Cover photo by Jess from Pexels
2020 - Starting a blog
It's been more than two years since I began blogging. It all started with a development journal for one of my latest projects at the second half of 2020. I knew I wouldn't be graduating that year, so I decided that I could try to gain some online presence to compensate my lack of professional experience.
DEV.to was in a boom, I was seeing a lot of developers start blogs here, so I decided to give it a try. I found the other platforms a bit intimidating, but this one was very approachable and beginner friendly. I wrote every week or two and found some interesting people to follow. I didn't get much attention, but it didn't matter! I was here for the experience of writing and the growth that comes along.
I wrote more than a development journal. I had a lot of opinions I had formed during my years in university and advice to give, so a lot of what I wrote at that moment was the kind of things I would've love to know as a freshman. It was a true pleasure to have a space to write it all down and share it.
Before the year ended, the DEV.to community did a lot of work around the moderation of the platform. At that time I was made a trusted member and to say that I found it rewarding, for the short time I had been here, is an understatement.
2021 - A comfortable plateau and the seed of dissatisfaction
With the new year, I slowed down my publication pace and started writing monthly. There was a lot going on in my life, so I felt comfortable with little activity; enough to continue the habit and keep my presence out there. You can tell it was a weird year for me because I have several unfinished series and a failed attempt to translate all my posts to Spanish (my native language).
Despite all this, it was a great year in terms of growing my personal brand. My open source projects started to thrive (I was even featured in an incipient newsletter, now dead) and I started writing for my current self, more than for my past self.
Also, a very strange episode happened that year.
I was invited to write a featured post for another platform. As it was my first post written for someone else, I wanted to make it about a popular topic: JavaScript, something I had never written about before.
Unfortunately, that site turned out to be a complete scam. Most of its content is stolen, their complete Q&A section is a literal scrap of the StackOverflow page and each and every user I interacted with was a bot (they even used watermarked stock photos as profile pics).
I got out of there as quickly as possible and published my article here in DEV.to. In less than 24 hours, it had more traffic than all my previous posts together. Today (January 2023) it is still my third most read post.
I remember reading several posts here talking about the spam, the clickbaity low-effort listicles, the daily copy-pasted git tutorials, etc. If you have been here for a while, you will know that the quality of the DEV.to content is still an unsolved issue. I didn't fully care, I was comfortable here and that was all that mattered. As a trusted user, I did my best to mark low-quality posts and boost well written, original content.
However, dissatisfaction started to grow inside me, and a feeling that something was not fair here. Not only because of all my beloved posts eclipsed by my own single JavaScript tutorial, but also for the people I follow that publish interesting, advanced content, that get 1% of attention and feedback received by the mass of low quality posts focused on beginners.
2022 - Last year in DEV
The following year I did very little blogging. Most of my posts in 2022 were for promoting a project or another (looking back, I coded some interesting stuff). The two biggest exceptions were very significant posts to me.
This one came after I saw some people complaining about the StackOverflow community. I wanted to do an attempt on bringing closer two of the communities I love, from which beginners benefit specially. I expected some backslash in the comments (given the hate SO receives from some people) but instead I got a lot of comments from veteran devs, liking my post. It also gave more insight about who reads what.
And then, there's this one. This one was an explosion. I know it was a controversial opinion on a perma-hot topic like JS, but damn, this post has five times as many views as my next most viewed post, and it's my top reacted and commented post of all time. It got featured in the social networks of DEV, tweeted several times and even improperly published as material for an online course.
And it was a rant written in a single afternoon! This is perfectly one of the posts I've put the least effort into. I stopped writing, discouraged. I know effort doesn't correlate with impact when we talk about writing on the Internet. But I just didn't like the idea of going back to write high effort posts for no one, always tempted to write about JavaScript again only for reads.
After some time, I was contacted yet by another platform, asking me to write a course for them. Another dev that had worked with them recommended me writing my own book, instead of just a course. Don't get me wrong, that platform is legit and has great content; in fact, I tried to make the course they wanted. But I didn't have enough time.
Writing an article for a blog is something, but writing a course or a book is another dimension. It is something I want to do, but I probably won't anytime soon.
The big hiatus and the decision to move
It's been months since I published anything. There are several things I want to write about, but these months have been very busy, plus I don't feel like I have found my audience yet, which disencourages me even more. I don't even read DEV anymore, as the content quality has only gone down, in spite of the efforts to implement tag filters and experience level for posts.
So, to find new motivation, I have decided to move on. I need to keep looking for an audience that I feel I connect with. I love DEV and everything I've achieved thanks to it, but I need to keep looking for a better space for my blog.
I'm going to try my luck with Hashnode. I don't have any particular reason, so I don't know if it will be my definitive platform. I want to see what kind of audience I can build there and explore the possibilities of a different tool.
Conclusion
MiguelMJ's blog
I'm a Computer Science graduate and programming is my passion. Share knowledge, share love!
blog.miguelmj.dev
My first step has been to migrate there a curated list of my posts and polish them a bit. The canonical URLs will still point to the original posts, nonetheless. I will keep publishing in DEV everything, for the readers I already have here, but I will make Hashnode my main target.
I guess that, as a lifelong student and an eventual teacher I will always have something to write for beginners. However, I want to try a different level of writing and even different types of content. I don't know how my blog might evolve, but, of course, that's the exciting part!
Oldest comments (26)
Hi @miguelmj
I really enjoyed reading your article ! As a blogger, it has definitly resonated with my personal experience from the past few years.
All I can say to you is: Keep up the good work and most importantly focus on what you enjoy and found exiting 🙂
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, truly ❤️
Totally agree with you about the plummeting quality of content here on dev.to - it's really sad to see, and I hope something can be done about it because it really feels like the site is dying.
I hope it doesn't die, but only time will tell...
Can I ask what's "quality content" for you? I'm a writer and would like to know more.
Hi Maddy. I would find it hard to give you a closed definition of "high quality", but there are a lot of things that contribute to the quality of an article. The novelty of its topic, the presentation, the information flow, having a defined target audience, the amount of information given and the exhaustiveness of the research... Not necessarily all at the same time, but the more, the better.
As usual, it's easier to provide counter-examples than defining the properties of a good quality post. But it would be rude to provide actual posts from the platform... so instead, have a look at these parodies of these typical low effort posts.
How to add 1+1 in Java Script
𒊩Wii 💖💛💚💙💜💝💟 ・ Oct 28 '22 ・ 1 min read
13+ 🤩 amazing 🤩 tips for writing ✅ listicles ✅ [don't be mad that you didn't know them before!]
GrahamTheDev ・ Jun 19 '21 ・ 4 min read
It all sounds reasonable but please don’t project your disappointment to dev.to — such stuff is all around web these days. Not sure hashnode venture will succeed (I personally found hashnode to be of poorer quality) but keep us posted anyway 👍
And try negative tag weights and user blocking here 😄 it’s not ideal but it helps.
It's not my intention to project my disappointment to dev.to. I'm aware that low quality content is everywhere, but for some reason, it seems like here it is specially problematic.
Also, it's true that in Hashnode I've found many low quality posts too, but in the end I care more about where do the people that interest me publish/read... and it doesn't seem to be here. Who knows, Hashnode might not be my place either, it's all about trying.
I've had negative tag weights for years and react post still chase me! Anyway, I'll still check my feed here sometimes to see if it's true that they are going to improve it.
Thanks for reading!
What's your reason for writing? Do you want to grow your blog?
I write because I want communication with other people that like what I like. People I can help and who can help me, that can learn from me and from whom I can learn.
Makes sense!
On Hashnode, there are tags for each topic.
Some topics are more popular than others (JavaScript for example) and therefore may grant you more exchange of knowledge with other people.
I've been writing on there for 1.5 years and my experience has been great so far.
I hope you'll enjoy the platform.
Happy Writing!
Thank you, Maddy ❤️
On a side note, there is also an option to block your article from appearing on Hashnode feeds (can be set in Draft Settings). Essentially, you can use Hashnode generated blog like an isolated WordPress website.
From my experience, the engagement rate on Hashnode is rather low, but their generated site is very optimal and easy to appear on search engine (relatively to other site builders/generators). 99% of my traffics are from Google Search alone. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content quality, in my opinion, are the real goal to aim for a professional site.
I actually used that option to migrate my old articles silently. I've seen that the configuration is pretty powerful, you could almost build your entire portfolio there... that's one of the attractive points, ngl.
I agree, I find engagement is quite low on Hashnode. It's amazing for SEO though.
Great article, thanks for sharing!
I share the same frustrations. The only post that really took off on dev.to was about proving that dev.to is for webdevs and beginners. It is really hard to find an audience here when you try to write outside these boundaries.
I am at the same point than you: I am slowly losing all my drive after seeing how few interactions my articles get, especially in comparison of what gets promoted.
I also moved to hashnode a month ago (blog.derlin.ch). However, I wasn't able to get a single reaction there, so I you do succeed on hashnode, please write a post on how you achieved it!
Hi, Lucy!
I did read that article some weeks ago. I found it to be very illustrative, and it corroborated the same to me and many others; that the data reflect that the platform's audience is very specific and it's not just my impression.
If I find a way to success out there, I'll share it, be sure!
<3
I've stopped writing much here, I'm personally not trying to start a blogging career but like sharing interesting things I've found out/made. Anything I do write is now just gone very soon and there's this thought that I should write to get more readers and post longevity, but then I'm being dragged away from what I'd actually want to read myself! That statement makes me feel I'm reading and writing on the wrong site these days... I find this a real shame and I'm guessing I'm not alone as it appears that the people I follow rarely post either.
I know that feeling, Mike. Thanks for your comment!
@miguelmj I think I hear you on this. I started my own blog hungvu.tech as a way to document my real experience, and also as a way to improve online/professional presence. I call this a blogfolio.
My guess is, I'm in a luckier group, as I had some successful articles (at least to my standard). They were well-received by the community and other industrial partners. However though, I fall into a trap and towards the end of 2022. I started making certain low-effort content to keep the train going (analytics!!!). That though, really goes against my original idea of the blog. In combination with things going in life, I decided to have a hiatus since November 2022.
I just started my first article again on Jan 19, 2023. I will try to make it back to an original track this time. There are some of your points I want to emphasize:
Best of luck moving forward!
Thanks for sharing, @hunghvu, I find your feedback very valuable. It is paradoxical that we're tempted to write low-quality to get better analytics, but it seems to be something real.
Thanks again, best of luck for your fresh start!
I have been a member of Dev.to for over five years and have definitely noticed an increase in non-posts. Submissions that contain too little actual content to be in breach of the code of conduct or be abusive enough to report.
Today I came across four posts from the same author all less than a minute to read and containing no useful information and definitely nothing that could not be learned from W3schools or MDN.
Another post was more of a personal introduction and a plea for advice on learning JS; not the first I have come across.
I am also now contemplating my options and hashnode could be a good alternative.
Fantastic
Hot takes - stuff that takes a few minutes to read and delivers a reactive response sells on these blogging platforms unfortunately.
Long form posts are harder to write but also takes time to digest and think.
I've been on here for about 4-5 months - most of my views do not come from Dev.to community but from external people as my feed is incorporated in a consolidated community feed.
Dev.to has an issue where it's by in large driven by javascript/elixir crowd and so there isn't a lot of diversity unless of course your doing "top 5 javascript tips that you can do while dogwatching" which apparently gets you a lot of reads. :-)
There are many more beginners than experienced people, maybe that's why beginner friendly content gets more clicks and comments. I am also a Spanish speaker and I find it funny that translating to Spanish is a big burden, but it is, especially if you want a quality translation.
I'm going to suggest you not to leave dev.to, as it is usually recommended in my Google feed, that's why I'm here. I'm not a fan of large communities. gone are the days when I was a diehard user of Internet forums. But I just read some of your articles and titles and they are very interesting, I would like to connect with you, if you can share your twitter it would be great and good thing you have a follower on hashnode I hope that site has a good notification system.
Thanks, Manuel! I will still publish on DEV, because most of my current readers come from here. But I will stop promoting this blog, to replace it with the other one.
I see you already found me on Twitter ^^ I don't use it much, so feel free to contact me on any other platform or via mail (miguelmj at gmail dot com) if you want to keep in touch.
Sobre las traducciones al español, obviamente no consumen tanto tiempo como escribir el artículo desde cero, pero, como dices, exigen una buena parte si quieres que la traducción sea de calidad.