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Comment by jefftk | Hacker News Reader

As both a reader and a writer I disagree:

* A blog post is a snapshot: what did the author think at the time they wrote the post? If they change their mind or learn more, they write a new post and link forward and backwards. I know how to write for this environment (write what I think now, try to write things I'll feel glad to have written later) and how to work with things other people have written (consider the date, it's just one person's view).

* A wiki page is unclear. When should it be updated? How much should I trust that it was up-to-date as of the last-updated date vs that just being when someone fixed a typo? A few wikis and sites with wiki-like approaches (Wikipedia, gwern.net) manage to handle this well, but I think it's generally much more difficult and rot-prone.

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And a blog could be updated as many times as you want! Suppose you wrote a post with some kind of a guide a few years that still gets a lot of views — you can still update that, and even re-publish it on your homepage.

This style is more popular with some media sites — e.g. journal.tinkoff.ru (in Russian) does this with their “instructional” posts — but I think it should work for personal blogs just as well.

For the love of deity, just include timestamps. It is incredible to me how many blogs do not include a date created or modified.

I've seen a number of blog posts that have eye-catching banners at the top that indicate that the post was either updated with new info, or say that the post is outdated with a link to a follow-up entry. Those are always nice to see since it shows that not only is the info up to date, but also that the author cares enough to keep their posts relevant to their audience

I think in modern times because you don't see it the same way you forget that a newspaper, magazine, encyclopedia, academic paper, and a reference book are different for a reason and do not have to be unified, and there was no need to do so. Having a way to publish contemporary articles vs building an effective knowledge reference are different goals. The physical print production was part of the language of intent. A blog with a contemporary note of an obscure Ubuntu upgrade issue is often the best way to describe it whereas a wiki with a current reference of now the fundamental baseline of relevance. A wiki eschews the most relevant details the same way an encyclopedia focuses on the core points. As a writer I need many formats and as a reader I cherish many formats.

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