6 ms·

Not specifically directed at you, but sort of directed at you: I wish everyone who pined for the 25-years-ago days of mostly text pages would, instead of pinin

by Frondo 9y ago

Not specifically directed at you, but sort of directed at you: I wish everyone who pined for the 25-years-ago days of mostly text pages would, instead of pining, just go out there and produce that content they want to see. Instead of pining, start writing. Hosting is cheap or free, browsers still parse simple HTML, there's nothing stopping anyone from creating a return to that simpler form.

77pt77 9y ago
I don't write on-line content (no blog for example) but if I did I'd test it in (e)links for sure. :)
mi100hael 9y ago
I do and I test my personal website on lynx. Doesn't change the fact that sites like this are under the misguided impression that it's cheaper to ship 2 MB of JavaScript with each request rather than just responding with the fucking 2 KB of article text so they end up looking like: # I Bought a Book About the Internet From 1994 and None of the Links Worked - Motherboard #motherboard Quantcast [p?c1=2&c2=8568956&cv=2.0&cj=1]
- Frondo 9y ago
  So how much would you pay for a bare-bones, text-only version of the content, if you're going to read JS-decorated content?
  - mi100hael 9y ago
    Are you suggesting that ads can't appear in text articles? Or that ad blockers don't exist for graphical browsers?
  - exergy 9y ago
    The question isn't one of us creating it, although, unlike those downvoting you, I understand where you come from. The question is, who will (and how to) create a curation of sorts. A Google for the simple web. A one stop shop that encourages barebones simplicity and fosters a community where people only allow a simplified internet, and adtech is a nonstarter.
mulmen 9y ago
Rent is expensive in my city, do you think it is reasonable to tell someone who can't afford rent to just buy their own building? That's what you are suggesting.
- throwawaywonk 9y ago
  Building a web page costs basically nothing; commercial real estate is much more expensive.
- JCharante 9y ago
  You're not going to be in the Alexa top 10,000. Go run a docker container for $3/month to host your site, cache it with cloudflare's free plan and pay $12/year for a domain. Its only $48/yr to host all your content. It's really not that ridiculous.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    It is ridiculous because time is scarce. We have to decide how to spend our time. That doesn't mean we have to shut up and accept everything else.
  - kwhitefoot 9y ago
    For the kind of static content we seem to be talking about you can use https://neocities.org/ https://neocities.org/. No need to spend any money.
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
It's impossible to produce that content because the culture was very different. For one, it was largely un-monetised. There were no banner ads, no ad trackers, no giant shopping sites, no market-driven content design. But many ISPs offered free web space, and HTML 1.0 was so simple almost anyone could hack together a basic site with a plain vanilla text editor. So people did. For fun. Lots and lots of them. It looked like crap, but it was weird/hilarious/insane/inspiring in equal measures in a way that's impossible to reproduce today.
- krapp 9y ago
  > It's impossible to produce that content because the culture was very different. What? It's not at all impossible. Get a server, put whatever you want on it. No one is going to force you to monetize or market anything, or use a Node.js backend with AWS and React, or whatever the kids are doing these days. Basic HTML in a plain text editor still works just fine.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > What? It's not at all impossible. Get a server, put whatever you want on it. Not in Germany. There is a set of laws called "Impressumspflicht" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressumspflicht https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressumspflicht) which forces you to add a mandatory imprint on your website. If you do something wrong or forget to include some mandatory information (what is mandatory also depends on the kind of website), you can easily get sued (and this has often happened). In other words: It is not easy for a layperson to set up a website in a way that will not easily become a risk of becoming sued.
    - krapp 9y ago
      The context of this conversation seems to have more to do with code and complexity than legal necessities but point taken. The parent was suggesting it was impossible to create the sort of simple, personal, just for fun sites that people used to, but there's no technical reason for that to be the case. It just happens that people add unnecessary complexity to their projects nowadays because 1) they use frameworks and tools that facilitate it and 2) it looks better on their resumes.
squeaky-clean 9y ago
All the content I read will still be the way I don't want it though.
discreditable 9y ago
For my site, I created a Pelican theme which is HTML-only. There's no JS at all! I plan on publishing the theme eventually, once I'm a bit happier with it. You can see it at https://brashear.me https://brashear.me. I'm very happy with how quickly it loads. I mentioned to one of my friends that it feels like upgrading to DSL back in the dial-up days. If you very badly want to rip off the theme, it's stealable from my GitHub copy of my site: https://github.com/KeenRivals/brashear.me/tree/master/themes/pelican-feather https://github.com/KeenRivals/brashear.me/tree/master/themes...

by Frondo 9y ago

77pt77 9y ago

I don't write on-line content (no blog for example) but if I did I'd test it in (e)links for sure. :)

mi100hael 9y ago

I do and I test my personal website on lynx. Doesn't change the fact that sites like this are under the misguided impression that it's cheaper to ship 2 MB of JavaScript with each request rather than just responding with the fucking 2 KB of article text so they end up looking like: # I Bought a Book About the Internet From 1994 and None of the Links Worked - Motherboard #motherboard Quantcast [p?c1=2&c2=8568956&cv=2.0&cj=1]

Frondo 9y ago
So how much would you pay for a bare-bones, text-only version of the content, if you're going to read JS-decorated content?
- mi100hael 9y ago
  Are you suggesting that ads can't appear in text articles? Or that ad blockers don't exist for graphical browsers?
- exergy 9y ago
  The question isn't one of us creating it, although, unlike those downvoting you, I understand where you come from. The question is, who will (and how to) create a curation of sorts. A Google for the simple web. A one stop shop that encourages barebones simplicity and fosters a community where people only allow a simplified internet, and adtech is a nonstarter.

mulmen 9y ago

Rent is expensive in my city, do you think it is reasonable to tell someone who can't afford rent to just buy their own building? That's what you are suggesting.

throwawaywonk 9y ago
Building a web page costs basically nothing; commercial real estate is much more expensive.
JCharante 9y ago
You're not going to be in the Alexa top 10,000. Go run a docker container for $3/month to host your site, cache it with cloudflare's free plan and pay $12/year for a domain. Its only $48/yr to host all your content. It's really not that ridiculous.
- mulmen 9y ago
  It is ridiculous because time is scarce. We have to decide how to spend our time. That doesn't mean we have to shut up and accept everything else.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  For the kind of static content we seem to be talking about you can use https://neocities.org/ https://neocities.org/. No need to spend any money.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago

It's impossible to produce that content because the culture was very different. For one, it was largely un-monetised. There were no banner ads, no ad trackers, no giant shopping sites, no market-driven content design. But many ISPs offered free web space, and HTML 1.0 was so simple almost anyone could hack together a basic site with a plain vanilla text editor. So people did. For fun. Lots and lots of them. It looked like crap, but it was weird/hilarious/insane/inspiring in equal measures in a way that's impossible to reproduce today.

krapp 9y ago
> It's impossible to produce that content because the culture was very different. What? It's not at all impossible. Get a server, put whatever you want on it. No one is going to force you to monetize or market anything, or use a Node.js backend with AWS and React, or whatever the kids are doing these days. Basic HTML in a plain text editor still works just fine.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > What? It's not at all impossible. Get a server, put whatever you want on it. Not in Germany. There is a set of laws called "Impressumspflicht" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressumspflicht https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressumspflicht) which forces you to add a mandatory imprint on your website. If you do something wrong or forget to include some mandatory information (what is mandatory also depends on the kind of website), you can easily get sued (and this has often happened). In other words: It is not easy for a layperson to set up a website in a way that will not easily become a risk of becoming sued.
  - krapp 9y ago
    The context of this conversation seems to have more to do with code and complexity than legal necessities but point taken. The parent was suggesting it was impossible to create the sort of simple, personal, just for fun sites that people used to, but there's no technical reason for that to be the case. It just happens that people add unnecessary complexity to their projects nowadays because 1) they use frameworks and tools that facilitate it and 2) it looks better on their resumes.

squeaky-clean 9y ago

All the content I read will still be the way I don't want it though.

discreditable 9y ago

For my site, I created a Pelican theme which is HTML-only. There's no JS at all! I plan on publishing the theme eventually, once I'm a bit happier with it. You can see it at https://brashear.me https://brashear.me. I'm very happy with how quickly it loads. I mentioned to one of my friends that it feels like upgrading to DSL back in the dial-up days. If you very badly want to rip off the theme, it's stealable from my GitHub copy of my site: https://github.com/KeenRivals/brashear.me/tree/master/themes/pelican-feather https://github.com/KeenRivals/brashear.me/tree/master/themes...