Blogging: Weekly Summary (October 13-19, 2025)

A week in small, honest bits

This week felt like walking through a jumble sale of blogs. Some things sparkle. Some things are dusty, but useful. There are tools being tinkered with, habits being confessed, platforms being defended like old dogs, and a sense that the shape of blogging keeps shifting — again. I would describe the week's chatter as curious and a little stubborn. To me, it feels like people are trying to hold on to the parts of blogging that matter, while also testing new toys that promise to make everything faster or cleaner.

I’ll point to a few recurring ideas as I go: design vs content, tools and trade-offs, the craft of writing, personal rituals, and the fragile economics of platforms. There are people defending WordPress like it’s a family heirloom, people trying to treat blogs like personal knowledge bases, and people who just want to stop arguing and write. You’ll see names below. Click through if one of them sparks you — the originals are worth the read.

Design, themes, and the AI shortcut

Design was a quiet drumbeat this week. Onur Solmaz wrote about adding little niceties to a blog — light/dark mode, permalinks, content copying. Small things, but the kind that make a blog feel cared for. The tone is partly: 'I put this off', and partly: 'AI finally made it easy'. I’d say that view is common now. People treat AI like a new kitchen gadget that suddenly chops onions the way you like.

This idea — that default themes are starting to look like a lack of taste rather than a focus on content — kept popping up. It's blunt. It sounds a bit like complaining that everyone wears the same pair of trainers. But the point lands: if a blog looks like the template everyone else uses, readers get no sense of the person behind it. Maybe that matters, maybe not, but the argument is more about identity than pixels.

And then there’s the prediction: frontend work for simple blogs will shrink as tooling improves. People will still want bespoke things, sure. But the grunt work? It might be automated. It’s like when banks introduced ATMs. Some jobs disappeared. New ones appeared. The idea makes people itchy if they earn a living crafting frontend niceties, but it also makes starting a blog less scary for the rest of us.

You might want to read Onur’s piece if you like the fiddle-and-finish side of blogging.

Tools and the old favourites: Hugo, WordPress, Ghost and the rest

There’s the classic debate: go static or stick with a CMS. Ruben Schade gave a practical take on Hugo. He likes the speed and the docs. But he also warns about the template syntax and the upkeep when the ecosystem moves fast. It’s the usual trade-off. Speed and control versus a steeper learning curve. I’d describe his stance as: if you can put in the learning hours, Hugo pays you back.

On the other side of things, John Scalzi wrote a warm note about WordPress. Seventeen years of uptime and the kind of reliability that feels like a pension plan. People say WordPress is bloaty. Scalzi's point is that it just works, and that stability matters more than the tech sheen when you’ve been doing this a long time. That felt like hearing someone praise a trusted old car that still starts every morning.

Then there’s a wary post about middlemen from Greg Morris. He talks about Ghost and how the ease of hosted platforms hides a loss of control. Like renting a nice flat with a landlord who can change the locks. It’s comfortable until it isn’t. The post has that familiar tension: platforms give convenience, but convenience often carries strings.

These three pieces together read like a small ecosystem survey. Hugo is the nimble startup runner. WordPress is the reliable van. Ghost is the rented flat that looks great until policy changes. Pick your vehicle.

Blogs as personal tools: notes, versioning, Zettelkasten

There was a strand this week about using blogs for personal knowledge — not just broadcasting. Martin Haehnel appears twice with two slightly different angles. Once, he frames the blog as a Zettelkasten browser — an interface to notes. Another time, he’s wrestling with post versioning using Git. It’s a good pair. One post says the blog can be a bespoke front end for thought. The other says: if you treat posts like evolving ideas, you need versioning.

Treating a blog like a notes app feels like putting your recipe box in plain view. You don't hide recipes. You share the bits of your thinking that are messy and useful. The versioning discussion is the nerdy flip side: when you keep editing the recipe, how do you show who changed it and when? If you like the idea of your blog as a laboratory, Martin’s posts are the toolbox.

Craft and the small things writers argue about

People argued about the little things this week — but in useful ways. Girl on the Net wrote about the first line versus the final line. The claim: the first line hooks you, yes, but the final line lingers. That felt right. It’s like the last sip of coffee. Not the first aroma, but the taste you take away.

Then there was a thoughtful reminder about examples from Manu. He defends made-up examples as teaching tools. The point is practical: good examples aren’t the point. They’re scaffolding for the argument. That’s worth repeating because a lot of blog writing trips over itself trying to be clever instead of useful.

And then comes the nail-scratcher of online criticism from John Lampard. His title — 'Every blog has a yelling dumbass reader' — is the kind of bluntness that makes you laugh and wince. He points out how often tone, sarcasm, and focus get misread. It’s a reminder that readers are unpredictable. Good writing is not only about what you write, but about how it will be heard, sometimes badly.

All these pieces point at craft. Not just the big ideas, but the micro-skills of hooking a reader and leaving them with something.

Personal rhythms, anniversaries and the slow work of habit

A number of writers used the week to pause and reflect on time. Jason Journals celebrated seven years of blogging. The piece reads like one of those maps you keep of small victories. He talks about discipline, simplicity, and how a consistent habit outlives fancy platforms. It’s quietly inspiring.

John Scalzi also posted a 'Year Of Blogging' piece, a curated list of favourites. He’s in a different register than Jason — one is the patient amateur, the other the seasoned hand — but both make the same obvious point: showing up matters. It’s like watering a plant. You can have the best pot in the world, but if you never water it, nothing grows.

And then there’s I am BARRY HESS, who wrote about unplugging and bringing paper back into life. He’s logging social-media exile, and noting how paper changes the way he reads and thinks. This is a trend. Several posts nudged at the idea that stepping away from the constant churn makes room to write better. It’s that old-world feeling of taking a proper walk to clear your head.

Profiles, small lives and being seen

Personal blogs are alive this week. Manu shared 'Alice' — a portrait of a 37-year-old librarian who started a blog as a creative outlet. There’s warmth there. It reads like a conversation over tea. She blogs because it helps her process the world, and she doesn’t want to monetize it. That position is quiet and, frankly, refreshing.

The Wallflower Digest appears twice. The editor is excited about being featured and admits to the slow, happy work of domestic hobbies: embroidery, cooking, TV binges, and gardening. Small human things. These posts cut through the noise because they remind readers why blogs began in the first place — to keep a record of small lives.

There’s also the Non-Book Review Contest winners from Scott Alexander. It’s more public and competitive, but it still celebrates writing. Contests like this feel like a village fete for readers: a little fanfare, a few prizes, a cause to gather.

Design critiques and product taste

One post used a sharper lens: Numeric Citizen Space reflected on Apple, Liquid Glass redesigns, and a cultural conversation about attention and AI. The post mixes tech critique with nostalgia and a plea for personal blogs over social networks. It’s not just about a new OS skin. It’s about the way platforms steer attention.

Another practical piece came from WARREN ELLIS LTD. He revisits old tools (IFTTT), and the friction of keeping a long-running programming guide. There’s a weariness to that one. It shows how time and small technical breakages pile up. You start a project with optimism, and then things change. Someone has to keep up.

The undercurrent of control and ownership

Several posts returned to the idea of control. It’s the theme that shows up like a stray penny in a coat pocket. People talk about control over data, control over how a blog looks, and control over how content is monetized or shared.

Greg Morris’s warning about hidden middlemen is the clearest call. He urges caution: a beautiful, easy-hosted platform may be gently shifting your rights. It’s a sober reminder that convenience is often a contract in disguise. That language — contracts, landlords, rented flats — keeps coming back. It’s a cultural reference that resonates: better to own the bike than rent it forever if you can afford the trouble of fixing it.

Then there's the technical route to ownership: Git hooks, commit hashes in frontmatter, and version history. That’s the nerd’s answer to ownership. It’s a little clunky, but it’s principled.

Places where writing still matters more than platforms

A few posts really rub against the shiny-tool impulse. Ben Werdmuller (writing as Elizabeth Spiers) looked back at what made blogging different: it connected people directly and let real conversations breathe. There's a short-handed nostalgia here, but it's not empty. He argues that newsletters are a partial successor, but long-form blogging has qualities you can’t quite copy.

This chorus — small, steady blogs matter — was echoed in the pieces from people celebrating anniversaries and documenting small rituals. The message is stubborn: a blog is still one of the cleanest ways to keep ideas that aren’t optimized for the fastest attention span.

Tone and community friction

There’s delight, but also friction. The piece about the 'yelling dumbass reader' is a compact, accurate frustration: readers sometimes miss the nuance. The pushback can be ugly. It’s a reminder that blogging is not a polite garden party. It’s a rowdy bazaar. If you write clearly, you might still be heard badly. If you write with humor, some readers will take offense.

That friction is part of the ecosystem. It shapes who blogs, and how. Some people retreat. Some double down. It’s interesting to see who chooses which path.

Small but telling experiments: permalinks, copying, and the social bits

Little features kept appearing. Copying content, pretty permalinks, social share images, and discoverability tweaks. These sound trivial. They’re not. They shape how content spreads and how people find posts three years later. There’s an argument that discoverability is the difference between a blog as a private diary and a blog as a public resource.

These tweaks are exactly the kind of thing a hobbyist cares about. They’re also the kind of thing platforms do for you, and that's where the trade-offs show up again.

Where AI sits in the conversation

AI lurks in many posts like a well-known relative who shows up to dinner and talks too loudly. Onur mentions AI as a tool that shortens design work. Luigi Mozzillo notes using AI for work and then trying to get back to writing. Numeric Citizen Space thinks AI changes human relationships and the way we interact online.

No one here treats AI like a magic wand. The tone is cautious curiosity. Tools can move tasks from manual to automatic, but there’s a question about taste and intent. Will AI make sites indistinguishable? Maybe. Will it free people to focus on thought and craft? Maybe. Both are true at once.

A little about contests, craft and the strange joy of amateur awards

The Non-Book Review Contest is a reminder that not everything online has to be a startup or a statement. Sometimes it’s a small fair. Scott Alexander gave the winners some attention and a prize. It’s refreshing. People still enjoy friendly competition. It’s like a local bake-off for writers.

A few tangents that loop back

Two posts made me think of running into friends at a market. Martin’s technical notes on versioning is nerdy, but it connects to the same idea as Alice's blog: both are ways of saying, 'this is how I think'. Barry Hess stepping away from screens felt like the same impulse: make room for thought. They’re different genres of the same habit.

I’d say that’s what struck me most: whether you’re tinkering with Git or writing about embroidery, everyone is trying to make space for something that matters to them. The tools vary. The words vary. The impulse is familiar.

Where the disagreements sit

There are small disagreements throughout the week. Some argue that stability and proven platforms (WordPress) beat the new flashy stuff. Some argue that tools like Hugo will give you control and speed. Others warn that hosted platforms erode ownership. You can pick a side. Or, more usefully, realize that each choice answers a different question: do you want ease, control, or speed?

And then there’s the stylistic disagreement about what blogging should be: polished product or messy logbook? Some people want blogs to be curated, medium-quality magazines. Others want them wild and honest. Both camps have merit.

A quick note on discoverability, edits and the ethics of changing posts

The versioning and post-edit questions are small but thorny. If you change a post, do you hide the old thinking? If you annotate with commit hashes, does that make the blog more trustworthy, or just more technical? People vary. There’s something appealing about a transparent history. There’s something appealing about letting your writing be a living document.

If you want to follow up

If any of this sounds like your cup of tea, here are a few places to look. For design and AI notes, start with Onur Solmaz. For the tools debate, read Ruben Schade on Hugo and John Scalzi on WordPress. For the craft of final lines, open Girl on the Net. If you're a tinkerer who likes digging into Git hooks and versions, Martin Haehnel has the screwdriver.

If you enjoy the small-life essays that make blogging feel human, read the profiles by Manu and The Wallflower Digest. And if you want a bite of communal writing that’s less personal and more competitive, check the Non-Book Review winners from Scott Alexander.

There’s a little more: Greg Morris on hidden middlemen, Numeric Citizen Space on design and Apple, I am BARRY HESS on unplugging, and WARREN ELLIS LTD on old tools and the friction of maintenance. It’s a tidy list, like a map of the week’s markets.

The threads that run through these posts are familiar: people want to be seen, they want tools that don’t get in the way, and they want some control over their own words. Sometimes they want a tidy, fast site. Sometimes they want a messy page where they can tinker. It’s a mixed bag, and that’s partly the point. Like any street, some stalls sell the same things. Others surprise you with something you didn’t know you needed.

If you’re a blogger, the week offers both comfort and a poke. Comfort in the knowledge that many people still care about the small acts of posting. A poke in the ribs reminding you that tools are changing and you might have to adjust. Sit with both feelings. Maybe make a cuppa. Read one of the posts. Or two. Or three. It’s all there, in small, committed sentences. Read the originals if you want the full recipe. They’re waiting.