Blogging Can Just Be Stating The Obvious

Blogging Can Just Be Stating The Obvious

博客有时只需陈述显而易见的事实

John Gruber writes about those annoying popups every website seems to have now and while he does a great job tearing into these ubiquitous, user-hostile patterns, one of the things that stood out to me about his piece was this meta commentary on blogging. John Gruber 撰文抨击了如今每个网站似乎都充斥着的那些恼人弹窗。虽然他非常出色地剖析了这些无处不在、对用户极不友好的模式，但他的文章中有一点让我印象深刻，那就是关于博客写作的元评论。

Here’s John: If you visit a website you should … see the website. See its content. Be able to read the article whose page you are attempting to visit. Showing a “subscribe to our newsletter” or “accept our fucking cookies” dickover to someone trying to read an article on the web makes no more sense than sending out an email newsletter that only contains a link to read the newsletter on a webpage. A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this. John 是这样说的：“如果你访问一个网站，你应该……看到这个网站。看到它的内容。能够阅读你试图访问的页面上的文章。对于一个试图阅读网页文章的人来说，展示‘订阅我们的通讯’或‘接受我们该死的 Cookie’这种遮挡式弹窗，其荒谬程度不亚于发送一封只包含一个链接、让你去网页上阅读内容的电子邮件。网页就该展示网页内容，邮件就该展示邮件内容。我本不该解释这些。”

It’s funny how often blogging feels like being the little child in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. You’re just stating what seems obvious to you. I often look at my own posts and think, “There’s nothing novel, or important, or deep in here at all — is this even worth saying?” A post’s point can seem so glaringly obvious to me (and thus, I presume, others) it feels like a waste of time to even say it. 有趣的是，写博客常常让人感觉自己就像《皇帝的新装》里那个小孩子。你只是在陈述那些对你而言显而易见的事实。我经常审视自己的文章，心想：“这里面没什么新意，也不重要，更谈不上深刻——这真的值得一说吗？”文章的观点对我（因此我推测对其他人也是）来说可能太显而易见了，以至于写出来都感觉是在浪费时间。

As John says: A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this. But then real-world examples of annoyance pile up around you and nobody talks about it, so you finally just have to say it in a post and bring receipts. You feel like someone gone mad: “Is anyone else seeing the same thing I’m seeing? And we’re just ok with this?” 正如 John 所言：网页就该展示网页内容，邮件就该展示邮件内容。我本不该解释这些。但当现实生活中这些令人烦恼的例子在你身边堆积，而又无人提及的时候，你最终只能通过文章把它写出来，并列举证据。你会感觉自己像个疯子：“还有人看到我所看到的一切吗？难道我们就这样默认接受了吗？”

Very often, those are the best posts I read from others. So it must be that a key ingredient to blogging is simple: have a willingness to state something that seems obvious to you but nobody else is saying it. Or if someone else is saying it, just link to them and say, “Yes!!! This!!!” 通常，这些正是我从别人那里读到的最棒的文章。所以，博客写作的一个关键要素其实很简单：愿意去陈述那些对你而言显而易见、但其他人却未曾言说的事实。或者，如果已经有人说了，那就引用他们并大喊：“没错！！！就是这个！！！”