(Site Resources) (Small Web)

My Site Stuff

Link to me:

More about me: about me/my links

At first I didn't have a page for links, because I felt like I'd be linking either to obvious things or to the same things everyone else links to, but as I've been looking around the small web I have seen reflections on the importance of connection between sites and of curation versus algorhythmic discovery. Yes, some of the sites and resources I like to recommend are popular and you'll find them linked elsewhere, but my links serve as a list of places I recommend, so it says something about me as well as about the sites.

Given how hard it is for small content creators to get attention without spending all their time and effort trying to court the algorhythm like they're minor nobility at Cinderella's ball, the curation of links and blogrolls, sharing and making things you've enjoyed easily found, is probably as important as content creation when it comes to making the small web a better place. Rather than currying favor with those who have more power than you, why not spend your time with equals, discussing your projects and exchanging recommendations.

Loosely inspired by the idea of the digital garden and by a comment from lost letters in the 32-Bit Cafe chat, this is an attempt to create pages that combine the links I want to save and share with my own thoughts about the topic at hand. Some of them are still pretty basic, and some of them have taken on a life of their own.

My Thoughts on Web Design

• Metacuration: Links to Even More Links - further thoughts on link curation, as well as webrings and website directories
• Why the Small Web? - basically my Small Web/Old Web manifesto.
• What I Learned Making Websites - the answer to "what has creating a website done for you?"
• Linkrot, or Website Existentialism - on the mortality of data.

Other Topics

• ADHMe - a webring for people with ADHD, as well as links and suggestions
• Solarpunk - what it is, some related essays, and a lot of half-sorted links
• Amazon Alternatives - where to get stuff to read and track that you've read it
• Otherkin& or, on the internet, everyone knows you're a dog
• Art Links - currently just links to art tutorials and finding public domain art online

The rest of this page includes all of my links for making websites and other, related subjects.

Aspirational

These are the kinds of sites that make me want to work on my website. My site may not look much like any of them, but they're what I looked at when I was thinking that I wanted to get back to having a personal website again. Some of them are by people I know, who reminded me how fun this can be, and some are by people I met in the 32-bit Cafe or sites that just instantly impressed me.

Further Thoughts

• 32-Bit Cafe: a community for people interested in the small web, with a thriving and creative discussion board and Discord server for conversation. If you're thinking about making a website and you haven't before, or you haven't in a long time, I highly recommend swinging by to say hello.
• Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web: "Despite its undeniable value, I think Facebook is at odds with the open web that I love and defend. This essay is my attempt to explain not only why I quit Facebook but why I believe we're slowly replacing a web that empowers with one that restricts and commoditizes people. And why we should, at the very least, stop and think about the consequences of that shift.
• The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet: "Dark forests like newsletters and podcasts are growing areas of activity. As are other dark forests, like Slack channels, private Instagrams, invite-only message boards, text groups, Snapchat, WeChat, and on and on. [...] These are all spaces where depressurized conversation is possible because of their non-indexed, non-optimized, and non-gamified environments. The cultures of those spaces have more in common with the physical world than the internet.
• 404 Page Not Found: "For those my age, this tripartite history of the net begins at number two, with the anarchic, sprawling, ’90s net, followed by the post-9/11, pre-iPhone variety (including the blogosphere and the fulcrum moment that was Myspace), and ending with today’s app-driven, hyper-conglomerate social media net. Like many people my age and older, I miss the pre–social media internet. The new internet knows this, and it capitalizes on my nostalgia as it eats away at the old internet. It amounts to an unforeseen form of technological cannibalism."
• What is the Small Web?: "The Small Web is for people (not startups, enterprises, or governments). It is also made by people and small, independent organisations (not startups, enterprises, or governments)... On the Small Web, you (and only you) own and control your own home (or homes)."
• A Handmade Web: "I evoke the term 'handmade web' to refer to web pages coded by hand rather than by software; web pages made and maintained by individuals rather than by businesses or corporations; web pages which are provisional, temporary, or one-of-a-kind; web pages which challenge conventions of reading, writing, design, ownership, privacy, security, or identity."
• Reviving Ye Olde Personal Home Page: "Your virtual homestead on the world wide web. A pit stop all of your own on the ever-under-construction information superhighway. A place to hang up your shingle as you made your way through the wilds of an untamed, untrammeled cyberspace. (Barlow’s Declaration accurately captures the spirit of that age)... Now nearly extinct in this era of social media and selfies, the personal home page was one of the first trembling forays of humanity’s grappling with identity and self-expression in the Internet age."
• Stop Talking To Each Other and Start Buying Things: "Over and over again since that prodigal moment of shame and hurt and confusion, I’ve joined online communities, found so much to love there, made friends and created unique spaces that truly felt special, felt like places worth protecting. And they’ve all, eventually, died. For the same reasons and through the same means, though machinations came from a parade of different bad actors. It never really mattered who exactly killed and ate these little worlds. The details. It’s all the same cycle, the same beasts, the same dark hungers."
• Small Web Connectivity: "One of the things social media took from us was a true sense of connection. In our modern net landscape, it is if we are all on our own private islands, shouting out into a vast ocean."
• Help Build the Social Web: "One thing I wish someone had told me is that I can help shape the social web. So I am telling this to you now: if you are interested in advancing the social web, there are ways to help."

Still Here?

I have a few more collections of indieweb or small web related links.

Own Your Data is an indieweb principle: that your content should not live in the cloud or in a social media silo but on a site you control. I'm not there yet but it's one of the things I'm trying to learn more about!

• The IndieWeb Movement: Owning Your Data and Being the Change You Want to See in the Web: "Instead of relying on another platform to host your thoughts, with their specific branding guidelines and restrictions, you should be the platform you want to be. By making the social network revolve around your site, you're keeping it within your grasp and built for the things you want."
• Adafruit Digital Free Library
• Grow Your Own Services
• How to Host Your Own Website at Home for $2 a Year
• Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud
• NYC Mesh Docs
• On Setting Up a Raspberry Pi 2 as Off-grid Server
• ownCloud - The leading OpenSource Cloud Collaboration Platform.
• sizeof(cat) has a lot more links along these lines

Security is getting more important all the time, given how much of our data is being collected online. I'm not an expert in the subject but I try to maintain a basic level of awareness of the evolving digital privacy situation.

• Here's a good Security Checklist for your online activities.
• Riseup's Security is a great overview of a variety of security concerns.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to Online Anonymity
• Doxcare: Prevention and Aftercare for Those Targeted by Doxxing and Political Harassment
• How to Completely Remove Your Online Presence
• Violet Blue's Patreon hosts weekly roundups of cybersecurity news and headlines if you want to know what's going on