Weblog entry #84 for Steve
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I've noticed that I've actually stopped making some of the changes on this site, for fear of people complaining.
This is a novelty.
It certainly is the case that if I make any significant change some people will complain. Usually I can either address their concerns, or believe I've done the right thing for the majority.
Sometimes I get into discussions where I'm either bad at expressing myself, or the other person seems to ignore what I'm trying to say. (this recent thread) but on the whole I think I'm doing a reasonable job.
So what brought this one?
Well I'm thinking of making a link from here to the commercial support site that I've previously mentioned. One concern that I had was that people would suggest this was a conflict of interest - which it might be. I just can't decide.
A few months ago when I had been sufficiently ill that I wasn't working for seven months I was seriously considering a posting a poll "Would you like to hire Steve: No/Yes/Yes if you move/Yes from home/This is a bad poll". In the end I didn't mostly because I "recovered".
When I had fewer visitors I would have been perfectly prepared to do that, but now? Now I think I have too many people to really get away with that kind of behaviour (especially now that polls have comments ;)
So what I'm wondering is if the same thing applies to the support idea?
I'll probably do it anyway, somewhere discrete, but it is interesting to reflect on the way that my feeling of ownership is changing. I no longer feel in charge, and the visitors count for even more than they previously did.
Comments on this Entry
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Regarding the Xen issue, I think for a community driven site, people write about what they know and what interests them. You like Xen and I see no problem in you writing about it.
If this site mutates into the single subject site that I'm not interested in then I wouldn't come back. However as I stated it's a community site, so I can contrinbute (as I have) to the diversity preventing it becoming a single issue site.
I think it's unreasonable for other people to expect you and a few other contributors to write about what they want - unless they are willing to pay for the work.
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PS I wonder would it ever be possible to migrate some of the work on this site up into the Linux Documentation Project?
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I've certainly no objection to the stuff that I've been writing to end up elsewhere, so the LDP wouldn't be a problem.
I'd guess though that most of the articles are either too specific, or too general to qualify though. (The markup is a lesser issue).
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People can link to whatever they like in their weblogs, or in comments.
I object to over-the-top commercial highlighting of peoples sites but otherwise I'm happy.
I might express opinions on some sites being poor, some being good, and some being amazing. But thats no different from what others could do.
I am however no longer going to discuss these things with anonymous commentors.
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Interesting.
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*shrugs*
There seem to be several anonymous commentors who complain about the way things are being run, or attacking volunteers. That is not a useful thing.
I'm happy for people to disagree with me. I'm happy to change things if people suggest simple improvements.
But I can't really respect somebody who offers criticism without being willing to put their name to it.
(I'm not suggesting you're doing that - although the previous baseless comment about other offsite links was obviously a result of some kind of bias..)
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I think overly aggressive marketing is off putting, but you have to make a living, and make the site pay for itself (or nearly so), so you'll draw the line at the right level (or we'll all go away).
How come Kernel developers are overwhelmed with job offers, but not Debian developers? I'd have thought DD skills were far more useful.
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I don't buy the argument that we all have to be entirely altruistic and not get any useful recompense from our community work lest we somehow sully it with commerce. As I'm currently trying to hire a developer, and want one who works on community projects, I'd be very glad to see such links on people's sites.
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Well on reflection I decided not to do it. There is a link on the front-page in the news section which will gradually fall off the page as more news is posted and I'll leave it at that.
Other advertising is appearing at Kuro5hin.org and elsewhere. Hopefully things will take off one way or the other, if not I'll not be too upset.
Since starting the new site I've got two customers which isn't too bad. Assuming those two are happy to keep me then I'm sure they'll help attract others over time ..
As for Debian Developers? I'm really not sure.
Some companies seem to hire them, but I think it is fair to say that the recruitment droids don't really know what to make of DDs when they are posting Linux positions, even on the rare occaisions where the use of RedHat isn't mandatory.
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