The problem
However, there is one aspect of blogs that I don’t like: They lead to an obsession with new content. Some blog authors have made it a rule not to update posts that are older than a few weeks. Seeing the date of creation for posts is great (I wish all web pages provided this meta-data), but there is a risk of dismissing good content, simply because it’s old. Redistributing old posts tends to be frowned upon at collaborative news sites such as Reddit or Hacker News.Furthermore, navigating blogs is often difficult, because there is little structure. If you are lucky, posts are well categorized, but even that falls short of proper instructions on where to start reading. Such instructions are especially important for people new to a blog, who want to catch up on existing content.
A partial solution
For 2ality, I took several measures that hopefully neutralize some of the disadvantages of blogs. I often update old blog posts. I link from new posts to related old content and I link from old posts to relevant new posts (e.g. follow-ups). And I have written “guides”, maps to my blog that readers can easily follow.Additionally, I think we need more content management systems that are a cross between a blog and a wiki – blikis. Martin Fowler describes blikis as follows:
So I decided I wanted something that was a cross between a wiki and a blog – which Ward Cunningham immediately dubbed a bliki. Like a blog, it allows me to post short thoughts when I have them. Like a wiki it will build up a body of cross-linked pieces that I hope will still be interesting in a year's time.My ideal bliki would be a wiki with extensive support for structuring and navigating content. There would also be a blog-like feed of new content. That feed could include major rewrites of existing content.
2 comments:
Not so easy for technical blogs, IMHO. The hack can be valid for that time only and not necessary anymore as well as the info could be outdated because things changed. Would you rewrite that old article from the scratch or write a new one? I bet the latter one would be preferred. I have code that works down to IE4 in my blog as well as things discussed outside the blog and re-discussed in the blog itself but I agree posts should be updated at least when it's obvious the info is misleading or is wrong. After years, I feel like this is more a search engines matter and not a blogger one.
This is indeed an important thing.
The most important reason I started a blog was to be able to find back information that is otherwise hard to get at. If I wasn't the original source of information, most of my blog entries contain links to it (and repeat the most important stuff, just in case of link rot).
So, basically it is somewhat structured pile of information, and a bliki would be the perfect thing for it.
On the other hand: the post date does indicate some form of "age" which - for old posts - should get people to be aware that the information *might* be dated.
Note: I do try to both point from new posts to old posts and back (:
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