5 ms·

> It’s no longer trivial to build a “home” page that fits one’s diverse interests. People are lured into frameworks which prescribe a certain level of structure

by mopsi 5y ago

> It’s no longer trivial to build a “home” page that fits one’s diverse interests. People are lured into frameworks which prescribe a certain level of structure. How do we make it easy for people to freely add content to their “pages” , in whatever form they envision? 1. Sign up to $5/mo virtual hosting service and choose a domain name. 2. In their control panel, click "Install Wordpress". 3. Open Wordpress. 4. Write and publish whatever you want, structured however you want. This is much-much easier than working with Frontpage or Dreamweaver was in the olden days. Connecting to a server via FTP alone was a huge hurdle. Now it's all WYSIWYG in a browser. Obstacles to self-hosted personal websites are smaller than ever before, but the corpo web has turned everyone from homeowners into hotel guests who have to follow their house rules. It's a cultural problem, not a technical one.

einpoklum 5y ago
> 1. Sign up to $5/mo You already lost most people here. > virtual hosting service and choose a domain name. Actually, people don't even have to have a domain name for their webpage. But ignoring that - how will people know that this is what they need to do? "I want to create a homepage, I don't know what 'virtual hosting' is. I don't know why I need to be looking for 'services'." > 2. In their control panel, click "Install Wordpress". In their what now click what now? How are you so sure this is always possible? Also, what about search engines (cough-Google-cough) under-ranking individual pages in favor of larger, corporate-favored sites?
- sseagull 5y ago
  > how will people know that this is what they need to do? Why has the tech community at large completely failed to educate people on the basics of something used by billions of people daily and affecting increasingly-important parts of their lives? Is it because we keep infantilizing them the way you seem to be doing, pretending they are too stupid to learn anything new? Or is it because in an effort to simplify, everyone simplifies to a different way, resulting in even more complexity? Or is it because tech really doesn't care and sucks at explaining anything? A bit of all three (and probably more) if you ask me
ratww 5y ago
I love how everything about your list is harder and less flexible for non-technical people than what existed in the 90s... while also glossing over non-dev-focused solutions. It's like the famous HN Dropbox dismissal [1]. Buying virtual hosting, domain names and using a control panel to install Wordpress is already harder, pricier and less anonymous than most users had to endure in the 90s. Also, Wordpress doesn't allow you to easily edit the templates the same way Dreamweaver and Frontpage allowed. Those tools were useable by anyone with knowledge about Word. But to customise Wordpress you need deep HTML knowledge and time. Most Wordpress templates are way more bloated than some bespoke HTML made with Dreamweaver. You could have said Tumblr, or, if you wanna go commercial, Wix or Squarespace, but self-hosted Wordpress is like the worst of both worlds put together... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
tempest_ 5y ago
You don't need that many steps. Wix/SquareSpace, and I am sure a dozen other options will make this 1 step for you if you are willing to pay a small premium.

by mopsi 5y ago

einpoklum 5y ago

> 1. Sign up to $5/mo You already lost most people here. > virtual hosting service and choose a domain name. Actually, people don't even have to have a domain name for their webpage. But ignoring that - how will people know that this is what they need to do? "I want to create a homepage, I don't know what 'virtual hosting' is. I don't know why I need to be looking for 'services'." > 2. In their control panel, click "Install Wordpress". In their what now click what now? How are you so sure this is always possible? Also, what about search engines (cough-Google-cough) under-ranking individual pages in favor of larger, corporate-favored sites?

sseagull 5y ago
> how will people know that this is what they need to do? Why has the tech community at large completely failed to educate people on the basics of something used by billions of people daily and affecting increasingly-important parts of their lives? Is it because we keep infantilizing them the way you seem to be doing, pretending they are too stupid to learn anything new? Or is it because in an effort to simplify, everyone simplifies to a different way, resulting in even more complexity? Or is it because tech really doesn't care and sucks at explaining anything? A bit of all three (and probably more) if you ask me

ratww 5y ago

I love how everything about your list is harder and less flexible for non-technical people than what existed in the 90s... while also glossing over non-dev-focused solutions. It's like the famous HN Dropbox dismissal [1]. Buying virtual hosting, domain names and using a control panel to install Wordpress is already harder, pricier and less anonymous than most users had to endure in the 90s. Also, Wordpress doesn't allow you to easily edit the templates the same way Dreamweaver and Frontpage allowed. Those tools were useable by anyone with knowledge about Word. But to customise Wordpress you need deep HTML knowledge and time. Most Wordpress templates are way more bloated than some bespoke HTML made with Dreamweaver. You could have said Tumblr, or, if you wanna go commercial, Wix or Squarespace, but self-hosted Wordpress is like the worst of both worlds put together... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

tempest_ 5y ago

You don't need that many steps. Wix/SquareSpace, and I am sure a dozen other options will make this 1 step for you if you are willing to pay a small premium.