
Ask HN: Why don't people write more (from their expertise)? - sharps_xp
There is just so much expertise in people&#x27;s heads, and some much value can be added by just transferring that knowledge to a piece of paper&#x2F;documentation. ego? lack of incentives? job security? fear from being wrong? I don&#x27;t get it.
======
arenaninja
I have started writing blog posts on things I have gained technical expertise
in. I have no audience so really I write for the hell of it, but I do announce
it on my LinkedIn feed (but I have less than 100 connections).

There's also the fear that putting words in public opens me to criticism, if
someone can think of a better way of doing things, if my mental (or worse,
technical!) model is wrong. Someone may take it too far and it leaks onto my
personal life. In reality I see far worse practices than mine at work every
day, so I hope if someone stumbles onto my blog that they get value out of
whatever they read. It's also published with hugo on GitHub pages, absolutely
no ads, and I'm not selling anything - for me, the blog really is about giving
back.

Lastly, time. Today I knocked out a blog post on a light topic in about an
hour. No revisions, just finished writing it and hit publish. I thought of the
topic over the weekend and today was just put a few short examples and write
about them. I'm not positive that I was detailed enough, or my explanations
are good enough, etc. So time is another big factor, unless you're willing to
risk publishing mistakes due to lack of polish

~~~
kennxfl
Do you mind sharing your blog?

~~~
hluska
Staz was leading you in the right direction, only in a rather cryptic way.
According to the parent's profile, his/her blog is located at:

[https://charmeleon.github.io](https://charmeleon.github.io)

He or she is a good writer. Enjoy!

------
lucas_membrane
Main reason people do not write more is that those who spill a lot of ink
usually do so in vain -- anything longer than a sound-bite is not going to get
read carefully.

I always wrote trying to eliminate extra and meaningless words and phrases, so
that my emails and documentation would not contain much hot air. But my work
related to technical subjects and the world is complicated, so there is a
limit to what terseness can convey. My typical estimate of my accomplishments
trying to inform co-workers of my activities would be this:

I write 3 short paragraphs, say 10 sentences and 125 words to explain
something that I have done or planned and send it to 10 people who ought to
care. Two read only the subject line. Four scan it and three of those do so
too quickly and don't get the message. Two read the first paragraph and stop
there. Two read it, but only one gives it enough attention to get anything out
of it. Why bother?

------
tinktank
It's fricking hard to write. Writing well takes time, effort and patience.
Writing well as well as engagingly takes talent.

~~~
kennxfl
I feel that in an industry one has expertise on, it doesn't require much to
get started. Usually the writing is supposed to be specific and to the point.

------
drakonka
I used to blog almost daily. My motives were selfish - writing down things I
learned helped solidify and process them in my mind. Over time those things
helped other people who came across my posts as well.

Even though I think I've gained some good experience in a few areas, it feels
weird for me to write anything and position myself as an expert, even if I
feel that my contributions and knowledge are valuable. I second guess myself
and wonder all the stuff I might be missing, or things I don't know, all the
things people could find wrong in my suggestions. So even when I feel like I
know what I'm talking about, if I do write it down in a post it is often from
the perspective of a learner sharing an experience about what they're
learning, not an expert going "Here's how you should do this." or "Here's how
this works."

And with things that I _know_ I know a lot about, they just feel so trivial -
"Everyone must know this, it's not interesting at all." So I often don't
bother writing it.

------
Kagerjay
2 reasons

\- They don't have time, someone with that expertise is valuable

\- Writing is hard especially when no one is reading it. That was the biggest
barrier for me to get started writing. I have a natural tendency to write
things mechanically, not fluidly. But on forums I write whatever I feel like

Related video that also explains why engineers dont vlog either, this was
insightful to me.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Jh8fx8LuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Jh8fx8LuY)

------
duxup
I'm not sure people know what is valuable... and I'm not sure they're very
good at communicating it.

I've been working on a career pivot into web development. There are tons of
people sharing / talking on the internet. Most of them are pretty bad at it
IMO (I admit that would be too if I was doing that).

So much of it is "so we're going to do the thing" _clicking_ "ok I wrote the
code and there it is".

I think being a good teacher / sharer is a very specific skill that not a lot
of people have.

I'll say that the internet is kinda unwelcoming plays a part. I did share some
in my past career. Posted on reddit. I was bombarded by folks who really just
don't know arguing with me / talking up a storm one too many times and gave
up.

~~~
type0
> Most of them are pretty bad at it IMO (I admit that would be too if I was
> doing that).

The problem is that beginners are often eager to blog about things they've
learned and although they haven't fully grasped the concepts it's tempting to
show what you are able to do. This leads to a lot of bad examples and
incorrect code on such blogs, most often it stays uncorrected.

> I'll say that the internet is kinda unwelcoming plays a part. I did share
> some in my past career. Posted on reddit.

Reddit is unwelcoming with childishly stubborn users. I wish it wasn't the
case, but I don't have any hopes that it will ever change.

~~~
duxup
I agree about eager beginners, I think blogs and coding examples have become a
thing people do to bolster their resume.... and as you say folks are too quick
to go at it.

------
mostlyh
Usually I believe it's a combination of facts:

\- People don't think they can actually do it well enough to be significant
for someone else (when they want to share knowledge)

\- When they do, depending on how it's done, not getting the traction on
something could take a hard toll on one's self esteem.

\- It might have a negative effect on one's life, if you put something out
there, it's there for everyone to criticize. You are exposing yourself, what
you believe to be right and what you hold dearest to you in your beliefs.

\- Time is always a constrain. We've got a finite amount of time that we can
dedicate to something, juggling different priorities and trying to prioritize
writing might be something hard when it's not how you make a living. If you do
it for fun, you might always put first those things that have a more direct
impact on your life.

\- Feedback loops are hard to come by. Unless you have a close group of people
that can give you a hand, you will never be done editing your own creations,
and will probably have a very narrow view of what to change to make it better.

This is something I wanted to chime in, as I've gone through most of these. I
just started writing some silly topics on my field (DevOps) and while doing
this, I realized most of this points. In my experience, overall what I wrote
was a 10 mins read on medium, however it took me a couple of hours to write it
down, got two friends to do a review of it, and previous to that I re read it
at least 5 times making modifications. It's time consuming, and I wasn't even
doing it for the views, it was something I've wanted to do for a while,
however for something that maybe 50 people saw, it was a huge time commitment.

------
PopeDotNinja
In a lot of ways, publishing open source code is writing. I write flushed out
README docs all the time, and that's on top of work put into writing readable
apps with tests & comments. I don't write super fancy blog posts often at all.

------
kennxfl
Experts should write best practices/hacks/best methods to improve the learning
curve and discovery that others have to go through. I understand that doing so
sometimes makes one obsolete vs the younger employees but its essential. Even
without a massive audience, someone will go through the exact roadblocks and
this piece of information becomes priceless.

------
Broken_Hippo
Writing is a lot of work. A lot of tedious work. It isn't enough to have
expertise in your area: You also need to know how to write well. How to be
concise when needed. How to explain concepts in ways that a learner can
understand without forgetting things that would make the concept confusing,
even though it is basic stuff to you.

You need to be able to edit or pay someone to do so. Blogs are easier, but
most folks run out of steam after a short time unless they are also good at
planning and think in the long-term. Novels and full-length books are similar:
Most folks overestimate how long it will be and/or plan it out poorly.

And to top it all off, a lot of folks dislike writing, and need (monetary)
persuasion to do such work. I'd personally rather make art (my hobby) than to
write about it, for example.

------
k4ch0w
I'm much better at writing and understanding code than writing a technical
blog. I tried once when I open sourced a new tool, but quite honestly it
sucked. It sucked hard. I only ever published one post and nothing else
because I just can't write as well as I code.
[https://samaritan.ai/blog/reversing-docker-images-into-
docke...](https://samaritan.ai/blog/reversing-docker-images-into-dockerfiles/)

I think too, you know people from work will see it and you also worry if it
may affect the way they view you professionally.

It takes a lot of effort to make it pretty, convey the message and make sure
the paragraph flow is there. It's a skill and I think you develop it with
time. However, speaking for myself the return on investment just isn't there.

~~~
type0
> I think too, you know people from work will see it and you also worry if it
> may affect the way they view you professionally.

This is sadly the case for many, depending on the company culture writing
should and can be encouraged.

------
BjoernKW
Writing is hard, which can make it seem daunting. The problem with this as
with many skills is that you can only become a better writer by being a writer
first.

It also doesn't help that the kind of writing that's usually taught or
otherwise imparted at school or university for many use cases is needlessly
complex and wordy but nevertheless often is considered the "only proper way of
writing".

In many settings writing also doesn't provide an immediate noticeable benefit.
Writing for example can help with:

\- documentation and making decisions comprehensible and reproducible

\- knowledge transfer

\- improving the overall quality of a product

\- marketing

\- getting a better understanding of the problem yourself

With the exception of the last aspect these are all rather long-term benefits,
which has to be taken into account when trying to find the motivation for
writing.

------
raindropm
I always really, really want to do it(I'm graphic designer/illustrator and
have a lot tips & trick, experience and insight I want to share) but writing
things for other people to read and understand is a (tedious) work in itself.
In my case it also comprise of a lot of screenshot, references, and since
nowadays people are read less and less — video tutorial.

Also, since design & art is a more 'freeform' type of activity. It is really
hard to write it as a step by step for people to follow because sometimes the
process is really, really messy (happy accident!)

Just thinking about how much I need to pour my power to write, I can't help
but to give up haha. Maybe one day I'll find a way to do it...

------
nso95
Because I don’t want to. Writing is not something I enjoy.

------
CyberFonic
I started working straight out of high school. Over the years I got a BE, ME
and a PhD and paid my tuition fees from my earnings. For my PhD I published
several papers in ACM and IEEE journals, all the programs I had written as
open-source and a thesis.

Along the way I accumulated a great deal of expertise and experience. These
days I get hired as a consultant and write reports on my findings,
recommendations and often specifications for new systems (both hardware and
software).

When you have knowledge and experience that people will pay for, then there is
no incentive in giving it or my clients' expertise and knowledge for free.

~~~
j88439h84
It's common for experts to share some of their expertise for free as a
marketing tactic.

------
afarrell
Top ten reasons why I haven't yet published any blog posts. Number #4 will
shock and worry you:

1) It takes time to write and time is hard to manage. I have many priorities
in life which I have to juggle and do not know how to manufacture time.

2) When I start writing, multiple competing and mutually exclusive
descriptions of reality try to press themselves out of my head at once. My
instinct is to try to resolve the confusion of ideas _before_ getting the
ideas out on paper, and that doesn't work.

3) When I start writing something and questions pop up as I am writing, I
still hear an internal self-narrative "bullshit! just write the damned essay."
This makes it hard for me to actually get those questions explicitly stated,
determine which ones are important, and find the answers to them. It turns out
that getting answers to questions like "Why should this be written?", "Whom
are we writing this for?", or "How do I know I'm not making an error of
judgement here?" are pretty important.

4) When I look at a blank text document or piece of paper, I sometimes feel a
feeling of dread which makes me want to take a roofing nail and scrape it
across my forearm until I draw blood. I've never done this, and I've been
getting a lot better at managing the feeling.

5) When I try to get around the challenge of drafting by dictating my ideas
into my phone, all of the dictation software I try ends up stopping after 2
minutes. This makes it really hard for me to just free-ramble 3 pages which I
then edit later. If you know of an app which will let you ramble for 20
minutes into your phone and will poorly transcribe it into a text file, for
you to edit please let me know. [EDIT: I just checked a thread where I had
asked about this and someone recommended Otter. Will report back]

6) Because I'm not very experienced at successfully drafting things except
when I used to write college papers up against the deadline, I am really not
practised at editing my work to be more coherent. Therefore, it takes longer.

7) I am not very practiced at writing for an audience, actually taking into
account how they would interpret what I'm saying, and then getting feedback as
to how well I've done. Therefore this takes longer.

8) I would like to express concepts and relationships with diagrams, but I'm
shite at drawing.

9) I don't knot that I have a group of people with whom I can check my drafts
and who will spend the time/effort to give me feedback and help me organize my
ideas better.

10) I can, in general, find it difficult to organise my thoughts. Beyond a
certain length of ramble, writing requires structure so that you can look back
on what you wrote and think of what needs to be said next. Coming up with that
structure is hard and I have very little practice in it. That is why I wrote
this response in BuzzFeed listicle style: to give myself a structure.

So yea, despite "publish three blog posts" being on my new years resolutions
and me having done reasonably well at sticking to the others, I still haven't.

~~~
Jtsummers
> 4) When I look at a blank text document or piece of paper, I sometimes feel
> a feeling of dread which makes me want to take a roofing nail and scrape it
> across my forearm until I draw blood. I've never done this, and I've been
> getting a lot better at managing the feeling.

I have this problem a lot. Brand new thing, whatever it is, pristine state.
You don't want to fuck it up. So you just, don't. Of course the paper is meant
to be written on, and the file is meant to be written in. Write a single
sentence. Just one. Your thesis. Your question. Anything. Now it's just on the
page my itself, and possibly in the wrong spot. Crap, you've ruined the
pristine blank space. Time to fill it up. Once I start writing though, I
pretty much don't stop.

> 10) I can, in general, find it difficult to organise my thoughts. Beyond a
> certain length of ramble, writing requires structure so that you can look
> back on what you wrote and think of what needs to be said next. Coming up
> with that structure is hard and I have very little practice in it. That is
> why I wrote this response in BuzzFeed listicle style: to give myself a
> structure.

Then this is your structure. Maybe not the final one, but it's the initial
one. Use it. I do this in a number of my posts here. Not the top-ten-list
format but as a numbered list. And if this helps you to get started, make that
first draft or maybe even the final draft, run with it.

> 7) I am not very practiced at writing for an audience, actually taking into
> account how they would interpret what I'm saying, and then getting feedback
> as to how well I've done. Therefore this takes longer.

> 9) I don't knot that I have a group of people with whom I can check my
> drafts and who will spend the time/effort to give me feedback and help me
> organize my ideas better.

You've got this community. Yes, they can sometimes be harsh, but it's here.
And harsh can be good sometimes. A big lesson for me early in my career was to
receive criticism while letting go of my ego. Whatever is said (even if what
they say is a personal attack and not a proper critique) is about the thing,
and not me. Take what they say and use it (or not, if you deem it to be wrong
or inapplicable).

> 2) When I start writing, multiple competing and mutually exclusive
> descriptions of reality try to press themselves out of my head at once. My
> instinct is to try to resolve the confusion of ideas before getting the
> ideas out on paper, and that doesn't work.

Man, my notes are all over the place. I have 100 ideas in my head at once. But
writing them down clears a lot of things up, especially after a few iterations
of editing. I can start by talking about how to use git, and somehow end up
talking about the theory of constraints. By writing it down I end up with
content that can be reshaped into several (more coherent) discussions. A brain
dump is actually a massively useful starting point. A nice freeform stream of
consciousness style writing exercise. Go back once you're done and read it,
highlight (or write onto other pages or documents) your theses and begin
moving content around to properly express your ideas and the connections
between them.

Like my mention above, there actually is a connection between theory of
constraints and git in what I wrote. Specifically about reducing a constraint,
that was adding time to the development process, by changing the way we
coordinated code development activities and code integration (between
branches) versus the old way (TFS or SVN with strict controls on branching, no
local version control). I work in an office where they _think_ they're doing
ToC but really the management doesn't know shit and is checking boxes. I hate
non-value added activities and sought to address my concerns with what we were
doing to check those boxes by finding a value added change we could actually
implement that would address a real constraint in how a number of our projects
work. But the connection was non-obvious in the initial discussion and my
initial writings because it was too rambling. By recreating my stream of
consciousness spoken words on paper (or an org-file in that case) I was able
to address the problem. (Ultimately I convinced one guy on one project, and he
ran with it, his project is now one of the most productive in the office.)

~~~
type0
This is some great encouraging ideas, thank you!

------
fundamental
Personally it comes down to the fact that it takes a long time to write
technical articles in a way that it's useful to anyone (with or without the
exact background that you have). There's figuring out the topic, iterating on
the structure/goal of the article, laying out of an outline, generating
figures/examples, writing, editing, and posting it. I try to throw some
content up on my website from time to time, though it is a very sporadic
affair.

------
afarrell
For folks who want to blog, but who are struggling with how to get their
thoughts onto paper for a first draft, take a look at
[https://otter.ai/](https://otter.ai/) \-- their iOS and Android apps let you
just dictate for however long you want and then copy-paste the transcription
to whatever drafting program you have in order to start organising your
thoughts.

------
lsiebert
Experience is one thing, writing another. Things that are perfectly clear in a
person's head can be hard to communicate to someone who lacks the same set of
references and assumptions, and a good writer has to account for that.

Being a good writer takes practice and good communication skills.

Personally, I love to write a bit of documentation, especially around tasks I
had to figure out because they are done rarely.

------
saluki
I think it's mainly time and sometimes you don't realize how much
knowledge/expertise you have because it becomes second nature so you don't
realize how valuable sharing it would be.

If this is in an office setting, sometimes co-workers won't document/share
knowledge so it makes them feel like they can't be let go/replaced.

------
imhoguy
I wonder what would be reasons of these who already decided not to write an
answer here.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_bias](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_bias)

------
tmaly
I try to write helpful topics on my blog, but it really comes down to having
the time. When you have a family and a busy job, your time is stretched thin.

------
zepolen
In this thread: people writing a blog post's worth of text on why they don't
have enough time to write blog post's worth of text.

~~~
quickthrower2
My take:

In this thread: people writing a blog post's worth of text on why they don't
have enough time to write blog post's worth of text _THAT_ comes up to their
standard for publishing.

------
cottonseed
Have you ever been to a library?

