I’ve written previously about writing and motivation, but I wanted to say something about self-inflicted demotivation, which is something I’ve been guilty of a number of times.
As you will probably know, I write a lot of posts about Oracle technology, but I’m not equally interested in every feature of the Oracle database. Sometimes this is because I just don’t see the point of a feature, and sometimes it is because I simply don’t get to use a feature very much, even if I think it is cool. It can be hard to be motivated to write about something that isn’t jumping out and screaming at you…
Baiting the trap with stupid goals
I often set myself little goals, and sometimes these are my undoing. I might make a list of topics to write about, and the “completionist” part of my brain adds things into the list that I don’t really care about.
For example, I might decide I want to write about all of the SQL new features in version X of the database, but there is something that I’m not interested in, so writing that post is a grind. I want to complete the list, but that one item on the list is not inspiring me…
Now the sensible thing to do it to just miss that post out, and move on, but my stupid head gets locked into finishing the list, and I kind-of cripple my progress by forcing myself to do something I don’t really want to.
A quick example
Something very similar happened to me this week. I had recently written four new posts, which I can’t publish until 23c is out of beta, and I had one more post to complete my list. The subject itself was OK, but there was a lot of setup involved, for very little payback. It felt like hours of work to prove a single sentence. Needless to say I was not highly motivated.
I kept telling myself to move on and do something different, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking about that final tick on the list…
So what did I do? I wasted the week playing Raft on peaceful mode. Just cruising round the sea picking up junk and gathering resources from reefs. I’ve completed the game about 15 times on harder difficulties, but I wanted something mindless to do, rather than face writing that post.
The solution
This is a case of “do as I says, not as I do”, but you really need to avoid situations that you know will block you. Each of us will have different blockers, and different displacement activities we use to distract us, but I bet most of us can spot a pattern that triggers us…
If you find yourself working on a post that is killing you, just walk away. You can always come back to it later…
After my previous post on using ChatGPT to write code, I just wanted to say a few words about using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate content such as articles and blog posts.
I’ll list a few specific issues and give my comments on them.
Using AI for inspiration
I watched a video by Marques Brownlee discussing the Bing integration of ChatGPT (here), and one of the things he mentioned was using AI for inspiration. Not expecting AI to create a whole piece of work for you, but using a chat with the AI to come up with ideas.
It reminded me of one of my first attempts at using ChatGPT, which was this. 🙂
Write a tweet about an idea for a new episode of star trek
If I were really trying to write something original, I might use this as the inspiration to create my own piece of work.
It should be noted, when I tweeted about this someone replied to say it was similar to the plot of a film they had seen, so we need to be careful the AI is not just stealing someone else’s idea. 🙂
I have no problem with people using AI as part of the generation of ideas. Just be careful that the ideas you get are vaguely original. 🙂
Turning bullet points into prose
One of my friends works for a company that ships physical products. The company has a paper catalogue, as well as an online store. He gets product details from the manufacturers and needs to pretty them up for use in their catalogue and website. He told me he is now using ChatGPT to do this.
To give you an idea of what he is doing I copied some text of Amazon and asked ChatGPT to make it a bit nicer.
Rewrite this text into something nicer
In this case we aren’t expecting the AI to get facts from the internet. We are providing the base information and using the AI as a writing aid.
This is another use case I think it totally fine. It’s merely a tool that saves you a bit of time. People already use tools like Grammarly to help with spelling and grammar. This just seems like a logical next step to me.
It makes mistakes
The AI doesn’t know anything about the content it is generating, so it can’t fact check itself. Here’s another example of something I Tweeted out. I asked ChatGPT if I should use leading or trailing commas when writing SQL.
When writing SQL, should I use leading or trailing commas?
It came back with a nice answer saying it is a personal preference, and gave an example of the two styles. The slight problem was the examples demonstrate the opposite of what they are meant to. 🙂
A human can pick that up, correct it and we will get something that seems reasonable, but it proves the point that we can’t blindly accept the output of AI content generation. We need to proof read and fact check it. This can be difficult if it doesn’t cite the sources used during the generation.
Sources and citations
Currently ChatGPT is based on a 2021 data set. When we use it we get no citations for the sources of information used during the generation process. This causes a number of problems.
It makes it hard to fact check the information.
It is impossible to properly cite the sources.
We can’t read the source material to check the AI’s interpretation is correct.
We can’t make a judgement on how much we trust the source material. Not all sources are reputable.
We can’t check to see if the AI has copied large pieces of text, leaving us open to copyright infringement. The generated text is supposedly unique, but can we be certain of that?
The Bing integration of ChatGPT does live searches of the internet, and includes citations for the information sources used, which solves many of these problems.
Copyright
AI content generation is still fairly new, but we are already seeing a number of issues related to copyright.
There are numerous stories about AI art generation infringing the copyright of artists, with many calling for their work to be opted out of the training data sets for AI, or to be paid for their inclusion. There is a line between inspiration and theft, and many believe AI art generation has crossed it. It’s possible this line has already been crossed in AI text generation also.
There is also the other side of copyright to consider. If you produce a piece of work using AI, it’s possible you can’t copyright that piece of work, since copyright applies to work created by a human. See the discussion here.
You can argue about the relative amounts of work performed by the AI and the human, but it seems that for 100% AI generation you are skating on thin ice. Of course, things can change as AI becomes more pervasive.
Who is paying for the source material to be created?
Like it or not, the internet is funded by ad revenue. Many people rely on views on their website to pay for their content creation. Anything that stops people actually visiting their site impacts on their income, and will ultimately see some people drop out of the content creation space.
When Google started including suggested answers in their Google search results, this already meant some people no longer needed to click on the source links. ChatGTP takes that one step further. If it becomes common place for people to search on Bing (or any other AI backed search engine), and use the AI generated result presented, rather than visiting the source sites, this will have a massive impact on the original content creators. The combination of this and ad blockers may mean the end for some content creators.
If there is no original content on the internet, there is nothing for AI to use as source material, and we could hit a brick wall. Of course there will always be content on the internet, but I think you can see where I’m going with this.
So just like the copyright infringement issues with AI art, are we going to see problems with the source material used for AI text generation? Will search engines have to start paying people for the source material they use? We’ve already seen this type of issue with search engines reporting news stories.
The morality of writing whole posts with AI
This is where things start to get a bit tricky, and this is more about morality and ethics, rather than content.
Let’s say your job is to write content. Someone is paying you to spend 40 hours a week writing that content, and instead you spend a few minutes generating content with AI, and use the rest of the time to watch Netflix. You can argue you are delivering what is asked of you and making intelligent use of automation, or that you are stealing from the company because you are being paid for a job you are not doing. I’m guessing different people will have a different take on this from a moral perspective.
Continuing with the theme of being paid to write, what if the company you are working for is expecting to have copyright control over the work you produce? If it can be determined it is AI generated, they can’t copyright it, and that work can be republished with no comeback. I can see that making you rather unpopular.
Education establishments already use software to check for plagiarism. The use of AI is already making educational establishments nervous. OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, have already created an AI Text Classifier (discontinued) to identify text that has been generated by AI. I can only imagine these types of utilities will become common place, and you could find yourself in hot water if you are passing off AI generated work as your own. You will certainly lose your qualifications for doing it.
Many people use their blogs as an indication of their expertise. They are presenting themselves as well versed in a subject, which can then lead to other opportunities, such as job offers, invitations to conferences and inclusion in technology evangelism programs. If it becomes apparent the content is not your own work, it would seem logical that your professional reputation would be trashed, and you would lose some or all of the benefits you have gained.
Conclusion
There is no right and wrong answer here, but in my opinion it’s important we use AI as a tool, and not a mechanism to cheat. Where we draw the line will depend on the individual, and the nature of the work being done. Also, it’s possible that line in the sand will change over time…
In this series of posts I’ve been discussing my opinion on various aspects of writing, including blogging, writing articles and whitepapers, or just writing documentation in your company. If anything more comes to mind I’ll write it and link it from this post.
If you’ve followed my blog you will know people try to steal my articles all the time. It happens to all bloggers, unless they are unpopular or rubbish. You don’t really have to look for it, because your readers will spot it and tell you. 🙂
Some things to remember about this stuff…
All material published on the internet has an implicit copyright, even if there is no explicit copyright notice on the site. This means, unless the copyright owner gives you explicit permission, republishing their content is an act of theft. When you are writing, make sure you are doing the work, not stealing other people’s work.
Google actively downgrades the search rankings of duplicate content. They know who published the content first. By stealing the content you haven’t really done yourself any favours and you’ve broken the law. Way to go!
If you find someone is stealing your content, you have options. All blogging platforms and hosting providers are duty bound to follow up on copyright theft claims. If they ignore it, they can be deemed culpable. You should:
Contact the owner of the blog and politely ask them to remove the content.
If they don’t do it in a timely manner, issue a DMCA (or geographical equivalent) takedown notice to their hosting company. Hosting companies get really twitchy about them, and tend to react really quickly.
There are movements like Copyleft and Creative Commons, where people actively encourage redistribution, but even then you have to follow the rules. It’s not a golden ticket to do anything you want with the content. The content producer still reserves some rights. Remember, unless explicitly stated differently, the default stance is the material on the internet is copyright, not copyleft!
Be careful about RSS feeds. Some people consider an RSS feed as giving people the right to republish your content. That is exactly what RSS aggregators do. I would suggest you limit your RSS content to excerpts. In WordPress that would be “Settings > Reading”, then pick the “Excerpt” option. That way you give people a taste of the content, without showing them everything.
I’ll prefix this post with a warning. I’ve never done any paid blogging myself, so this is based on emails I’ve received from people requesting me to write for them and from comments I’ve heard from others. With that in mind…
Apart from having adverts on your blog or selling books, there are other ways to earn money from writing. You will have to decide if they suit you.
Paid Articles. Some websites, blogs and magazines pay for articles. I’m not sure what the going rate is these days, but I seem to remember a couple of well known sites suggesting I could earn up to $1500 USD per article. I’m not sure if that was bullshit or not because I didn’t pursue it. I guess this can have a number of benefits in addition to the cash. If the website or publication is prestigious, it could help raise your profile and the profile of your blog, but I’m guessing they are only asking people who already have a good profile anyway. 🙂 Getting a regular column in a magazine could be a nice little earner if you like doing it. It’s never really appealed to me. I like writing a certain style of article. I don’t think that style translates well to what most publishers are looking for. Added to that, I like to hit the “Publish” button when I’m happy with something, not wait for other people to edit it beyond all recognition. It’s the control freak in me. 🙂
Ghost Writing. Some companies want a professional blog that is regularly updated with content, but don’t have the time or skills to really accomplish that. Those companies make a point of hiring ghost writers to do the work for them. I guess I’m a little naive, but I was blissfully unaware of this until recently when a colleague mentioned his friend was a professional blogger. I asked what he blogged about and the answer was essentially anything. He has his own, “how to make money from blogging”, blog 🙂 and ghost writes for other people. I guess this is just like being a journalist or doing the paid articles thing, except that your name is not associated with the work, so it’s not going to do anything for your profile, but if it pays the bills, do you care?
Infomercials. Some people get paid to write about products or services on their own blogs. I don’t really have a problem with this provided you make it abundantly clear that the post is an informercial. I’m not sure about the legalities in other regions, but in Europe you are breaking the law if you don’t make this clear. From a moral perspective, I do have a problem with it if you don’t actually believe what you are saying. I guess each person has to make this choice for themselves. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 30 years, but next week I’m starting a series of posts sponsored by Wallmart about my favourite ways to cook steak… 🙂
I’ve been asked to write infomercial type posts a number of times, sometimes for products I really believe in, but I’ve always said no. I’m not motivated by money, so it’s not necessary for me to go down that road. The only advice I would give is to be careful you limit the amount of this type of content. If people start to believe you are just an opinion for hire, you may start losing the respect of your readers.
If you are blogging as a potential money earner, then this stuff may be of interest to you. Just be careful you don’t compromise yourself!
You’ve started a blog. This time next year you’re going to be a millionaire!
If you are interested in making money from a website you can. There are a number of advertising options, with the most popular for the small publishers being Google Adsense. Having said that, you’re going to get a rude awakening when you start earning 20 cents a day.
Advertisers care about reach, so advertising is a numbers game. If you want to make big money, you have to get big hit rates. How big is big? One of my friends works in advertising and for direct advertising they don’t consider sites with less than 500,000 hits per month, but even at 1,000,000 hits per month they still consider it a small site. If you happen across a really niche concept, an advertiser may *need* your small number of hits, but for most blogs, unless you are getting massive numbers of hits, you’re not going to retire on your advertising income.
Another big factor is the subject area. On an internet scale, Oracle is a niche subject. If you want to make money, you probably need to write about a more popular subject. The most heavily subscribed subject on YouTube is Minecraft. Gaming channels kick ass for hits and money making. Ask PewDiePie.
So I’m saying don’t write an Oracle blog right? Wrong! What I’m saying is money shouldn’t be your sole motivation for writing an Oracle blog. If it is, you will fail and stop. Be motivated by something more important than money. If it goes well, then some money may follow, but you are probably not going to be the next J. K. Rowling. 🙂
I’ve got another more specific post in the series about getting paid for writing.
I’m currently doing yet another pass through my whole website correcting broken external links. This is nothing to do with my bad management. This is to do with people changing their URLs and not putting the correct redirects in place. I’ve just done a scan of my website and there are over 800 broken links to Oracle documentation!
There seem to be several ways people deal with URL changes on their website.
They do nothing and quite happily let broken links fail and get picked up by their 404 error page.
They put in a generic redirect page that takes you to the top of the website, not the original content the link pointed to.
They put in a correct redirect, but only for a limited period, after which, the URL fails and you get the 404 page.
They put in place a proper redirect and it stays there forever, so all previous URLs for the content continue to work and direct to the correct content.
In my opinion, the only acceptable option is the last one. A URL is for life, not just for Christmas. A variant of this slogan from my childhood. 🙂
From your perspective, broken links (internal and external) are bad for your website. It’s annoying for your readers and make your site appear poorly maintained. Broken links are one of the factors search engines use to judge your website, so it is in your interest to keep things ship-shape.
Being an Oracle blogger can prove difficult at times as Oracle have this annoying habit of changing their URLs a lot and not putting the correct redirects in place.
Don’t add to this problem. Once you start writing, try to keep all the URLs alive forever. If you move your blog to a different service, leave the old one there and put links to the new location. If you self-host, life is easier as you can do redirects using “.htaccess” or directly in your “httpd.conf” file.
You can identify broken links in your site using a link scanner. I’m currently using SiteCrawl.net, which seems to do the job OK. Once you’ve identified the broken links, you can start the arduous task of correcting them. This involves finding the new home of the content and correcting your link to it. It’s not fun, but it has to be done. Once you see how boring and annoying it is, you will appreciate how important it is that you don’t piss off other people by not maintaining your own URLs.
This is quite a touchy subject for me and I’m maybe not the best person to ask.
On the one hand, I feel you should grow an audience in an organic manner. If your content is good, they will find you.
On the other hand, I’ve been doing this for so long it is relatively easy for me to get heard. If I was starting today and producing the same type of content, would you have even heard about me or would I be lost in the noise of a billion bloggers?
Here are some things I would suggest:
Make the title relevant. People will see it in their RSS feed or on social media and they will make a decision about whether to read it based on only that. Catchy is good, but relevant is more important!
Find out the blog aggregators that are available for your subject matter and submit your RSS feed to them.
Make sure links to your RSS feeds are visible and working. RSS is not anywhere near as popular as it was, but every little helps.
When you write something new, post a link to it on social media. You will often have different followers on different platforms, so don’t worry about posting the same link on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn etc. If someone decides to follow you on all networks, then it’s their fault if they feel spammed. 🙂
Put some form of share buttons on your blog. Companies like ShareThis and AddThis make it really easy. Let fans of your work publicise it for you.
Ignore Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) companies. The search engines change their indexing criteria constantly. What SEO companies advise today will be detrimental to your search placing tomorrow. I’ve been doing this for 20+ years. Believe me, SEO is a scam! Write good content and people will find you!
Above all, be patient. It takes time and consistency to build an audience. Two blog posts are not going to make you famous, unless you’ve done something really interesting or really naughty! 🙂
I’m a Jedi master at writing off-topic posts! This blog started life as an Oracle blog, but now I just write reviews of Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. 🙂
The simple answer is you should do what you are happy with. I had been writing on my website for 5+ years before I started this blog. When I started the blog, I thought it would be technical. It quickly became apparent that the Oracle content was better suited to my website and the blog became a series of opinions, rants, movie reviews and book reviews. That’s why I changed the tag line to, “Oracle related rants (and lots of off-topic stuff)”.
I know in the early days that kind-of frustrated a lot of people. I used to receive negative emails and comments about it all the time. That doesn’t happen much these days because most readers seem to have become accustomed to my stance of “Oracle content goes on the website. Bullshit goes on the blog.” I’m sure some people would say bullshit goes on both. 🙂
Blogging platforms allow you to categorise and tag your content. I would suggest you make use of that so if someone is really irritated by off topic posts, they can avoid them.
Speaking for myself, I like to read the off-topic posts written by people I follow. It gives me some insight into the person and makes me feel connected. If I actually meet them in person, I feel almost like I know them already. It’s kind-of freaky! 🙂
If you find yourself consistently writing about a completely different subject, you might want to consider starting up a new blog. I’ve written some MySQL and SQL Server articles and put them on oracle-base.com, but if I ever start doing more of them, I would probably branch them off into a separate blog. It’s not necessary, but would seem a little cleaner to me.
I encouraged one of my former colleagues to start writing a blog (SnapDBA). He had lots of notes he had built up over the years, so he started to transfer some of them to his blog and described these notes as “backfill”. He used the term to indicate it was not a particularly new subject, but he wanted to write about it anyway.
Especially when you become more popular, it is easy to get a bit paranoid about the content you produce. If you write an article on an old subject, you wonder if people will think you’ve only just discovered it. It’s stupid to think that people really care about that, but ego is a powerful thing. 🙂 The concept of putting out backfill articles liberates you from that paranoia. Remember, writing is for your personal development, not all about trying to become the new Tom Kyte.
I often write articles on quite old subjects, which are not really deserving of being promoted to the front page of my website and I won’t write a blog post about their release or push them out on social media. Here are some scenarios where this happens for me:
I’m looking at the enhancements in a new release and I notice I’ve never written about that subject before. I may write a backfill article on the original subject, then write the article on the new enhancements. I will often write blog about the release of the new enhancements article, but I will kind-of ignore the backfill article. It’s linked from the enhancements article, so if people are interested they can read it, but I’m not going to make a big song and dance about a new article on an Oracle 10g feature. 🙂
While reading through the documentation I notice a feature I have never heard of before and assume it is a new feature. After a quick check I realise it was introduced in a previous release, so I write the backfill article to cover it.
Someone asks me a question and I write the answer as an article. If the content of the article is not on a particularly new or interesting (to me) subject, I will not promote it as a new article.
I like writing backfill articles and I write a lot of them. I would say somewhere in the region of 20-40% of my writing is either backfill or revising old articles to bring them up to date with my current understanding. Over the last few weeks you might have noticed very little in the way of new content hitting the website and blog. In fact, I’ve been really quite productive, but I’ve not been writing new and sexy stuff. I’ve been writing backfill articles that have been prompted by stuff going on at work.
I guess the real solution to this is try not to care what other people think, but if you are a “sensitive type” like me, just write it as a backfill article and don’t tell anyone about it. 🙂 If you are using a CMS, like WordPress, you can always put an older date on it (like a month old) so the RSS aggregators won’t pick it up as a new post.
