5 ms·

The thing that makes me disagree with proponents of the "smol"/"cheap"/etc Web is their totally misguided insistence on personal webpages as a sui generis mediu

by cxr 3y ago

The thing that makes me disagree with proponents of the "smol"/"cheap"/etc Web is their totally misguided insistence on personal webpages as a sui generis medium for self-expression wrt layout and styling. > Until we adopt simple and stable building materials, all websites will continue to look the same. Yeah, big deal. Who cares if websites look the same? Wait, let me put that another way: we should care whether websites look the same in the sense that more of them should look similar to one another than they do today—namely, they should look how you and I (the readers) wish for them to look for our own comfort and convenience—which means fewer dark starry sky backgrounds, fewer text drop shadows and typefaces reminiscent of comic book speech bubbles, and fewer distracting marquees. Way less kitsch, not more. HN, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, SMS, etc. all have a limited range of expression through form. Somehow we get by. Completely dissimilar books look a lot more "the same" than websites do, and that's not a bad thing. You never see book authors complaining about control over the printed page the way that you see self-styled web designers insisting on their manifest destiny over the user's viewport for the purposes of self-expression. Webdevs need to get over themselves, and the wider world needs to stop letting them get by with (or encouraging) this kind of narcissism.

mcluck 3y ago
Authors like Mark Z. Danielewski do more with the layout in their books than most and I love them for it. I like seeing people try out different ideas and do things that might be considered less-than-ideal to view
carlosjobim 3y ago
You can have all web sites look the same by setting reader view as default in your browser. It is a great improvement for browsing the web, both on desktop and phone. If somebody invented a "forum view" to make all forums look the same on our browsers, then I think the circle would be complete. It shouldn't be too difficult either, since most run on similar software.
- anon25783 3y ago
  You should learn about the Gemini protocol! It's an alternative to HTTPS that uses a document markup language similar to Markdown instead of HTML, and uses a deliberately simplified, feature-frozen protocol with the explicit goal that anyone should be able to write their own Gemini browser "in a weekend". No scripting or styling support, just documents with links and images in them. Here are some informative webpages on the topic, neither of them mine: https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    I think the Gemini stuff is really neat, and I've already experimented with Lagrange and Kristall browsers. However, the information I'm interested in isn't published on those networks, and I think that's true for most of us. Reader view is a seamless way for me to have control of how the web is presented to me. An RSS client + browser with reader mode is the perfect combo for most online stuff that is information (and not function, like an e-shop). As I understand it, forum functions are not a feature of the Gemini protocol?
    - anon25783 3y ago
      Forum functionality is possible; the protocol allows for user input in the form of prompting the user to enter a string and sending that to the server before loading the page. Example: gemini://chat.mozz.us/
surprisetalk 3y ago
Author here! I largely agree with you. I love Del Taco. I love the speed and consistency I get from franchises. At the same time, my best friend recently sent me a picture of a fancy swordfish dish he cooked up, and I'm bummed that we don't get to see each other as often as we used to. And as my daughter grows older, I'm becoming a bit frustrated at how difficult it is to purchase foods that were not doused in neurotic pesticides. So I'm learning how to grow our food. Growing food isn't easy, but the farming community is cool, and I've been having a good time of it. And so sometimes I wish building a website could be more like learning farming, and I think it could be.
chias 3y ago
> Who cares if websites look the same? A lot of books look the same too, but that works pretty well for me tbh. I do not find books to be homogeneous as a result.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
awkward 3y ago
We're probably past the point in the web where formative experiments with layout are useful for most people, and most situations can be handled with a light CMS. That still leaves room for massive variance and personal control. Even just linktree levels of customization have a lot more spice than facebook. I think current big tech is still reacting to myspace allowing users to write raw CSS, and there's a lot of space for a swing back, especially given the current web's focus on "creators".
arp242 3y ago
[flagged]
- cxr 3y ago
  Can you stop making up quotes? You do it a lot on this site, and it's both uncool and against the rules. I'm not going to engage with the other, less obvious (but still not particularly well-hidden) strawmen in your comment.
  - arp242 3y ago
    Eh? I didn't "make up" anything. Quotation marks are commonly used for all sorts of things other than exact literal text someone else said, and having a dialogue like that is one of them. I will continue to use quotations marks in this fashion, together with millions of other people on the planet, whether you like it or not, because it's a common way to use quotation marks and absolutely no one is confused this usage. My post broke zero rules and I encourage you to email HN if you think that I'm a pervasive rule-breaker with my alleged "made-up quotes" so you can be told the same by the site's moderators so these pointless spurious accusations can stop.
    - dang 3y ago
      It's not listed at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html but there is a convention on HN of asking users not to use quotation marks to make it look like they're quoting someone when they're actually not. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22quoting%20someone%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
      - arp242 3y ago
        But I didn't "make it look like I'm quoting someone" because I don't think anyone in good faith would interpret it as such. A quick look at your list shows that it's mostly about bad faith takes, and the problem there is bad faith takes and not quotation marks. This kind of usage of quotation marks is also pretty common on HN by the way, as it is in the rest of the world – just on the first page of my "threads" I see two other people do it, and no one objects because it's fine. If you want to police "quotation marks can only be used for exact literal quotes" then ... good luck. If you want to rant about people being "misguided" and "narcissistic" then maybe you should maybe also be able to take some criticism from the people that you insult as such, instead of insisting on extremely strict formalities that almost no one else insists on.
anon25783 3y ago
> Webdevs need to get over themselves, and the wider world needs to stop letting them get by with (or encouraging) this kind of narcissism. What a presumptuous statement! Authoritarian, even. It's one thing for someone else's website, such as HN, Reddit, Wikipedia, etc., to impose a homogeneous form on posts submitted by guests on the site. It's quite another thing to assert that "the wider world" should "stop letting [independent webdevs]" deviate from a similar standard of homogeneity. If you don't like the appearance of someone else's webpage, maybe just don't go to that webpage?
- cxr 3y ago
  Ironic take for a comment that exists only as a consequence of what started out as someone complaining about how boring other people's websites look; there's no way out of this—either you agree with the ability to criticize, in which case mine is fair, or you disagree, in which case it's not but then yours isn't either and neither you nor anyone else should bother yourselves or others about the sameness of anyone's websites (instead, focus on not going to the ones that bother you so much in their sameness). (And choosing to read my comment as an "authoritarian" imposition on "independent webdevs"—not actually stated anywhere? How presumptuous.)
  - anon25783 3y ago
    I'm going to put a tiled JPEG of an artist's rendition of the night sky in the background of my blog, to assert my liberties and affirm my right to be silly and have fun
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
kixiQu 3y ago
> HN, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, SMS, etc. all have a limited range of expression through form. Somehow we get by. Disagreement exists as to how well this is going for us. (cf., content collapse)

by cxr 3y ago

mcluck 3y ago

Authors like Mark Z. Danielewski do more with the layout in their books than most and I love them for it. I like seeing people try out different ideas and do things that might be considered less-than-ideal to view

carlosjobim 3y ago

You can have all web sites look the same by setting reader view as default in your browser. It is a great improvement for browsing the web, both on desktop and phone. If somebody invented a "forum view" to make all forums look the same on our browsers, then I think the circle would be complete. It shouldn't be too difficult either, since most run on similar software.

anon25783 3y ago
You should learn about the Gemini protocol! It's an alternative to HTTPS that uses a document markup language similar to Markdown instead of HTML, and uses a deliberately simplified, feature-frozen protocol with the explicit goal that anyone should be able to write their own Gemini browser "in a weekend". No scripting or styling support, just documents with links and images in them. Here are some informative webpages on the topic, neither of them mine: https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  I think the Gemini stuff is really neat, and I've already experimented with Lagrange and Kristall browsers. However, the information I'm interested in isn't published on those networks, and I think that's true for most of us. Reader view is a seamless way for me to have control of how the web is presented to me. An RSS client + browser with reader mode is the perfect combo for most online stuff that is information (and not function, like an e-shop). As I understand it, forum functions are not a feature of the Gemini protocol?
  - anon25783 3y ago
    Forum functionality is possible; the protocol allows for user input in the form of prompting the user to enter a string and sending that to the server before loading the page. Example: gemini://chat.mozz.us/

surprisetalk 3y ago

Author here! I largely agree with you. I love Del Taco. I love the speed and consistency I get from franchises. At the same time, my best friend recently sent me a picture of a fancy swordfish dish he cooked up, and I'm bummed that we don't get to see each other as often as we used to. And as my daughter grows older, I'm becoming a bit frustrated at how difficult it is to purchase foods that were not doused in neurotic pesticides. So I'm learning how to grow our food. Growing food isn't easy, but the farming community is cool, and I've been having a good time of it. And so sometimes I wish building a website could be more like learning farming, and I think it could be.

chias 3y ago

> Who cares if websites look the same? A lot of books look the same too, but that works pretty well for me tbh. I do not find books to be homogeneous as a result.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

awkward 3y ago

We're probably past the point in the web where formative experiments with layout are useful for most people, and most situations can be handled with a light CMS. That still leaves room for massive variance and personal control. Even just linktree levels of customization have a lot more spice than facebook. I think current big tech is still reacting to myspace allowing users to write raw CSS, and there's a lot of space for a swing back, especially given the current web's focus on "creators".

arp242 3y ago

[flagged]

cxr 3y ago
Can you stop making up quotes? You do it a lot on this site, and it's both uncool and against the rules. I'm not going to engage with the other, less obvious (but still not particularly well-hidden) strawmen in your comment.
- arp242 3y ago
  Eh? I didn't "make up" anything. Quotation marks are commonly used for all sorts of things other than exact literal text someone else said, and having a dialogue like that is one of them. I will continue to use quotations marks in this fashion, together with millions of other people on the planet, whether you like it or not, because it's a common way to use quotation marks and absolutely no one is confused this usage. My post broke zero rules and I encourage you to email HN if you think that I'm a pervasive rule-breaker with my alleged "made-up quotes" so you can be told the same by the site's moderators so these pointless spurious accusations can stop.
  - dang 3y ago
    It's not listed at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html but there is a convention on HN of asking users not to use quotation marks to make it look like they're quoting someone when they're actually not. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22quoting%20someone%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - arp242 3y ago
      But I didn't "make it look like I'm quoting someone" because I don't think anyone in good faith would interpret it as such. A quick look at your list shows that it's mostly about bad faith takes, and the problem there is bad faith takes and not quotation marks. This kind of usage of quotation marks is also pretty common on HN by the way, as it is in the rest of the world – just on the first page of my "threads" I see two other people do it, and no one objects because it's fine. If you want to police "quotation marks can only be used for exact literal quotes" then ... good luck. If you want to rant about people being "misguided" and "narcissistic" then maybe you should maybe also be able to take some criticism from the people that you insult as such, instead of insisting on extremely strict formalities that almost no one else insists on.

anon25783 3y ago

> Webdevs need to get over themselves, and the wider world needs to stop letting them get by with (or encouraging) this kind of narcissism. What a presumptuous statement! Authoritarian, even. It's one thing for someone else's website, such as HN, Reddit, Wikipedia, etc., to impose a homogeneous form on posts submitted by guests on the site. It's quite another thing to assert that "the wider world" should "stop letting [independent webdevs]" deviate from a similar standard of homogeneity. If you don't like the appearance of someone else's webpage, maybe just don't go to that webpage?

cxr 3y ago
Ironic take for a comment that exists only as a consequence of what started out as someone complaining about how boring other people's websites look; there's no way out of this—either you agree with the ability to criticize, in which case mine is fair, or you disagree, in which case it's not but then yours isn't either and neither you nor anyone else should bother yourselves or others about the sameness of anyone's websites (instead, focus on not going to the ones that bother you so much in their sameness). (And choosing to read my comment as an "authoritarian" imposition on "independent webdevs"—not actually stated anywhere? How presumptuous.)
- anon25783 3y ago
  I'm going to put a tiled JPEG of an artist's rendition of the night sky in the background of my blog, to assert my liberties and affirm my right to be silly and have fun
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

kixiQu 3y ago

> HN, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, SMS, etc. all have a limited range of expression through form. Somehow we get by. Disagreement exists as to how well this is going for us. (cf., content collapse)