this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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29
Preferred way to consume how-tos on Lemmy? (krabb.org)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

How do you folks prefer to consume how-to’s and walkthroughs?

I’m starting to document how-to guides for people passionate about IT (who maybe are a little bit too into it) that like to run enterprise-grade systems at home.

Basically, I’m publicising my documentation for setting up systems and the weird problems I hit that may have taken me days or weeks to solve. Often this information isn’t able to be searched online or has little to no vendor documentation on how to solve it. Basically, I’m hoping my suffering means someone else might not have to if I share this stuff.

At this stage I’m putting everything into a blog, but I know how annoying it is to see posts on platforms like Lemmy that are a hyperlink and a bare post. So how would you prefer to see it?

I’ve considered a few options, each with negatives and positives but largely it distils to:

  1. Don’t overthink it, just post the link and if people don’t want to click it they won’t
  2. Duplicate the content of the blog post to the lemmy post (means double-handling the edits when the post has to be updated but preserves the info in the event the blog dies)
  3. Post the link and put a high level breakdown of the guide in the lemmy post, just enough that people get the main idea and they can follow the link for more details if they choose (more work as it means writing the post essentially twice, just more condensed)

What do you folks think?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Personally, I prefer to read up front. If I need more info, then I'll go to the attached video / blog.

If there's no text, I often won't bother with the video/etc at all.

Side note: actually putting content in Lemmy is good for Lemmy, so search engines will start to pick it up.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Don’t overthink it, just post the link and if people don’t want to click it they won’t

I think that's the easiest way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I definitely prefer 2 or 3. Especially 2, but whichever is easier for the poster is fine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Post should include a description/summary/teaser.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago
  1. Stuff the title with the most number of keywords (SEO on Lemmy)
  2. Short summary of the problem and the solution (maybe) - same as the overview in the blog post.
  3. Link.
  4. Preferably a github repo so someone searching directly on there can find it
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I'd rather see the how-to live somewhere that is expected to last and where it may stay online for a while.

If the how-to is valuable to me, I'll make a copy of it in my documentation and also submit the page to the Wayback Machine just in case it is taken down, the host ceases to exist, etc.

I prefer my how-tos to be Markdown-based, they're easy to edit and the text will reflow well on small screens unlike a PDF.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm old and prefer a well written document over video.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Tell me you did not read the post without telling me you did not read the post.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I like #3.

If it's something like a knowledge database a wiki would be better suited. You can organize stuff in a tree-like structure and people can edit stuff instead of having convoluting discussions inbetween your writings/comments.

You could just start here, write like 5-10 howtos and see if people like it. You'll get to know if people like it and what exactly works and what doesn't. You can then simply move the stuff to a wiki once you have enough content ready and it won't look that empty. You can then edit your 10 posts and link to the wiki. This approach works without speculating.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

2 or 3. Either would work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You could always do 1, then access the site through the way back machine so they have a saved copy in case the blog goes down. That's usually my first check when a guide I need has gone down.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Thanks everyone! I think what I’ll end up doing here is posting the guide directly into lemmy as a condensed version of the full article, then link to the article which will have screenshots and more background.