My Posts
Planted: February 17, 2023
Last tended: February 25, 2023
On the Lainchan Webring
Yesterweb Forum - 10 Feb 2023
Recently I’ve been exploring the Lainchan Webring. I like a couple of things about it:
You must make a banner to join. Not the hardest thing in the world, but I feel like it’s a solid enough barrier to entry that also encourages you to reflect / connect / think about the identity of your site; as it is, kind-of, an “ad”.
It is decentralized. You are expected to host every banner of, & every link to, the other sites on the ring somewhere on your site. If one site dies, the ring should still exist on all the others, there is no central manager or underlying coded system. Just hyperlinked images.
It’s a shame how many don’t do that. The ones who have the full collection are a handful. If there were more, I’d be more confident in its longevity. And yet, something just feels more intimate about it than a lot of the other webrings I’ve explored.
It encourages having alternative mirrors of your site, like a .onion or I2P. Heck, those can be your primary, not a mirror. But, basically, you can exist as many times on the ring as the amount of mirrors you’ve created.
It’s strongly reliant on, and respectful of, personal autonomy. A strength and a weakness. Unfortunately, I feel it could be better with a little more direction / leadership. Of course, that’s a tricky thing to handle, but I believe they have (as of present) not struck a good balance.
On Static Site Generators
Yesterweb Forum - 3 Feb 2023
I think static site generators are an interesting topic, particularly in this yesterweb culture. Clearly, there is a hunger for independence and autonomy in this movement. There’s a lot more than just that, but it is a cornerstone. Making use of another’s platform can be seen as giving in to the current state of the internet, not always (like with Neocities) but definitely if that platform hinders your self-expression via either your design or content or both. On the aspect of design, static site generators, I feel, could contribute to website homogenization; specifically with the factor of themes. A completely optional factor, sure, but a powerful one in my opinion. I’m not as big on design, but I mention it because I know many of you here are.
If, like me, you don’t care as much about design, please consider checking out: https://themes.gohugo.io/
They could also be seen as making you more dependent, be it on the generator itself, a theme you are using, or dependent on dependencies in the event that your site is more layered (as some pre-built themes are). In a way, though, that’s where I feel the independence as an ideal, as an extreme, can stand to loosen up. The reality is we are dependent on countless things, for better or worse. In comparison to glorifying effective, kind, productive cooperation, we see autonomy as virtuous far more frequently. So greatly do we want to stand on our own that perhaps we too often forsake standing together.
On Moderation
Yesterweb Forum - 30 Jan 2023
People from this community inspired me to make my website. I could never consider anything that spurred me to action like that to possibly be a failure. And even if it were: “Failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of it.” I can only imagine community management to be quite difficult. More-so in one such as this, where, if I’m reading into it correctly, individuality is valued over the homogenization of corporatism. Managing themes like free speech, website autonomy, harmful / dangerous ideas, taboo topics, exploitation (financial or otherwise), etc. must be a mess. The group and the individual, a push and pull, pros and cons to each. Where are the lines? Who draws them? When do they change? When does pushing the envelope go from “how brave” to “how dare you?”
I don’t know. But no one, including yourselves, should ever fault you for trying. If I were to push for a virtue: it’d be transparency, honesty. Perhaps we cannot find common ground, but we can know where one another stands. 1000x thank you’s for all the effort and time you dedicate to this project.
On Preservation
~ For Morrigan ~
Yesterweb Forum - 28 Jan 2023
Preservation is a topic I also hold dear. It hurts to lose something one cares about. There’s this page I came across a few months ago titled stability; it’s very short, consider giving it a look. “Death is a part of life, not the end of it.” I don’t remember where I heard that, but please know I do not mean to invoke anything religious with it. Just perhaps that there’s a certain… flavor? quality? magic? to life that exists because of loss.
If I feel like that about it, then why bother with preservation at all? It’s so easy to go to extremes, isn’t it? All or nothing… To preserve something, I think it’s an act of love. I don’t believe that something being preserved is dead, at least not entirely. I think there’s a beauty in that, perhaps not the same beauty as when that thing was more alive, but a beauty nonetheless. Preservation gives a chance for that beauty to reach “just one more person”.
A little weird, I guess, right? I see this a bit as a spectrum, not a binary one or the other. To me, preservation exists in the in-between, in the gray. It’s important because it can be lost. The CAN is essential there though. To “outstay one’s welcome”, there’s an ugliness to that, no? Life AT-ALL-COSTS, NO MATTER WHAT sounds a little scary to me. Death is not someone you leave at the front door when they come knocking. You let them in, offer some tea, maybe talk a bit. Much more graceful than having your place broken into in the middle of the night.
On foreverliketh.is
basement community - 27 Jan 2023
Whatβs your website about?
It’s about me, I guess. It’s primarily a digital garden. Meaning, I start and finish things when I feel like it. It’s also about personal websites, and psychology, and philosophy, and education, and my struggles and interests.
Whatβs your favourite part of your website?
That’s a tough one… But I’d probably go with Personal Web Pages. I just really L-O-V-E exploring other people’s sites. Like, what do they care so much about that they’d go through all this hassle… Spend all this time and effort. What’s their world like? What’s their message?
If people could only view one part of your site, which part would it be?
Dear visitor, I do not know what it is you are looking for… But, in my time spent exploring the sites of others, sometimes finding the things I wasn’t looking for proved just as valuable.
On Site Navigation
Yesterweb Forum - 25 Jan 2023
In my opinion, in a “perfect world”, a site could be navigated in any way the visitor wishes.
~ Thematically (by Category) ~ ideally in the manner / order the webmasters considers most valuable / important.
~ Via Sitemap ~
~ With search ~ And good search, mind you. Ideally, having indexed every word on the site.
~ Through sorting ~ via date, via last modified, via page title, etc.
~ By tags & “contributors” ~
Those are the ways that come to mind, and I believe are most common. Each with their own pros and cons. But if you have them all, I guess the cons don’t really matter. Obviously, that is quite difficult and certainly asking too much of (some) hobbyist web developers.
I organize my content thematically (by category). I acknowledge that it makes it difficult for the visitor to find what they’re looking for; to easily reach the things that interest them. But I see my site as art. I will organize it in a manner that best reflects that art. Dear visitor, finding the things you are looking for is important, but so is finding the things you are not.
I take great pleasure in navigating personal web pages. I can only go through so many in a day; I try my best to dedicate the time necessary to have felt that I properly explored another’s invested time and effort, their world, their message. Perhaps there is some value in encouraging people to take the time to slow down, in addition to improving navigation.
Not that I believe you are guilty of this sixeyes, but to others that perhaps find themselves consumed in this conundrum: your site is probably more important than its navigation, don’t let this stop or delay you from making it. Time is so valuable.
On Digital Gardens
Yesterweb Forum - 24 Jan 2023
I consider digital gardening to be a better introduction for a first-time webmaster than the more traditional route of blogging. Perhaps it shouldn’t, but, to me, blogging has a certain baggage to it. I feel like it’s expected to be more… substantive? I love going through personal web pages, so by now I’ve seen plenty of examples to the contrary, but I just can’t get over that idea. Add-on that they’re usually expected to provide RSS and I feel an ever greater need to make whatever is going into someone’s feed worthwhile.
In a way, it’s funny that we’ve given this a name, as I am sure most with a website would agree that tending to it is very much like a garden. They might consider the categorization redundant, but the focus is on also treating your “content” this way as well. I believe that when you treat the entirety of the website in that manner, anxiety is less abound, and the joy of creation can permeate. That’s my personal experience, at least.
On Excessive Positivity
MelonLand Forum - 6 Jan 2023
This is an interesting topic. The concept of change, online identities, privacy, etc.
My favorite flavor of change would probably be redemption. But to “repent” one must have “sinned”. I look around at what’s online these days… correction: what I feel is most prominently online (cause all kinds of things are out there) and I see essentially highlight reels, an almost obsessive need to appear… perfect? Happy? Marketable? Hopefully you get the essence of what I’m referring to. I don’t mean to knock that attitude, but I do feel that it perhaps leads to a rejection of anything but. Instead of issues being addressed, they’re suppressed. I believe strongly in the concept of balance. That one way to look at life is as a continuous balancing act. The atmosphere makes me feel everyone saying: “Yes, all yang. No yin, please. Thank you”. I particularly worry when I see negative topics addressed, superficially. As if everyone is going: “All is good, no tilted scales here.” And the person experiencing that is meant to consider the matter addressed?
This goes for the other side as well, mind you. The echo chambers of hate and negativity, the wallowing in darkness. Are they not rejecting light?
When I see you pondering this, it feels like a breath of fresh air. A semblance of sanity. We are black AND we are white. As for what you should do, I’d say it depends on your goal and what you’re trying to achieve. I say with your mindsets, you can’t go wrong.
tags: [“evergreen”]
contributors: [“Me”]