The secret power of a blog – Tracy Durnell’s Mind Garden
If you only write when you’re sure you’ll produce brilliance, you’ll never write.
Link tags: sharing
256
POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented world
This rhymes nicely with Mandy’s recent piece on POSSE:
Despite its challenges, POSSE is extremely empowering for those of us who wish to cultivate our own corners of the web outside of the walled gardens of the major tech platforms, without necessarily eschewing them entirely. I can maintain a presence on the platforms I enjoy and the connections I value with the people there, while still retaining primary control over the things that I write and freedom from those platforms’ limitations.
Long live hypertext! – Tracy Durnell’s Mind Garden
This is how I write:
As an online writer, my philosophy is link maximalism; links add another layer to my writing, whether I’m linking to an expansion of a particular idea or another person’s take, providing evidence or citation, or making a joke by juxtaposing text and target. Links reveal personality as much as the text. Linking allows us to stretch our ideas, embedding complexity, acknowledging ambiguity, holding contradictions.
Coming home | A Working Library
While one of the reasons oft declared for using POSSE is the ability to own your content, I’m less interested in ownership than I am in context. Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.
Mandy’s writing positively soars and sings in this beautiful piece!
Indieweb Vs Indie Web - fyr.io
So the human web, the people net, the your-net. Whatever it is called, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it is yours, if you want it. If you’re tired of the conglomerate-net, disgusted by the commercialised web, sick of being the product, allergic to The Algorithm, then you can have something else. Something of your own.
You want to upload your artwork? Write fanfic? World build? Document your developing Sistrum-playing skills? Discuss your experiences slice-of-life style? Experiment with poetry?
Do it.
Use wordpress if you want. Use Blogger. Hell, use Frontpage 98 if you want. Or learn some HTML And CSS and type it all up in notepad.exe. Or just HTML, don’t even bother with the CSS. Just make it yours.
Raw dog the open web!
In our current digital landscape, where a corporate algorithm tells us what to read, watch, drink, eat, wear, smell like, and sound like, human curation of the web is an act of revolution. A simple list of hyperlinks published under a personal domain name is subversive.
The next decade of the web | James’ Coffee Blog
After the last decade, where platforms have emerged as a core constituent of the web on which many rely, it may feel like things cannot change. That the giants are so big that there is no other way. Yet, to give into this feeling – that things can’t change – is not necessary. It is the way it is is not true on the web. We can make change. It’s your web.
Notes – David Bushell
David is on board. Who else?
Terence Eden’s Blog
A blog post can be a plain text document uploaded to a server. It can be an image hosted on a social network. It can be a voice note shared with your friends.
Title, dates, comments, links, and text are all optional.
No one is policing this.
Robin Rendle — Good and useful writing
The most important lesson that blogging taught me is that writing is for thinking first, communication last.
SCALABLE: Save form data to localStorage and auto-complete on refresh
When I was in Amsterdam I was really impressed with the code that Rose was writing and I encouraged her to share it. Here it is: drop this script into a web page with a form to have its values automatically saved into local storage (and automatically loaded into the form if something goes wrong before the form is submitted).
theAdhocracy | IndieWebCamp Brighton 2024
An in-depth look at Indie Web Camp Brighton with some suggestions for improving future events. Also, this insightful nugget:
There was something really energising about being with a group of people that had a diverse range of backgrounds, ideas, and interests, but who all shared a specific outlook on one problem space. We definitely didn’t all agree on what the ideal solution to a given problem was, but we were at least approaching topics from a similar starting point, which was great.
Oh Hello Ana - Reflections from IndieWebCamp Brighton
I had a fantastic time and hope it will become a frequent event.
Same!
Why I’m Ready to Party Like It’s 1999…Again | The Internet Review
You can feel it in the air. What’s old is new again. Blogs are returning. RSS is again ascendant.
Plugging into the IndieWeb - Jon’s website
I just attended IndiewebCamp Brighton, where I had a mind-expanding time with a bunch of folks as enthusiastic about the web as I am. It left me with a sense of hope that there are pocks of people keeping the dream of a free and open web alive.
Qubyte Codes - IndieWebCamp Brighton 2024
Mark’s write-up of the excellent Indie Web Camp Brighton that he co-organised with Paul.
Social, I love you, but you’re bringing me down
Posting in a space I control isn’t just about the principle anymore. It’s a kind of self-preservation. I want to preserve my attention and my autonomy. I accept that I’m addicted, and I would like to curb that addiction. We all only have so much time to spend; we only have one face to maintain ownership of. Independence is the most productive, least invasive way forward.
What’s the fun in writing on the internet anymore?
To put any thoughtful labour into crafting words online today is to watch them get sucked up, repurposed, and often monetized by someone else. It feels a bit like a digital wasteland; overrun with pirates, replete with armies of robots regurgitating everything into a gooey cocktail of digital sludge.
A holy communion | daverupert.com
You and I are partaking in something magical.
We’ve been waiting 20 years for this - The History of the Web
Blogging isn’t one thing and that’s kind of the point. It exists fractured by intention and it can be many things to many people. And now, 20 years after the last blogging revolution, something like a fractured digital presence is once again appealing.