new-twitter-features/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/27/new-twitter-features/
As horrible and blatant TechCrunch might have been, it's not even 1/100 as bad as Silicon Alley Insider, which ran the following headline following the story:
"Twitter Rolling Out New Website To Kill TweetDeck and Other Third Party Clients"
http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-twitter-rolling...
"Twitter Rolling Out New Website To Kill TweetDeck and Other Third Party Clients"
http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-twitter-rolling...
I'd call it anything but "blatant misreading." Everyone knows the massive hype surrounding Twitter's api. There are companies who've raised millions banking on twitter api. While I think that's bad strategy for those companies, I don't blame a bunch of folks with millions on the line to panic at a tweet from a twitter employee that threatens their existence. If I'm one of the companies that depends on twitter, I'd want to know everything behind that tweet.
It's forgivable if Alex overlooked that perspective but this is by no means techcrunch's fault. They reported what he tweeted.
Partner relationships are very sensitive. I have a product that is being sold by a reseller who has two sales people pushing it. One of the sales people heard a rumor from somewhere(a classmate) that we might be selling directly in the market so he would have to compete with our in-house sales staff for the same business. He contacted us in panic. We had to assure him that while we do plan to do in-house sales, that is for other markets. Point is, when you have good partnerships that are not just fluff, you also need solid communication.
If developers didn't care about the twitter api, they wouldn't give a shit about this tweet. Because they care about it, twitter should be very sensitive to how they communicate with developers.
It's forgivable if Alex overlooked that perspective but this is by no means techcrunch's fault. They reported what he tweeted.
Partner relationships are very sensitive. I have a product that is being sold by a reseller who has two sales people pushing it. One of the sales people heard a rumor from somewhere(a classmate) that we might be selling directly in the market so he would have to compete with our in-house sales staff for the same business. He contacted us in panic. We had to assure him that while we do plan to do in-house sales, that is for other markets. Point is, when you have good partnerships that are not just fluff, you also need solid communication.
If developers didn't care about the twitter api, they wouldn't give a shit about this tweet. Because they care about it, twitter should be very sensitive to how they communicate with developers.
>> It's forgivable if Alex overlooked that perspective but this is by no means techcrunch's fault. They reported what he tweeted.
No, they didn't. They took what he tweeted, gave it a sensationalist headline, and vomited out a few paragraphs of text designed to drive traffic to their site. That is most definitely not reporting.
>> twitter should be very sensitive to how they communicate with developers.
Alex tweeted his opinion about some cool things to come. This is not "communicating with developers", it's making an offhand comment. Twitter communicates through developers through a mailing list, and several official accounts (@twitterapi, for example), not through the personal tweets of its employees.
I don't think it's Alex's responsibility to analyze in advance how every thing he tweets might be interpreted. TechCrunch and Silicon Alley are to blame for the over-sensationalized writing.
No, they didn't. They took what he tweeted, gave it a sensationalist headline, and vomited out a few paragraphs of text designed to drive traffic to their site. That is most definitely not reporting.
>> twitter should be very sensitive to how they communicate with developers.
Alex tweeted his opinion about some cool things to come. This is not "communicating with developers", it's making an offhand comment. Twitter communicates through developers through a mailing list, and several official accounts (@twitterapi, for example), not through the personal tweets of its employees.
I don't think it's Alex's responsibility to analyze in advance how every thing he tweets might be interpreted. TechCrunch and Silicon Alley are to blame for the over-sensationalized writing.
I don't think it's Alex's responsibility to analyze in advance how every thing he tweets might be interpreted.
Let's just say we have a serious disagreement there. He essentially tweeted about private future plans of twitter, something I'm pretty sure you cannot do. If you are an employee and you tweet about strategy, you have a responsibility to think from all angles. Otherwise you risk hurting the company you are working for out of negligence--never a good thing in any employee.
Let's just say we have a serious disagreement there. He essentially tweeted about private future plans of twitter, something I'm pretty sure you cannot do. If you are an employee and you tweet about strategy, you have a responsibility to think from all angles. Otherwise you risk hurting the company you are working for out of negligence--never a good thing in any employee.
Were he revealing something important, I might agree with you. He tweeted, basically, "there's some cool new stuff coming soon". There's almost no information in that. Additionally, I've seen similar things from other twitter employees.
This was nothing until Techcrunch put their spin on it.
This was nothing until Techcrunch put their spin on it.
>> Point is, when you have good partnerships that are not just fluff, you also need solid communication.
You really, really do.
While I don't think the various tech blogs that "reported" on my tweet did anyone a service by blowing it out of proportion, the onus for communicating poorly and freaking out our developers over nothing is ultimately on me.
You really, really do.
While I don't think the various tech blogs that "reported" on my tweet did anyone a service by blowing it out of proportion, the onus for communicating poorly and freaking out our developers over nothing is ultimately on me.
That's a very reasonable position.
No, he didn't. For one, he quit blogging, whereas I'm just taking a break. For another, I don't read Joel.
I think that blogging, especially the feedback you get from a successful post, tend to be seductive. So you continually think about that next blog post, even when you have nothing to say.
This is why I've decided to just write to get something out of my head and there's no other outlet.
This is why I've decided to just write to get something out of my head and there's no other outlet.
Let me just say just because we have lot of ideas doesn't mean they all need to crystalize. I've learned that I might be thinking of an idea for a month or some whereas someone else might have thought about it for four months, tired & failed so they will criticize the idea and drive it in a different direction. Not every idea needs to crystalize.
I do agree that blogging every other day is not going to help either. I would say blog like Dustin Curtis. Treat every post like a book.
As for my street cred: I quit blogging in 2001 after 3-4 years of blogging. Now, thinking of doing what I just proposed above. :-)
I do agree that blogging every other day is not going to help either. I would say blog like Dustin Curtis. Treat every post like a book.
As for my street cred: I quit blogging in 2001 after 3-4 years of blogging. Now, thinking of doing what I just proposed above. :-)
2010.. the year of blogquiting? :)
126 million blogs are online...
I really feel that that number will only continue to increase as more and more people get online and stop worrying about privacy too much.
Mishaps like this are tragic. Misinterpretation and misunderstanding are bad things...but for the most part, these things are rare.
I really feel that that number will only continue to increase as more and more people get online and stop worrying about privacy too much.
Mishaps like this are tragic. Misinterpretation and misunderstanding are bad things...but for the most part, these things are rare.
and facebook quitting: http://www.seppukoo.com/
I wonder if the twitter guys are concerned about the logical next step in this reversal of over-exposure.
I wonder if the twitter guys are concerned about the logical next step in this reversal of over-exposure.
Heh. I'm seriously considering quitting twitter right now.
I wonder if he'll last through the winter in Portland.
I grew up on the East Coast. I can deal with harsh winters. Plus, I'm only happy when it rains.
The winters in the Pacific Northwest aren't "harsh", just long, bleak and gray. After a few winters in Innsbruck, Austria, I actually learned that I don't mind the snow and intense cold. However, it rarely snows in Portland, it just rains, and drizzles, and drips, and mists and then starts the cycle anew.
I guess if you like the rain, though, that's the right place for you (surpassed only by Washington's Olympic Peninsula). As a native Oregonian, though, I think you're crazy to like the rain - you can't do much of anything outdoors without getting really miserably wet.
I can see getting out of the bay area, on the other hand - Portland is certainly more livable. Good luck!
I guess if you like the rain, though, that's the right place for you (surpassed only by Washington's Olympic Peninsula). As a native Oregonian, though, I think you're crazy to like the rain - you can't do much of anything outdoors without getting really miserably wet.
I can see getting out of the bay area, on the other hand - Portland is certainly more livable. Good luck!
Congratulations on getting married.
Perhaps these tech blogger/entrepreneurs will get round to doing real work now. Streams of messages (twitter) and bug tracking (frog creek) is great n all, but how about something with more than a handful of features?
Because everyone should make a product with every feature imaginable! Why would you need anything else? Feature bloat doesn't hurt any product!
It'd be nice if the tech industry got innovative and solved real human problems - you know, like getting computers to do the work of humans.
Reinventions of the telegraph (twitter/facebook) and operating system (apple/android/chromeos) is all i'm seeing these days.
Reinventions of the telegraph (twitter/facebook) and operating system (apple/android/chromeos) is all i'm seeing these days.
As much as I hate twitter it most definitely is not a reinvention of the telegraph
For the operating system snark I for one am glad the world isn't still using apple II's
If you want the problems solved start working on it yourself it isn't other peoples burden.
For the operating system snark I for one am glad the world isn't still using apple II's
If you want the problems solved start working on it yourself it isn't other peoples burden.
Twitter doesn't do my dishes, or cure cancer. It just lets people communicate, like did the telegraph 200 years ago.
Operating system snark - beneath os x and android is unix, invented over 40 years ago.
I do work on it myself, but i'm only one man. If the industry set its goals higher that would make a real difference, and put more money in its pocket.
Operating system snark - beneath os x and android is unix, invented over 40 years ago.
I do work on it myself, but i'm only one man. If the industry set its goals higher that would make a real difference, and put more money in its pocket.
Your dishwasher does your dishes, and chemotherapy cures cancer.
It'd just be nice if my dishwasher did my dishes better, and chemotherapy cured cancer better (and less painfully).
Kinda like how Twitter lets people communicate better. New products are almost always a refinement of some existing product. The ones that aren't tend to elicit a big "Huh?" reaction from the marketplace.
It'd just be nice if my dishwasher did my dishes better, and chemotherapy cured cancer better (and less painfully).
Kinda like how Twitter lets people communicate better. New products are almost always a refinement of some existing product. The ones that aren't tend to elicit a big "Huh?" reaction from the marketplace.
I'm sure the tech industry, the self proclaimed vanguard of innovation, can do better than turn blogging into 140 characters and call it a day.
I'm sorry that you see the world that way but not everyone can cure cancer or build robots and to be honest most don't want to.
If you are using any operating system other than the unix invented 40 years ago then I think there is a reason for new operating systems and I stick with my opinion. An airplane is just based on some flying contraption people built 100 years ago but there is a reason we built new ones.
If you are using any operating system other than the unix invented 40 years ago then I think there is a reason for new operating systems and I stick with my opinion. An airplane is just based on some flying contraption people built 100 years ago but there is a reason we built new ones.
[deleted]
I wonder how many people are employed by Spolsky's company, and how long they've been employed? I wonder how many houses those salaries have bought, dry cleaning orders made and paid for, restaurant meals consumed, youth sports supported, and personal abilities grown?
Now that he has time for some real work, that place is going to be a power house!
Now that he has time for some real work, that place is going to be a power house!
I wonder how many people have spent their hard earned cash on spolsky when they could have installed a free bug tracker. And the supposed geniuses he hires could be doing something really genius, like rocket science or brain surgery, and not worrying about pointers (after all magical garbage collection has been around a good few decades).
I wonder how many people have spent their hard earned cash on spolsky when they could have installed a free bug tracker. Good question, it makes me wonder how many people (besides myself) have bought OS X systems when they could have bought free Linux?
Probably a mixture of fanboyism and perceived advantages where few exist. You can install os x themes on linux and do steve jobs worship on the cheap.
What the world really needs is more people whining on HN about how other people should spend their time. Famous people clearly don't know how to spend their own time most efficiently, so it's nice when random people on HN that nobody has ever heard of can plan peoples' lives for them. A great service.
Yeah that's right- we random people are jackasses, only the famous have got their shit together and produce valuable stuff. All hail twitter, and all the other technological wonders on techcrunch (that amount to a few lines of sql and jquery).
Criticism is what makes science function and is what made the west great.
Criticism is what makes science function and is what made the west great.
Weird stance from someone who lists themselves as the "creator" of a Custom Google Search box in their HN profile... http://techielifeissues.blogspot.com
Dude that search box solves a problem and was done with minimum of effort. Twitter could have been written in a few lines of appengine so it's not that different.
(And it's not my life's work if that's what you're implying, took me 20 minutes).
I can't believe this is on the front page and at number 2. Hacker News has officially jumped the shark for me. Yes, down vote me all you want.
I feel like I've read this exact same comment so many times over the past 3 years. If you think something's off topic, would you please just flag it quietly, as we ask in the guidelines?
That's what I usually do, but this time is different. This marks the end of HN as I knew it (for me anyway), and I felt the need to express how I feel about it. You don't just lose something you cherish and stay quiet, that's a very difficult thing to do. You won't be hearing this sort of complaints from me anymore.
Well, if it's any consolation, it was just an illusion that the site was good before. HN officially jumped the shark about three months after you signed up:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=244937
It's interesting that this too was a complaint about yet another story of a type that there had recently been a lot of. That seems to be the most common thing that causes people to decide that this time, HN has really jumped the shark.
Sometimes sites get onto themes. Lately one theme has been prominent bloggers who are quitting blogging. Don't worry, though. There probably won't be that many more.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=244937
It's interesting that this too was a complaint about yet another story of a type that there had recently been a lot of. That seems to be the most common thing that causes people to decide that this time, HN has really jumped the shark.
Sometimes sites get onto themes. Lately one theme has been prominent bloggers who are quitting blogging. Don't worry, though. There probably won't be that many more.
There will always be people that don't like a site's content. If that is the case, I feel they should try to help add better content. Hacker News is still a small enough community where the actions of 1 person can be felt throughout the whole thing.
Also, a fair amount of people seem to care that this is happening, so why wouldn't it get on the front page? It seems to me that the submission guidelines are somewhat flexible to account for this sort of thing.
Also, a fair amount of people seem to care that this is happening, so why wouldn't it get on the front page? It seems to me that the submission guidelines are somewhat flexible to account for this sort of thing.
Also a list of public blog-quitters so we can ridicule them when they change their minds: http://calacanis.com/2008/07/11/official-announcement-regard... http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100301/lets-take-this-offline.... http://al3x.net/2010/03/02/hiatus.html