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Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I'm not sure what's so great about this blog post. John - you can write productive, constructive, informative and even inspiring blog posts. This is not it. Please write more of your other kinds of blog posts.

This post is no more worthy of praise than the tweets it quotes.

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I understand. People always want me to be "productive, constructive, informative and even inspiring".

Every once in a while I also like to bitch.

Another important consideration is that in order to write lots of blog posts (some of which you have enjoyed) I have to write a lot. Some will be hits, others misses. But I can't only write the good ones, I have to write to practice and to keep the flow.

> People always want me to be "productive, constructive, informative and even inspiring".

They can't complain, they aren't paying for it. ;-)

That's what drinks in the piazza/bar/whatever are for, no?

I guess the fault lies with whoever voted it up.

My guess is that the upvotes are more about telling people who have social media codependency to shut up rather than the particular rant about how they're bitching about something they're not paying for, but I could be wrong.

I'm sick of the social media explosion and will be glad when most of this crap dies and we're left with a few players that allow me to have meaningful exchanges or keep up with people, etc.

HN is my piazza

You should come visit a real one here in Italy - drinks are on me, and it's a lot more fun than HN in many ways. If you want to expense it in terms of research for cool geek things, Padova was Galileo's home for the 'happiest years of his life', and there is a tower he supposedly used for observations. Also, the first operating theater was built in Padova in 1594. Other illustrious people associated with the University here include Fallopio (yes, that one), and Federico Faggin - pulled out of my head at random.

Early morning devil's advocacy:

Why are you allowed to complain about other people's free content? You weren't paying for the content they provided where they complained about outages, surely?

Or was a mild irony an intended part of the article?

In addition, if they are being "used", shouldn't they vote with their feet to be "used" by another site (read: evil boyfriend) that treats them better and gives them shinier things? The first step in that is voicing their discontent so other suitors get the hint.

/advocacy

For what it's worth, I also much prefer your less negative articles-- more hit than miss usually. But, well... I can't complain.

Don't worry, I've got plenty of other interesting things to write about. Normal (expected) service will be resumed shortly.

In the meantime, we are all complaining about the downtime in normal services.

That made me laugh. I've got the message! :-)

Why are you allowed to complain about other people's free content?

Are you suggesting he is not allowed?

If time is money, then time spent using a service is still an investment made in that service regardless of any currency changing hands. Plus, making a free service doesn't make you immune from criticism.

> Are you suggesting he is not allowed?

You misunderstand-- that line comes from shifting the original author's opinion back at his own complaint. The devil's advocate I channeled doesn't really have an opinion of its own.

The point is that it's somewhat worth noting that complaining about someone else's complaints hints at self-contradiction.

[Aside: I guess sometimes other people use the "devil's advocate" voice for their own opinions? Not in my circles-- it's always used for giving a view that may be contrary (or different) from your own for logical discussions and/or debate.]

Certainly I personally have no opinion/say on what he's allowed to talk about. Though I do admit a preference for positive or neutral topics over negative ones.

  > I guess sometimes other people use the "devil's advocate" voice
  > for their own opinions?

I think that sometimes people use it in a "don't shoot the messenger, this is just food for thought" way when opposing a statement (i.e. being non-confrontational). But, in general, it is best used when you are presenting beliefs that are not your own (i.e. a way of distancing your personal beliefs from what you are saying, in an effort to spawn discussion/present an oppsing viewpoint/etc).

People complaining on the internet is probably the one problem least likely to be alleviated via complaints on the internet. Furthermore, any argument you can construct about why its okay to complain about people complaining would apply equally to the original complainers (it's not like you were paying for them not to complain).

Just like in WarGames the only sensible strategy is to not participate.

This an honest question: why do you have the goal to write "lots of blog posts", as opposed to focusing on quality and/or fun? Regarding your recent Ask HN about monetizing your blog that made you remove the ads, that can't be the reason.

I write to practice writing, not for ads (as you rightly say I dropped all external advertising from the site). I think you have to keep writing to get better at it and I don't believe it's an always monotonically increasing process of quality. Sometimes there'll be misses.

That's not to say I post anything. I doubt you care about my opinion of Katie Price.

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