My impressions of Bear Blog
This post will be very plain. That is because Bear Blog is excellent in a way that is obvious and requires little explaining. Bear Blog is a minimalistic blogging service that will store your posts and serve them without fluff and at great speed. As Tildes blogging brother, Bear Blog has nothing in excess. At the same time, it allows you complete access to the CSS style, as well as other elements, to the point that it is entirely possible to achieve a layout that resembles a traditional page rather than a blog. Not that I would want that myself, but that looks entirely achievable to me.
It pleases me that Bear Blog doesn't have built-in comments, nor does it have any essential element that goes against its simply stated core goals. In fact, if you look at its roadmap, you will notice that several suggestions that would take the project in another direction remain unfulfilled.
That gave me confidence in the project. All I ever wanted was a simple blog to house my content and domain. All the bells and whistles of other solutions were only in the way. When I asked about it, most suggestions were to create a static website using something like Hugo and GitHub Pages. To be entirely clear, I do believe these were good suggestions that meant well. However, every time I tried to actually get it done, at some point I concluded that it was too much for me. I don't work with IT, and, although I clearly understand why some have good reason to believe that maintaining a static website is trivial, it never felt trivial enough for me.
I was resigned to paying for some very expensive WordPress hosting until I considered Bear Blog. My single concern was image hosting, as I intend to publish some formal film analysis and that kind of content can be made useless without screenshots. Sometimes I also enjoy producing simple graphics and accompanying images to illustrate a concept. I have used images produced by Bing Image Creator in the past as well -- although I do not intend to remove those images from previous posts that were essentially created in tandem with them, it remains open if I would use them for public posts again. That is currently a situation that requires greater legal and ethical clarification. In any event, I would like for my posts to always be alongside whatever images I post them with, and the idea of using something like Imgur, or even cubeupload, made me unsure.
When I learned that, for a fee, Bear Blog now allows for image hosting, it suddenly became a very attractive option. I exchanged messages with Bear Blog's creator, Hermann, and he reassured me that whatever images I host will always be there with my posts, even if I somehow disappear or otherwise become unable to continue paying. I am the first to admit, I am a little paranoid about my stuff disappearing from the internet. Hermann was very considerate of my neurosis.
In any case, I will be creating backups of my own this time.
In addition to that, Bear Blog practices localized pricing, which is, again, very considerate of Mr. Hermann. I was granted a considerable discount, reflecting the fluctuations of Brazilian currency in relation to the US dollar. I mean, if he truly reflected just how cheap the Brazilian Real truly is, Mr. Herman would have to pay me for using his service (just a little joke ;), but he clearly did what he could to accommodate my economic circumstances and that is very much appreciated :)
Finally, getting my custom domain to work with Bear Blog was pretty much instant and the instructions on the Bear Doc's managed to be both shorter and more informative than anything I got from providers such as Hostinger and HostGator. I have no idea how domains work under the hood, but I am reminded that it took more than 24 hours (and possibly 48 hours) for any Porkbun/Hostinger/HostGator/WordPress combo to start working (that is, for my domain to start pointing to my website). Also unlike those services, getting everything ready with Bear Blog did not require several conversations with live chat support.
Although I cannot provide much commentary in regards to the technical side of things, I could go on and on about how well Bear Blog is designed. At every juncture, I can see a human being trying to figure out how to make it simple without making it obscure, carefully selecting just how much information to share and when. Bear User Documentation should be memorialized and taught in classes as a prime example of saying everything you need clearly and plainly -- it does not lack anything essential, nor does it confuse me with unnecessary excess.
I almost made a grave omission: although it bothers me a little that votes and the Discovery page go a little in the opposite direction of the minimalism that is at the core of this project, I also think they are awesome. In the following days, I will observe the effect they have on my writing, and also how it impacts my overall experience reading other Bear blogs. I will, then, reconsider my position accordingly.
Score: 5 out of 5 (provisionary).
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