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Comment by xena | Hacker News Reader

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub (https://github.com/Xe/site) but I'm considering moving the writing to either a private repo or a SQLite database because people keep copying it, slathering it in ads and rehosting it.

EDIT: also because independent personal blogs are a rarity now, having a decent one means that you can really stand out from the crowd.

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> people keep copying it, slathering it in ads and rehosting it

Didn't occur to me that could be a thing, but of course it is. People suck.

Ad income without putting the work in, it's a dream come true for some.

> My blog is the main way that I get employed at this point.

I don't use my blog (https://medium.com/@parttimeben) to get employed, but it has helped me organize and document my thoughts. For example, when setting up a new machine, I've always needed to keep track of what I installed before, what worked and how I got it to work, etc. Sure, I can google this stuff again, but just writing about my experience helps a lot.

I'm actually writing to my future self!

Me too, but somehow people really like that. I don't get it either!

Hey I read your blog a lot and it's definitely one of the more impressive I've seen, I don't write much (yet) but the structure and style of xeiaso.net is something I admire and would like to emulate

Thanks for your blog! I've learned a ton of great stuff (especially about Nix / NixOS) and it's always fun to read.

Your blog looks awesome!

a) People who copy blogs could copy anything public.. correct? That shouldn't stop you from blogging.

b) By copying, did you mean they are forking your git repo & hosting it with a wrapper on top of your content?

I'm assuming it is (b) you are worried about.

Forking a repo is lot easier than scraping a blog and then re-hosting it. I think it's most probably (b) that OP is talking about.

I am talking about option B yeah. It's less frequent after I stopped using Dockerfiles to build the blog, but it happens sometimes. Sending a "can you don't" message to the person and their hosting provider usually gets them to stop though.

Thanks for writing these blogs! Always appreciated finding them here [1].

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

> because people keep copying it, slathering it in ads and rehosting it.

Never occurred to me that was a possibility, but wouldn't you know, my last two posts seem to have copies on other people's blog

Oh wow. This reply came at a great time as I've been at the beginning stages of grappling with the benefits of having a publicly available personal blog. I've always had starts and fits but never really gave it the time of day it deserved. I think I'll want to commit to it at this point. Best way I can think of achieving that (via Atomic Habits) is just to commit to writing the same time of day, everyday. Never even thought of the whole "It could help your employment prospects" angle.

I try to make something for my blog every week. This week is a dry week for the blog because I was working on my RustConf talk! I have an unused version of the talk that I'm probably gonna adapt into a blogpost. Keep an eye out :)

> private repo or a SQLite database because people keep copying it

Couldn't they just as easily scrape it from the site itself? Or is that too high a bar for type of scum we're talking about.

Any barrier makes them give up easier.

Nothing you do, aside maybe from putting it behind a login, will prevent your content from being ripped off. Its just a sad part of what we have to live with.

I was looking for inspo for my own blog the other day and saw yours as like the pinnacle of what a tech blog could look like.

Thanks for these blog posts! A couple of them are on the study guide we give to new hires who are new to Go.

read christine.website for a while! keep it up!

Your blog rocks!

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