Ask HN: Does your personal page get any interaction?

17 points by kcindric 3 years ago | 15 comments

I'm slowly creating my website (using Hugo) were I can share my art and hobbies, practice writing in a non-native language (which is English) and have a slice of the Internet which I can call 'mine'.

Although it doesn't bother me much I was wondering what are other people experiences on having a website. Do you just have it without any particular interactions from other internet persons? Or you do have interactions and feedback to your content? Does it bother you if you don't get any hits or you maintain your website just for fun and you find it fulfilling?

docsuser3 3 years ago |

Great questions which I ask my self as well from time to time.

I write without the intend to generate much engagement. But sometimes you are the first to write on a small topic or problem and then people find your site and link it in forums. That definitely feels nice because you see that you are able to help others without much effort.

When I receive emails it is often regarding specific implementation details on my work or stuff that I referenced. Others are just sending a note that they found something really helpful or liked some of my photography. And then there people who think that you really enjoy solving their problems for them.

In general I like any interaction with anyone who wants to discuss topics that I wrote about. It is not that common that two people have exactly the same problem or have an interest on the same topic AND they make the effort to write an email about it to someone. I learned quite a lot from others this way.

However for my personal peace of mind I never view the Webserver statistics to see the number of page views. I did that in the past but it changed my motivation to be rather extrinsic and my mood to be rather pessimistic. I ditched social media exactly because of this toxic quantification of my personal work. I recommend to you the same because, especially in the beginning, the number of page views that are not yours will be 0. That is something that should not bother you.

For anyone who is interested, here is my small Hugo based site: https://ayeks.de/

qudat 3 years ago |

I wrote an article about this recently.

I used to write for other people to read it. I learned after awhile that writing for other people diluted my thoughts and resulted in me not having a clear voice in my writing. Something about accommodating the average reader that really suppressed my thoughts. Now I write for myself and if it resonates with others then so be it.

The result is that my articles have hit the FP multiple times since the mental switch.

egberts1 3 years ago |

No analytics

No comment section.

No JavaScript. But I use CSS intensively.

No AES in TLSv1.3, just Cha-Cha (breaks older Chrome)

The way it supposed to be.

https://Egbert.net

gcau 3 years ago | |

I'm using the latest chrome version on android, and your site does not load. (ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH)

egberts1 3 years ago | | |

Precisely. Your Chrome must be broken and arguably intentionally so.

You will find that my web server does not offer any AES algorithm option in which for a Chrome web client to currently get twisted into a knot over.

Oppositely, you will find nearly all other web clients able to handle these non-AES algorithm of TLSv1.3 server option quite well.

Web clients like Aloha, Brave, curl, DuckDuckGo, Edge, Firefox (any), Firefox Focus (iOS), LibreFox, links (CLI), Lynx, OnionBrowser (iOS), Opera, Orion (iOS), Safari, SeaMonkey, TorBrowser, Vivaldi, and wget all work well without any AES algorithm in TLS v1.3.

This is my website’s way of doing things that the TLS v1.3 spec allows us to do.

And I play with maximum cyber security.

kradeelav 3 years ago |

The only interaction my art page gets is a little javascript hit counter like the old web used to have - just knowing there's a certain number of people in the thousands* that have seen it at all brightens the mood.

Glad you're making a personal page for your art, by the way. :) Social media to a vast majority of artists is toxic, and there's a spark of individuality in personal pages that many people are hungry for. I'll be checking out yours.

(*I'm sure a large number are bots, but since I get some lovely personalized emails from the humans, the number itself doesn't matter in the end of the day.)

_bramses 3 years ago |

Yes and no!

Case 1: a few posts of mine go viral and land on the front page on HN or Reddit and I get a few to ten thousand ish views. Those days I get three to four emails from people on my contact form and we have a brief convo

Case 2: I have a few tutorials that have been linked back across the web and receive daily traffic from Google.

Outside of those two cases, most of my posts get little to no traction. My analytics are public [1] so you can see an example if you’re curious!

[1] - https://plausible.io/bramadams.dev?period=year

Lacerda69 3 years ago |

>you maintain your website just for fun and you find it fulfilling?

This.

Also I use it as a public repository of information I either often forget and have to look up again or want to have accessible everywhere easily (for example recipes, restaurant recommendations and git conmands)

Ultimalely I just like tinkering on a website without pressure to perform well in aspects that are business relevant.

arthurdd 3 years ago |

My site is mainly for my own entertainment, and I've only been contacted a handful of times with nearly 20 years running it.

It is probably helpful to present a competent image when job searching. It shows you can develop and run a site, and that you have interests of your own.

y42 3 years ago | |

Same here. I don't do any SEO, so my site runs under the radar and that is a good thing, because more traffic means more responsibility. It's just for showing off my skills, like when I'm looking for a new job, and playing with technologies. Right now every now and then someone leaves a comment, but that's it.

carolinedfrasca 3 years ago |

I get very little interaction (maybe one or two emails over the past five years) and basically maintain it just for job application purposes (I've noticed a decent amount of technical positions ask for a personal website)

justusthane 3 years ago |

I keep my site mostly for my own enjoyment and reference, and don’t run any analytics. Very occasionally I’ll get an email from someone who found something helpful, and it makes my day.

derekzhouzhen 3 years ago |

Some interaction are very useful, such as comments. However, I won't allow 3rd party javascript on my websites. It is a problem for static sites; So I made https://roastidio.us for exactly this situation.

The idea is simple: You merely link to my site, and ask your visitors to leave comments there. Comments will be emailed to you, with user identity redacted and rate limited. You can reply to the constructive comments on my site and ignore the trolls.