[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Finally ready to share my personal work, how...
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Ask HN: Finally ready to share my personal work, how to manage
expectations?
After several fruitful exchanges here on HN, I think I'm finally
ready to start putting some of my personal work out there into the
real-world! My original "plan" (ie grand scheme) was to have
everything figured out and perfected and then publish it all at
once, fireworks and all. Needless to say I no longer think that's a
good idea... So with a slow start, I don't expect there to be any
audience for probably quite some time, and I'm okay with that
(it'll give me time to play around anyway). But then, what else
does one do besides regularly posting content? Where does one get
quality, honest feedback? With so little feedback, how does one
know if the content's any good? And if one upholds to high
standards (which I do), how can one present their work to reputable
individuals without getting "sympathy" feedback? All of which then
makes me wonder: What sets the successful "creators" apart from the
rest? Quality? Timing? Luck? Network? Sorry there's a lot of
unknowns as I've never done anything like this before (in fact this
was probably why I had avoided sharing personal work for so long).
So for those of you who have been on this path: What's been your
experience? What worked for you and what didn't? How did you manage
to get good feedback? Do you know of any good resources (books,
articles, etc) that cover this topic? Thanks so much in advance!
:)
Author : samh748
Score : 78 points
Date : 2022-04-15 08:56 UTC (1 days ago)
| charliebwrites wrote:
| Expect to not get much of any response!
|
| I finally bit the bullet and started writing a blog [1] following
| my experiences in tech, and some tips I picked up along the way.
|
| I was so worried I'd get cancelled or have to deal with trolls or
| otherwise just have a wave of "constructive" criticism drowning
| me once I launched.
|
| As it turned out, I got maybe a few hundred views, a few likes,
| and basically nothing else.
|
| Don't sweat it, it turns out it's actually really hard for
| something you make to go viral.
|
| Just create for the sake of following your passions, and relax
| knowing that you'll probably be just fine. :-)
|
| [1] https://medium.com/@TestingInProd
|
| ^ My blog for anyone who's interested
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've been doing this for a very long time.
|
| I have dozens of repos, and very few stars.
|
| I really couldn't care less. I'm writing software for my own use.
| I use it all the time. It allows me to do things like write
| entire apps in minutes.
|
| The reason that I "put it out there," is that it forces me to
| cross my t's, and dot my i's. If I am publishing a supported
| package, then I do a _seriously_ good job on things like
| documentation and testing. When all my dependencies are top-
| shelf, there 's a damn good chance the aggregate is also gonna be
| good.
|
| But I'm actually fairly happy that no one uses it. I'm no longer
| looking for work, so its value as portfolio material is reduced.
|
| And I already know that it's good. I don't need anyone else to
| act as a judge. There's stuff I can do better (My stuff has a
| noticeable improvement, over time), but it's a recipe for misery,
| expecting fair judgment from other techs. They'll do things like
| smear your work, because you don't use their favorite _buzzword
| du jour_.
|
| The proof is in the using. I eat my own dog food, and often
| expose issues in my own work. If others use my stuff, I
| appreciate bug reports, and also use things like the questions
| they ask to refine my supporting docs.
|
| Good luck!
| kubanczyk wrote:
| OP probably means essays, not software (e.g.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30976497). But your answer
| still stands.
|
| > it forces me to cross my t's, and dot my i's
|
| In open source you are supposed to cross the i's and dot the
| t's. /s
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Same goes for my essays (reading comprehension. I've heard of
| it). I have quite a bit of prolix rambling out there.
|
| I like the /s...
| PradeetPatel wrote:
| I don't think the sarcasm is warranted. It has been
| established that by putting your own work on the Internet,
| you are opening yourself up to be scrutinised by potential
| employers, therefore it is essential to present yourself in
| the best light possible.
|
| Good technical writing structure, alongside grammar and
| spelling is also is a hallmark of professionalism, a good
| skill to hone for career progression.
| tlb wrote:
| Since it seems like your work is about a big shift in thinking,
| it will require people to spend a lot of time before they start
| to grok the important ideas. So you need to keep them on board
| long enough for big ideas to seep in. So you need to work on
| keeping it engaging and relatable. Sort your ideas by
| palatability, and start with the most palatable.
|
| Impose on a few friends first to read and comment on drafts. They
| can help identify the rough edges that will discourage other
| readers with less commitment.
| egypturnash wrote:
| _What sets the successful "creators" apart from the rest?
| Quality? Timing? Luck? Network?_
|
| In the world of independent comics, my experience is that it is
| all of these. Regularly put out decent stuff that you enjoy doing
| and the followers will slowly climb. Doing fan-art of popular
| stuff you like can give you boosts, but can also be a trap.
|
| Being there at the right time helps, but you're not gonna be
| there at the right time with exactly what the moment demands
| without being there at the wrong time with a lot of okay work
| beforehand. Luck is the same - the more opportunities you have
| for long shots, the more likely it is for one of them to finally
| hit.
|
| Good feedback comes from a mix of your peers and your fans. Share
| WIPs with both. Good feedback can also come from pros - in the
| world of comics for instance, you can go to a convention and get
| in line for a portfolio review, both at "major" publishers[1] and
| the occasional grizzled pro who just likes to give back to the
| community by doing this for anyone interested.
|
| Networking comes largely from people who entered the same field
| at the same time as you and became some kind of friend. The ones
| you're always delighted to hook up with for a drink/hangout/bitch
| session with when you're at the same con are the ones who will be
| most likely to pass on any powerful connections they manage to
| make[2]. You should be happy to return the favor of course!
|
| 1: DC and Marvel and the like, who are _actually_ pretty small
| fish when you compare their output to the massive amount of books
| moved in kid 's-comics channels - I think my friend Dana recently
| said she sold more _Phoebe and her Unicorn_ over the past year
| than Marvel sold across their entire line of comics 2: for
| instance, you can bet I 'm gonna be asking Dana to have a look
| over the YA SF graphic novel I've been working on when it's done
| and see if there's anyone at her publisher she'd be willing to
| pass it on to!
| bruce511 wrote:
| For context I have been programming for 40 years, professionally
| for 30.
|
| In my experience programmers have to travel through 3 stages (not
| all get to stage 3).
|
| 1. You code to prove to yourself that you can
|
| 2. You code to prove to others that you can
|
| 3. You don't need to prove anything anymore, so now you code for
| utility (ie earning a living etc.) At this point the code is not
| the goal, the goal is something else -the code is a way to
| achieve that goal.
|
| It's important to work through these steps - it's hard to jump to
| step 3 without "earning your chops" along the way. Those
| foundations are what make step 3 effective.
|
| I say this for you to set the context of where you are at. You
| are not your code. your code is not perfect. You will always look
| back on "old" code (like from 6 months ago) and feel you can do
| better. That's called growth and it's a good thing. If you look
| back and your code from 5 years ago is "perfect" then either
| you're not growing, or you've peaked :)
|
| Interestingly I also say this so you can understand what "level
| 3" feedback you'll get. Mostly people don't care about your code,
| they care about utility. So in that sense you can expect utility-
| based feedback, not code-based feedback. It may be hard to hear
| about something you've worked so hard on, but for most of us the
| "code" is not the goal - utility is. It's like looking at the
| Mona Lisa, the painting is great, but I really don't care how
| many nights you spent painting it. Which can be tough to hear
| based on your doubtless effort and hard work.
|
| So skipping over the code part, you've presumably got some
| project that's offering some utility. You want to build an
| audience for that utility. Welcome to your next job. Turns out
| "build it and they will come" is a myth. "Selling" something to
| an audience is staggeringly hard. Ironically even more so when
| said offering is free. Ideally you have the audience before the
| product, but that's not how experience works.
|
| So, hopefully you can determine what kind of person would use
| your project. then you hang out where they hang out. You help
| them as much as you can. You build a reputation for helping them.
| You point to your project when it's truly the best fit. It takes
| time, and effort, to build reputation in this way. And along the
| way you try and keep the product itself as something people want
| to use, something they latch onto.
|
| So yeah, keep your expectations low, then drop them some more.
| It's a tough place to get started in, and I can predict that
| you'll almost certainly fail. But in failure you can learn, and
| that's important. The thing I'd say you might learn is that you
| need to build an audience before you build the tool. That's what
| I learned. But your experience will be your experience.
|
| I say all this not to discourage you, but to encourage you. You
| are on a journey, and you are seeing others already at their
| destination. That didn't happen overnight, and they likely walked
| a very hard road to get to where they are. Try and get
| satisfaction along the road - figure out what worked, and where
| you went wrong. Learn as much as you can from failure. Then do it
| all again :)
|
| Good Luck!
| rjh29 wrote:
| On what basis did you form that theory? I picked up programming
| as a child and have never wondered if I can do it, or cared if
| others knew I could do it, I have always been in step 3
| programming to solve problems. There must be a lot of other
| people like me.
|
| If anything I've regressed to step 1 20 years later after
| burnout, but that's another story :P
| exikyut wrote:
| Tentative thought experiment / question: similarly to how
| some people absolutely fly through curricular study and then
| crumble once they enter the non-perfectly-spherical non-
| vacuum-based real world, maybe you simply never had any
| significant/blocking issues with learning and integrating
| programming into practical settings (perhaps due to chance
| opportunity, IQ or other factors) until recently? Maybe it
| was a breeze until now, and everything's caught up after
| burnout...?
| [deleted]
| DarrenDev wrote:
| I think the YC mantra applies, even to code: "Build something
| people want"
|
| If your personal work isn't something that anyone is interested
| in, if it isn't something they want or can at least envisage
| someone wanting, then they're unlikely to spend time looking at
| it and offering genuine feedback.
|
| If all you're doing is scratching your own itch, and nobody else
| has that itch, then don't expect any feedback at all, even the
| sympathy variety.
| sokoloff wrote:
| A corollary of that is "you can't just guess what people want;
| you have to talk to them, try stuff, and iterate on your ideas
| to find out what people want."
| akomtu wrote:
| Beware that HN posts are very sensitive to timing: the same post
| may get 200 comments or 0, depending on when you post it.
| brudgers wrote:
| The most likely response is nobody notices.
|
| And those who notice mostly won't care.
|
| Because the world is big and full of lots of things and because
| people have habits and those mostly fill their days.
|
| On the positive side, nobody dies from bad landing page text,
| etc.
|
| What sets creators apart is that they create and create and
| create and when nothing sticks they create some more and when
| something sticks they create some more.
|
| The reward for work is more work.
|
| Good luck.
| [deleted]
| inetsee wrote:
| I remember hearing years and years ago that the reward for
| meeting an impossible deadline is that your next assignment has
| an even more impossible deadline.
| matsemann wrote:
| A great developer I used to work with used to push the clients we
| were consulting for with the line
|
| > _If you 're not a little bit embarrassed by what you're
| showing, you waited too long_
|
| The idea was to get rid of the "do everything in a big
| launch"-projects, and instead convert them to a mindset where we
| iteratively work on the solution and see what people want.
|
| I've been using that line personally for a long time, and think
| it works fine. Chances are you will get no traction at all in the
| beginning, so it's better to see if it's something people want to
| use before you polish it too much. Building stuff openly also
| often attracts some following over time, compared to a one-off
| launch.
| iamwil wrote:
| When you're starting out, you won't really get a lot of feedback.
| You first need to develop your own taste, so at least you know if
| you like what you wrote.
|
| Anyway, this might help you out:
| https://www.benkuhn.net/outliers/
|
| I think if you're looking for success, you just have to do a
| large body of work.
|
| Ira Glass says the same thing in different words.
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ira+glass+the+c...
|
| I always say, behind every masterpiece are a thousand sketches.
| gradschool wrote:
| I'm not at all religious but good advice is where you find it.
|
| "If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then
| love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and
| despise self is the best and most perfect counsel. To think of
| oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others
| is the best and most perfect wisdom."
|
| -- Thomas `a Kempis
| samstave wrote:
| fULL BRAIN DUMP, DISREgard any formatting or anything ; this is a
| thought stream ;
|
| So I have just come upon an epiphany and a revelation to the
| product we have just built.
|
| This product is both an (data) weapon for and a cure from (to
| ailing technologies) ;
|
| ---
|
| The thing is, that to get here took DECADES of trying, iteration,
| design, mtgs, discussions, rejections, hurts (other YCs going
| with aspects of what we achieved, but profiting off it years
| after we applied)... etc...
|
| --
|
| KEEP GOING.
|
| I have LITERALLY just this HOUR realized how our prduct is going
| to either:
|
| 1. Disrupt
|
| 2. Piss off
|
| 3. Profit
|
| 4. Get assassinated for.
|
| --
|
| KEEP PUSHING
|
| It takes more than timing... timing is LAST.
|
| You need all the supportive network in hand FIRST
|
| (So youre telling me timing is first?)
|
| No, but yes.
|
| Timing is a few thing.
|
| First you need to recognize the problem, devise a soolution...
|
| THEN
|
| You need to DETERMINE the best TIME for launch... (and that
| weighs in all the other bullshit)
|
| (When to seek patents, funding, VC, Viral Interest, Traction
| etc...
|
| All of these factors matter --- but Never stop striving to
| deliver.
| nullbytesmatter wrote:
| This reads like a manic episode.
| rr808 wrote:
| Put some tracker on so you can see traffic growth over time, and
| who is linking to you. I suspect putting ads on helps your search
| ranking but who knows.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > Put some tracker on
|
| Ah yes, HN loves that and nobody here blocks those to skew the
| results.
|
| > I suspect putting ads on
|
| Really, you recommend that in a thread about managing
| expectations? If you want to lower your expectations then this
| is surely a good idea.
| ackbar03 wrote:
| What expectations?
| karaterobot wrote:
| The source of the most useful feedback is a potential customer
| with a reputation for rudely telling people "how it is", and a
| ton of knowledge about the domain, and no reason to be nice to
| you. The worst source of feedback is your friends and family,
| especially if they aren't knowledgeable potential customers.
|
| Good feedback: "Why would I pay for your product? I wrote a bash
| script that does everything you do already. Do you have [feature
| x]? I'd pay [$y] for that."
|
| Bad feedback: "This is so cool! I could see myself using this if
| I needed to."
| faangiq wrote:
| Expect no one will care.
| lucb1e wrote:
| This, unfortunately.
|
| The more work you put into something, especially if it was very
| difficult and you were uniquely qualified, the less likely it
| is that anyone cares. It just becomes more niche.
|
| Most of the times when I put effort into something, nobody
| cares. That's okay, it just puts an upper bound on how much
| effort I do before it's not worth the chance of reward. Other
| times I slap together a page in 2 minutes and thousands of
| actual people click through, more people than I could ever
| really get to know.
|
| Good stuff does get higher quality attention than low effort
| stuff, but that doesn't mean good stuff necessarily resonates
| with more people. Being prepared for little traction,
| especially if you put a lot of work into something, is
| unfortunately the best expectation to have, until you get a
| feeling for how likely something is to succeed and you also get
| some intuition for what works (though, even then, it fails most
| of the time). The trick is to keep putting things out there
| anyway and not give up.
| q-base wrote:
| Unfortunately this is probably the most likely scenario. And in
| turn also the hardest to handle.
| mplanchard wrote:
| On here, I'd expect that if anything you post does get traction,
| a fair number of people will question whether it should even
| exist, whether it's done well, etc., often in a pretty
| condescending way. Sometimes it'll be legitimate feedback, and
| sometimes it'll be ignorant.
|
| Plenty of people will be nice and constructive, but I often feel
| for the people posting their work on here given how harsh the
| community can be.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Isn't the harshness you mention precisely why it's worth
| posting here?
| Flankk wrote:
| FWIW I never posted on Show HN because I know what assholes
| people are here. The app is going strong anyways so nothing
| of value was lost.
| hluska wrote:
| No, adults are usually capable of providing constructive
| feedback without being harsh. We generally learned that
| somewhere in our mid teens.
|
| This 'criticize people to death' shit should embarrass
| everyone here. We can be better.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| What's this "we" shit?
| mplanchard wrote:
| It's very possible to give constructive, honest feedback
| without being a jerk. It's that constructive feedback that
| makes it worth posting here.
|
| On the other hand, I don't think the condescension or
| arrogance that's fairly common on this site improves it at
| all, no.
| Underphil wrote:
| I would agree with that. I've lurked here for a long time
| and it seems that constructive feedback gets upvoted a lot
| less than useless posts like "what's the point in this?".
| tomcam wrote:
| Agreed. Posting something here will almost always force
| you to up your game, but there is an incredible amount of
| callousness in the commentariat on HN.
| georgebarnett wrote:
| Many people are not yet skilled at giving feedback.
|
| Many will improve, with guidance.
|
| Those that don't will blunder along, wondering why they
| can't make it in the world.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| Maybe we need to figure out how to give feedback to
| people giving feedback. And that feedback will need to be
| structured such that it doesn't just get dismissed
| immediately.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| Yeah, I just posted a short opinion piece from my personal blog
| on here and was surprised to see someone criticize it first as
| clickbait and then because I didn't cite any sources or
| scientific research.
|
| Then again, maybe HN being especially critical helps keep the
| quality of submissions high.
| Msurrow wrote:
| Like when dropbox was first presented posted here on HN (before
| it was called dropbox), and the the top comments were all like
| "pssch.. no one will ever use that. Just use rsync". A HN
| classic
|
| Edit - to op: post it because you find it interesting to work
| with and ignore all the know-it-alls. Maybe people will care,
| maybe not, but whatever. Do it because you like it.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It's part of timing the market. Dropbox wouldn't have the
| market fit 5 or 10 years before. As people have become less
| technical and as devices multiplied and as people became more
| willing to spend on this category of customer products it
| became a winner.
|
| Rsync is easy for those who used it. That number (people who
| knew rsync) declined but less so here. Hn users were not
| natural customers but even that changed
| otras wrote:
| Just in case you (or others) haven't seen it, I'd recommend
| dang's comment from around a year ago about the Dropbox
| comment in question:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148
| alasdair_ wrote:
| "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
| abirch wrote:
| You're right most people are wrong but don't know how wrong
| they are. It took me 30 years to learn how frequently I am
| wrong. Just do The Four Agreements from the eponymous book
| (the book's not worth the read IMO)
|
| 1. Be Impeccable With Your Word. 2. Don't Take Anything
| Personally. (Most people are wrong) 3. Don't Make
| Assumptions. 4. Always Do Your Best.
| QuikAccount wrote:
| This is a tangent but why do you think The Four Agreements
| is not worth reading. Its been on my reading list for a
| while.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| I thought the book was good, but I listened to the
| audiobook narrated by Peter Coyote which was excellent.
| orbifold wrote:
| I've struggled tremendously with this for years and many ideas I
| had either have ended up not being published or just forgotten.
| By now I'm the co-author of ~16 (peer-reviewed or in review...)
| papers, with varying time investment, contributions and success.
| I still haven't published any informal writing under my own name,
| but co-lead the development of a moderately successful software
| package.
|
| My recommendation would be to focus on one idea or one project
| and figure out whether you understand the problem space and the
| existing solutions well enough that you are sure that what you
| are doing meaningfully improves or goes beyond the current way of
| doing things. If it does, people with the same problem will take
| notice, give feedback etc. Some of the research papers I was
| involved in even lead to several job offers, invitations to give
| talks, interviews and quotes in popsci literature etc. (and
| briefly were on the front-page of this site). Twitter is
| surprisingly useful for this purpose as well, although of course
| this sort of already implies you have an existing network of
| people that know you or know what you are working on.
|
| Of course peer-reviewed scientific contributions might be on the
| extreme end of content production. But at least to some degree my
| guess would be a similar logic applies to the creation of other
| content as well. Beginning with an idea, the idea has to pass
| through several filters for it to be considered worthy of a
| research effort and ultimate publication. Ideally you should be
| able to scrutinise an idea yourself, maybe do a prototype or
| begin writing a few paragraphs based on the premise of a piece. I
| regard ideas as separate from the actual manifestation in writing
| or code, however it can be extremely difficult or impossible to
| get an idea into a concrete instantiation. Ultimately you should
| be able to trust your own aesthetic or scientific judgement
| first, otherwise any kind of negative feedback can deter you.
|
| I also strongly believe that quality is really the first thing to
| focus on, producing high quality content quickly should be a
| secondary optimisation goal, because as you gain experience, you
| will (hopefully) be able to naturally produce high quality
| writing / content with less effort and time investment. People
| will be able notice attention to detail and especially in the
| case of software you have to assume that for every issue that is
| raised a larger number of people encountered the same issue and
| never returned.
|
| If you are primarily intending to write, there obviously is no
| better way to get better at writing than to actually write. Even
| if most of what you write you do not intent to publish.
|
| There is more to be said, but in any case I can only encourage
| you to start. Since I have had a moderate amount of success in
| some instances, it has given me confidence to more freely share
| other work.
| dceddia wrote:
| The pithy answer is that honestly, the most likely outcome of
| posting work online is... nothing happens. It's a lot of
| sustained effort over time to grow an audience, and the 'time'
| part is usually crucial here. Dropping 50 blog posts or a repo
| full of finished projects on day one _very probably_ won't have
| the same effect as posting those 50 things over the course of a
| year, because nobody knows you yet.
|
| Start publishing stuff, try to share it around, keep expectations
| super low, and try to enjoy the journey :) One concrete book rec
| is Amy Hoy's Just Fucking Ship. I feel like it might resonate.
| em-bee wrote:
| it depends on what the work is. if it is something interesting
| for the hackernews crowd you'll get some initial feedback here.
| use that and take it from there.
|
| if you can't attract the readers here, then you'll have to search
| where communities are that might be interested in your work.
| research that and then seek feedback in the places you find.
| AlexDragusin wrote:
| Personally, I share my work to see how it is received (including
| here), any reaction, including silence is useful and allows for a
| better perspective.
|
| However, never let it get to you though when you don't see the
| reaction you potentially imagine. I think it's important to set
| that mindset from get go.
|
| Starting slow is likely a better idea since you would not run out
| of material from the start when most people will pass by without
| taking much interest, just the way of the world.
|
| Lastly and most importantly, keep doing what you love, people
| come and go (especially the online variety), your passion is with
| you for life. Keep at it!
| LaMarineta wrote:
| LaMarineta wrote:
| Barrera wrote:
| > But then, what else does one do besides regularly posting
| content?
|
| That's the most effective approach. But there's a frame of mind
| that goes with it. And that mental frame isn't in it for the
| upvotes or likes, but quality. You can't control reception or
| even commercial success of your work. But you can control the
| quality of what you create.
|
| This is hard, though, because it's easy to use quality as an
| excuse to never publish anything. So a key element of success is
| knowing what's "good enough." And there's no way to figure that
| out without publishing something because it's the first step in
| getting responses to what you've created.
|
| > What sets the successful "creators" apart from the rest?
|
| The successful creators have defined success in a way that they
| are capable of achieving. How would you define it?
| dwt204 wrote:
| You have some really responses to your question. There may be
| more coming, but with what you have here, it is a goldmine of
| great anecdotes,stratgies,tactics and facts. Good luck.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > How to manage expectations?
|
| Simple. Don't make your project public for others but for
| yourself.
|
| Sure, ask for feedbacks, and be nice to those who offer it. But
| don't obsess about it. If somebody is justly critical of your
| work, thank them for the time they took to tell you about it. And
| honestly tell them you weren't aware of it and will learn and fix
| it when you get the time (if you are interested in doing so). If
| somebody asks for a feature, consider whether you really want to
| create that feature and have the time to do it. If not, don't be
| afraid to say no.
|
| If you don't get any feedbacks, don't be disheartened. _You will
| get feedbacks only when your product finds an audience_ and
| becomes popular. And you have to _promote_ your product for it.
| But the quality of your product has nothing to do with this
| second aspect - popularity. TextPattern has / had better code
| quality than WordPress, but WordPress became more popular. Python
| has always been better than PHP, but PHP was wildly more popular
| than it in the beginning. Which brings us to the second part:
|
| > What sets the successful "creators" apart from the rest?
|
| 1. They _complete_ their project without letting perfectionism
| get in their way. 2. They are good at promoting their product. 3.
| They are good at identifying the need of their users and
| addressing it. 4. They are good in collaborating with others. 5.
| They are not afraid to step back and stop working on a project
| when it stops being fun for them.
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| Good for you and good luck. Here's my thinking on an approach:
|
| What can happen? a) No one responds b) you get harshed on c)
| people communicate interest. You can't control b) so ignoreit, a)
| is the same result as not publishing anything but at least now
| you have a story. Put the effort into to making it easy for c).
|
| In terms of interest, what specifically are you looking for in
| response to putting the project forward? A response to the idea,
| or a response to the effort?
|
| In terms of the idea, tell your audience: - Who is "it" for,
| what's it for? If it's for you, generalize to people like you, eg
| "developers who are trying to keep track of their ideas" - What's
| the bet you are making? eg "it uses clustering to group ideas
| that you can then label as themes" - What would you like to know?
| eg "would this help you?, or how do you organize your notes and
| ideas now?"
|
| In terms of the storytelling, lead with a demo or example that
| shows it doing something. If the code's not all there yet, mock
| that up. Above all, show what it does.
|
| In terms of the effort, it's telling us the idea plus: - How does
| it work? eg "I used X Y and Z. It does A B and C". - How I solved
| it: eg" The hard part was designing A, where I first tried this,
| and then that, and what worked was this other thing". - What I
| don't know how to solve yet. This last thing the may be what gets
| you the most feedback, so don't bury that.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Patience. People do care, but it can take a while to reach them.
|
| My first solo project, "procedural audio" took 5 years research,
| 3 years writing a book and 10 years to convince the digital
| entertainments industry it was something worth considering. Many
| times along that road I just wanted to give up.
|
| > without getting "sympathy" feedback? "I
| listened for an echo and I heard only praise" -- Nietzsche
|
| Sometimes a kind word does help, but you will know genuinely
| useful feedback when it comes. It's more about connection and
| recognition.
|
| good luck
| bribri wrote:
| Find people you trust in your network to get feedback on before
| releasing
| personjerry wrote:
| The answer to your question is "don't expect anything at all". If
| you want to start thinking about building something people really
| want, then the audience comes before the product -- I recommend
| reading The Mom Test to get started on this journey.
| dusted wrote:
| Managing expectations is key as you suspect. It's important to
| remember that hundreds of talented people are putting out very
| high quality stuff every day, most of it is noticed by someone,
| but very little of it makes it into popular culture.
|
| When you've prepared a good home for your material (I have no
| idea what it is, writing? Music? Software? Something else?) then
| the work of getting people to it begins. For me, that means
| tweeting, chatting, "forumming" and generally being annoyingly
| plugging my stuff whenever I get the chance (and sometimes when I
| don't). You will likely receive very limited feedback from doing
| this, but it does help, and people will pick up your stuff
| eventually.
|
| I expect very little, the things I make are also not very good,
| so that's probably part of it. I get "feedback" by searching for
| my stuff online, and I'm pleased when I find it popping up in
| linux distros or discussion fora, or youtube videos. But that's
| about it.
| johnny35 wrote:
| You know if your content is good because over time you are able
| to build an audience that engages through whatever mechanisms you
| provide, and they pay you if you ask for money. Feedback can be
| one proxy for your heading, speed, and mass... but it's often
| inaccurate and always incomplete. Good luck and enjoy the journey
| - no one cares as much as you so you will need a base load of
| internally sourced motivation to stay committed for any
| meaningful duration.
| timdaub wrote:
| I run a blog with 200k clicks [1]. For me, so far it's been two
| things:
|
| 1. Working on yourself and actively trying to figure out why
| you're doing this. Inevitable, you'll land a viral hit and it'll
| feel great. But once it's gone, you'll be left with the same old
| feeling. So to sustain, I think it's necessary to understand why
| you're creating.
|
| 2. It's practicing in the arena. As a perfectionist myself, I
| love to be prepared and I hate being assessed by others. But the
| more you hit publish, the more you're learning and growing.
| You'll understand what content you can pull off, what people like
| and what you prefer.
|
| References
|
| - 1: https://plausible.io/timdaub.github.io?period=all
| davnicwil wrote:
| So first of all, good on you for publishing your work - the thing
| more important than anything else is that you _do_ - the rest of
| the conversation about feedback, outcomes etc is interesting but
| only matters once you have actually published / shipped. So get
| that done first, don't overthink it beforehand.
|
| A few other comments have mentioned that you really shouldn't
| expect anyone to care, and from those that do you should expect
| the majority of feedback to be negative - disagreements and
| nitpicks, etc.
|
| This is absolutely true and you should embrace it! I wrote a
| blogpost [0] about that which you might enjoy. That's one of my
| blogposts that did actually 'hit' and got to the front page of
| HN. You'll see in my blog that I've written a few that have.
| You'll also notice that my most recent post has _not_ and if you
| review my submission history you 'll see that I've really really
| tried to get it to! Including title changes, etc. I like it just
| as much as any other post I've written, but have concluded at
| this point that HN, or at least the people who review posts on
| the new page, just don't care about it or find it interesting.
| That's fine!
|
| If you review my submission history you'll also notice that my
| open source library react-frontload is a similar story. It's got
| about 450 github stars and a reasonable amount of people use it
| in their projects, but it's never, ever 'hit' on HN or anywhere
| else. Again, that is fine! I post it anyway every so often just
| to get it out there (I genuinely think it's a good tool and want
| people to find it!) but never really expect a different outcome
| to be honest. And I am sure even if it did hit, a majority of the
| feedback would be negative (and some of that quite useful).
|
| That's all to say, keep the expectation of nobody caring and
| negative feedback for most of everything you publish because
| that's mostly what you'll get. Occasionally, you'll be pleasantly
| surprised by something hitting, but I don't think that there is
| any particular strategy to it other than the obvious thing of
| trying to publish only things you think are genuinely useful and
| of course, just actually publishing!
|
| [0] https://davnicwil.com/negative-feedback-is-positive/
| analog31 wrote:
| So far I've gotten virtually zero views or downloads on my GitHub
| repo's. I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, I can forget about my 15
| minutes of fame. On the other, I've done my duty to society by
| sharing my work, but don't have to deal with bug reports or
| feature requests.
| LaMarineta wrote:
| LaMarineta wrote:
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I find two things helpful:
|
| 1. Learn to make judgment calls in the face of uncertainty.
|
| 2. Don't mistake attention for success.
|
| People are prone to liking something for reasons that benefit
| them. Their reasons for being interested may be actively hostile
| to your goals and welfare. So don't let _crowd reaction_ be
| overly important to you.
|
| It's information. But it's also incomplete information and you
| need to think about things like "Is this really serving my goals
| and interests?"
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