events/2024-03-13-hwc-europe
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London was an IndieWeb meetup on Zoom held on 2024-03-13.
- Archived from: https://etherpad.indieweb.org/2024-03-13-hwc-europe
Participants
Mark SutherlandJoe Crawford
capjamesg
Paul Watson
benjiSara Jakša
Al Abut
Pablo Morales
Tantek Çelik- Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
Notes
- Introductions
- Yes, "Key signing parties" are a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party "an event at which people present their public keys to others in person, who, if they are confident the key actually belongs to the person who claims it, digitally sign the certificate containing that public key and the person's name, etc."
- "That was a thing. Yes, that is a thing!"
- IWC Brighton
- Image map: https://jamesg.blog/brighton/
- 2024/Brighton
- Website pain points: 2024/Brighton/pains (James didn't scribe this one)
- Getting_Started - love this page and love that it includes the services that can be chosen. I like that it alludes to the costs associated. A "decision tree" ought to leave a visitor with their next steps - costs, admintax, etc.
- https://32bit.cafe/cyowebsite/
- Great example of a getting started page ^
- Getting started improvements
- Tension between IWC wiki as second brain vs. a streamlined place where people can get started
- IWC could be a piece of software; anything.
- You'd see a giant wall of text. Get people mission oriented. Tons of reading to go other places. Do I have to do this homework to get started? "I want to blog!"
- Does the community take tech support to do it?
- We don't have a single recommendation on a best path / an easy way to get someone on the right path.
- "What is an IndieWeb service?" (james note)
- Too much text.
- James' decision tree: https://roboflow.github.io/deploy-setup-widget/results.html
- IndieWeb vs. indie web
- Getting started page -- we say WP and "these other plugins" to be part of everything set up.
- How can we get people to the information that gets them online as soon as possible?
- First step is buying a domain, then lots of steps -- big commitment.
- Getting started page: actual tips are have a domain, build a site. Feeling you can't be part of the IndieWeb if you don't have a domain to begin with.
- Getting started: these conversations aren't new.
- 100% tailored toward developers right now.
- "Domains have less social value than phone numbers." - love this observation about what the culture currently values - 100% true. Phones are most people's main computer, their identity, and many other daily things wrapped into one.
- "Phone numbers are even more important than email. You can buy groceries with your phone."
- If a domain name has higher value to you, you might pay it.
- Is someone on Tumblr not indie web? (James' thinking) - with your own domain - https://help.tumblr.com/hc/en-us/articles/14449316040087-Domains
- Context re: IndieWeb vs. indie web: https://jamesg.blog/2024/01/27/the-indie-web/
- We should invest more time in communal tools that guides you through the process of getting a site set up.
- Maybe the way to indie web is getting people to read blogs? -- it's not all about publishing.
- Stoke desire to eat your own vegetables before you start a farm. [Al, did I get that right? - James]
- We have two points of contact: chat and the wiki. Concept of forum: potential way of interacting with a community to the parts that you want to. Getting started pinned posts. SSGs. WordPress. You don't have to scroll up through lots of chat; confusing, intimidating.
- We want more people to host their own sites; own their content. Whether or not they have all the things that interface; that's not the point. The point is to build your own site.
- Forum discussion ended -- we should revisit it.
- James: We have made a lot of progress; in person event diversity, wiki improvements, community enthusiasm.
- James: These things take time and volunteers, but we should continue discussing ideas + facilitating help from community members who'd love to help us!
- James: suppose we have a blank slate. What can we do to improve, even if it means starting something new?
- How do we boil down the ideas we have communicated for years, as part of rediscovering what our values are about?
- Al:
- volunteering to go into Figma and make a how-to IndieWeb.
- sometimes the best way to tackle a design experiment is to split the interface from the content
- a group can work effectively on a first draft of what the bare minimum steps are, and critiquing a first draft of a design.
- James: can help with engineering + copy!
- James: "splitting in two can create clarity" <- Al: I think we might also need clarity on not just the HOW but the WHY? What are the benefits of making your own website?
- Jeremy Keith at Brighton: https://adactio.com/journal/20968 :
"While we were hacking away on day two, somebody mentioned that they still find hard to explain the indie web to people.
“It’s having your own website”, I said.
But surely there’s more to it than that, they wondered.
Nope. If someone has their own website, then they’re part of the indie web. It doesn’t matter if that website is made with a complicated home-rolled tech stack or if it’s a Squarespace site."
- #indieweb-weaving
- #indieweb-getting-started
- James: help me come up with a better name :D
- Have discussions on things like webrings, etc.
- Agnostic for websites -- no IndieWeb standards required.
- What is the indie web
- Personal expression
- Joy of breaking out of Instagram
- Website could be your personal calling card
- Why should designers put their stuff on Dribbble where random people comment on your work? From Louis Mantia: https://lmnt.me/blog/web-independence.html
- There are reasons beyond one wanting to tinker on their website
- Internet for misfits (Mark's project)
- https://internetformisfits.com/ (feel free to steal any or none of my CSS from this https://codepen.io/artlung/full/qBvaePM )
- Feel free to contribute, the repo is now public: https://github.com/marksuth/internetformisfits.com
- Inspired by music for misfits documentary; documents the history and growth of British indie music.
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06g64wb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_frALi9Fj8
- Be tongue-in-cheek; not only technical
- Wiki is too insider; over technical -- telling that people who have been here for a while feel this.
- Don't be too serious.
- I have to be serious about web development at work. I want my site to do silly things.
- Making your own website is like the vinyl of websites; it's a slow focused experience compared to the firehose of streaming entertainment from a larger social media platform, and it's even better than just buying vinyl because you can press your own record.
- https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Hacienda-Audiobook/B004GAVEDM
- Mark Sutherland & capjamesg!
- https://theadhocracy.co.uk/
- Pablo's Vinyls https://lifeofpablo.com/lists/vinyls
- Pablo & James - what does it look like to do spring cleaning for your personal sites and projects?
- Pablo: Removing unnecessary docker images that take space, learn to consolidate and not autorenew domains
- James goes to various personal sites on a regular basis (mentioned visiting Todd's about weekly)
- Al: that's a good reminder to actually go to people's websites, instead of just staying in an RSS reader.
- https://toddpresta.com/post/asciiville-web-comic-most-popular
- Question: Why am I online?
- Why do you have a website?
- Why do you write? Helpful youtube video series on looking at what you read to figure out why you write: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRPwuimE2M8
- My thing to tinker with, break, and play with. Some make models / do carpenting, I mess around with code.
- I like to capture my thoughts; therapeutic. Tinkering is the best part. A means to put your creativity out there. Hard to get people to my site through social media; things starting to change?
- About connection: people can reach out and talk to me. An emergent part of my life.
- Want to be able to look back at the things I have done, online, and not have it on social media. Want control over what I do with it.
- Keeping your mind busy, much like a hobby like painting. Creating rather than purely consuming, something ideally that you can share with other people. Reasons for sharing can change over time as well. James: It makes me happy.
- Sometimes it's Type 2 fun - frustrating while you're doing it, very satisfying afterwards. Type 2 Fun: https://www.rei.com/blog/climb/fun-scale
- I write on the web because apparently pictures aren't enough. My website was created to get art online, and my blog is for the notes alongside my art. Writing is secondary to getting my images on the web.
- Write something; noodle it out in a public space. Thinking about what is the public; are there multiple publics.
- My website is more than my blog.
- My personal sandbox. Where I became a designer. Became a place where professionally and personally, I could experiment. Would tell designers for years: if you want to be good, get a website. Experimental place where I can learn.
Pablo Morales Why I blog ? https://lifeofpablo.com/blog/why-i-blog
https://projects.kwon.nyc/internet-is-fun/
- https://github.com/marksuth/internetformisfits.com
- Draft of the ideas: https://github.com/marksuth/internetformisfits.com/blob/main/drafts/intro.md
Related to "Getting Started"
Sara's roundup discussion: https://sarajaksa.eu/2024/03/interaction-on-the-web-my-addition-to-the-great-posts-by-alex-tracy-jo-and-bacardi55/
Prefers color scheme: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { }
- prefers-reduced-motion
Paul Watson shared his SCSS structure https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/css
https://css-naked-day.github.io/
https://codepen.io/plfstr/full/zYqQeRw - HTML element quiz
Paul Watson's SCSS - https://lazaruscorporation.co.uk/miscellaneous/scss.tar.gz
You can also, in DevTools do: `document.head.remove()` to disable effective styles
Idea: Single page for how to make a website