A bad X is better than none

It is important that the knowledge we generate, whether experiences, opinions or solutions, does not get lost. We want to leave a mark for future reference and future generations. I think we can all agree that this is healthy for humanity to keep moving forward. However, the effort of building the internet, of creating spaces of wisdom that last for decades, is being diluted. If you don't believe me, let me pass you the ball: which platform do you write on the most? With the answer in hand: what would happen if that server, thread, subreddit or group shut down? It would most likely be lost, and nobody could benefit from that knowledge, not even you. This is not hypothetical: when Yahoo closed GeoCities in 2009, millions of personal pages vanished, and when Google pulled the plug on Google+ in 2019, years of conversations from entire communities disappeared. Only what the Archive Team volunteers managed to rescue against the clock survived. And here is an even more worrying question, one that completely breaks the open web: do you think that information can be read without an account?

I am not saying there is any malice involved, just comfort and the inertia that comes with our nature. We love to brag about using free software, or an open source operating system, but then we lock our knowledge and opinions away in closed platforms with an entry barrier, no hierarchy, no control and an expiration date. I recommend reading Discord servers are walled gardens by Siyang Sun, where he digs deeper into the subject. Think about it: if the developers of the Linux kernel, Debian, or any free software project that comes to mind, had used a platform like Slack, Telegram, Discord, X, etc. to debate and share knowledge, we would have lost decades of computing history by now.

I understand that walled gardens, or private platforms, are comfortable. You can share, debate and read documentation without setting up any infrastructure, with a super fancy smartphone app. Besides, all your friends are already there, and you will probably get a quick answer. Here I would like to mention the famous article by Terence Eden, Discord is not Documentation, where he shares his personal experience. I am not trying to write a sequel to his article, but to encourage you to prioritize the permanence of knowledge over the neon lights of private platforms.

Now that you understand the problem, let's see how we can improve the situation.

A bad blog is better than none

You have control over your content, you can share it on other platforms and, most importantly, it is indexable and can be consulted over time. Don't hesitate to include an open comment system, or store the comments yourself. In my case, I receive comments by email, at a special address with an article id, and a cron job publishes them on the blog.

On the other hand, there are static site generators of all shapes and colors. If you don't want to complicate your life you can go for a CMS like WordPress, Ghost, Drupal, etc. If you want to go one level lower, there is the Gemini protocol, where you write in Gemtext.

And if you also offer the option of reading your articles in plain text or markdown with some header, you will earn yourself a place in developer heaven. For example, you can read this very article in markdown from your terminal:

curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://en.andros.dev/blog/cdc5a0bc/a-bad-x-is-better-than-none/

You will find the full instructions in llms.txt.

Microblogging social networks, like Mastodon, are not a substitute for a blog, but they are a good complement for visibility and debate. They could actually replace a traditional blog if you self-hosted one (like GoToSocial, Pleroma, etc.) and enabled search engine indexing. However, the effort of running a simple blog is minimal and the result is much more solid.

Don't get lost in the technology, create content and share it. And if you still have doubts, I recommend reading Why you should have a blog (and write in it) by Leticia Portella.

A bad forum (or mailing list) is better than none

Mailing lists are the present of the big free software projects. In fact, now that I think about it, they are where I end up spending most of my time debating and reading. I have met wonderful people thanks to them. And it makes perfect sense. They are hard to replace since they don't depend on a specific provider, the infrastructure is minimal, the content gets copied into the mailboxes of every participant, and HTML mirrors can be generated so anyone can read them. As I said in my introduction, thanks to them we have records of how different projects have evolved.

Of course, there are friendlier web options, such as Discourse, Flarum or the veteran phpBB. However, the effort is not in the software or the format, but in the community that sustains it: organizing, moderating, maintaining and giving visibility to the threads.

Discussion forums are the only place where you can dig deep into a topic over days, weeks or months. In a conventional chat, or social network, that would be much harder. Participating is an enriching experience: giving a nuanced, well-argued and documented answer is an exercise that makes you grow as a professional.

A bad messaging system is better than none

To have a conversation you have several approaches: email, IRC, XMPP, Matrix, etc. Each one with its pros and cons, but all of them serve the purpose of holding a conversation without depending on a specific provider. They are meant to be ephemeral, but that doesn't mean they have to be closed. They all share the same virtue: anyone can join the conversation with the client of their choice, without downloading the app of the day or giving away their phone number.

If a conversation becomes valuable, rescue it into your blog or the relevant wiki.

A bad wiki is better than none

A well-organized forum can be a wonderful wiki. Even a good blog. But when you need to collaborate on keeping information cohesive, with many authors and projects, the wiki is the format that works best. There is no open source project or company without one. And you can also set one up yourself for your notes, community or niche.

There is plenty of software available, such as BookStack or DokuWiki (which stores everything in plain text files). The most important thing is that it has a simple interface that encourages several authors to collaborate.

A bad link aggregator is better than none

Link aggregators are the public squares of the internet, where someone shares an article and a conversation grows around it. Hacker News or Lobsters are the most popular. Thanks to them you can find quality articles and, most importantly, a debate is generated that enriches the content. There are comments of incalculable value. A large part of the articles I read come from my visits to these aggregators.

You can set up your own Lobsters instance, or try Lemmy, but the most interesting thing is to participate in the discussions, contributing your point of view and reading everyone else's. You will get plenty of ideas for your projects and it will probably boost your creativity for the blog.

A bad git repository is better than none

On GitHub (or any other private git hosting), the code is free, but the conversation around it, like the issues or the pull requests, is not. If GitHub closed tomorrow, decades of technical debates, design decisions and solutions to problems would disappear with it. That is why the Linux kernel still works with patches sent by email over its mailing lists.

Ironically, the code is the only thing that would survive. Every clone is a complete copy with the full history. However, if you are the only developer, it would be a good idea to be independent. You don't actually need any external software: with git and the git init --bare command you can create a git repository on your server and let anyone clone it without an account. That said, a web interface like Forgejo or Gitea will help enormously.

A bad RSS/Atom feed is better than none

Practically all the previous points, except messaging, can be consumed through an RSS/Atom aggregator. It is the glue of the open web: blogs, forums, wikis, link aggregators and even Mastodon accounts expose a feed. It keeps us informed of what's new and, if the author is generous, lets us read the full content without leaving our reader.

Offering an RSS/Atom feed of your content is a gesture of generosity towards the community. It allows others to subscribe and receive your publications. In fact, feeds are being consumed more than ever these days. If your content is interesting, you will probably get more requests to your feed than visits to your website.

Without going any further, I offer two feeds, one per language: Spanish and English. And you can also filter by category by appending it to the end of the URL. For example, if you are only interested in my articles about Emacs:

https://en.andros.dev/blog/feed/en/emacs/

And as a personal favor: put your full content in the feed, not just a summary or the first paragraph. There is nothing more frustrating than finding a link that takes you to the website to finish reading. Don't be the walled garden of your own content!

Conclusion

Better a bad open source service controlled by you than a good private service managed by others. Stay away from trends and comforts, and give more value to making the content you share indexable, consultable and durable over time. Remember that every time you share/reply/consult/debate on a private platform, you pay a very high price:

• If the group/thread closes, everything disappears
• It is subject to moderation dictated by governments or companies
• You need an account to read or interact from the outside
• You cannot find or consult it from a web search engine
• It will be lost in time, maybe within minutes

AIs are a great ally for this. You can ask them to install things for you, or guide you, to set up a web server with a simple blog with an SSL certificate and your own domain, or a mail server with mailing lists, or a link aggregator, or a forum, or a wiki. And all of this without spending days reading documentation or outdated tutorials. It is no longer a problem of knowledge or complexity, but of the value you give to your content. If you also write in plain text (markdown, org-mode, gemlog, etc.), you will make it easier to preserve and migrate to other formats in the future. I recommend reading This Page is Designed to Last by Jeff Huang, as it gives some tips/rules to help your website survive for decades.