Data Blogger Resource Kit

When I started out blogging 5 years ago, there was a lot that I didn’t know. I figured things out as I went. The FreeCon helped give me a giant push in the right direction. But there are some things that nobody ever tells you. While sitting in a coffee shop I decided that I wanted to have a place to drop helpful tidbits that might be useful for other bloggers, new & old.

I’m now the proud owner of DataBlogger.info. That domain points to a GitHub repo where I plan on dropping my blogging tidbits. I’ve licensed the repo under the GNU GPL 3.0. This makes the contents of the repo 100% free to use by anyone, so long as you keep the license intact and provide attribution.

What’s in the box?

For now, there’s just a single HTML file in there: BlogMentions.html. It’s based on a text file originally created by Kenneth Fisher (blog|twitter). The file is pretty straightforward–It’s just a listing of other data bloggers. It’s alphabetized by first name (I know, it’s a terrible data model). Each line contains the blogger’s name, and links to their blog, twitter, and YouTube (as appropriate). It’s formatted in my preferred mention style (just like I used when I mentioned Kenneth’s name a couple sentences ago). Don’t like my style? Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The idea is that whenever I mention another blogger, I go to that file, find their name, and just do a quick copy/paste into my blog post. This saves me hunting down their website URL, their twitter handle, etc. I’m also pretty bad at names, which extends to twitter handles, last names, etc so this keeps me from embarrassing mess-ups.

It might not be 100% accurate. I haven’t double-checked to make sure everything is up-to-date. People change domains, start blogging on new platforms, and come/go from social media. If you notice something isn’t right, submit an issue or pull request!

What’s next?

Uhh…. I don’t really know. If you’re a blogger, or want to be a blogger, or are just curious, drop some questions in the comments below, or log a request as an Issue.

Edit: There’s a wiki now

Cathrine Wilhelmsen (blog|twitter) suggested that having a list of useful links would be helpful:

I’ve created a Wiki to start keeping track of these resources. If you are a blogger, and have online resources that are helpful to you, let me know. If you’ve always wished there was something to help you do a thing, post your user story in the comments below. Maybe someone else has a resource and can help you.