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Page is under construction: A love letter to the personal website
- ksec 2y agoI think the addition of "comments" on webpage is more of a cruse than a blessing.
- victorstanciu 2y agoIt is! For the latest incarnation of my blog I forwent comments in favor of a simple mailto: link at the bottom of each post which prefills the email subject with the post's title. I've had significantly fewer interactions with readers this way, but they've also been much more meaningful and insightful. There is a performative nature to public forums of any kind--and HN is not immune to this--that stifles any genuine discussion, or drowns it in a sea of attention-seekers. Yes, I am aware of the hypocritical irony of complaining about online comments in an online comment.
- famahar 2y agoThis is a simple and great idea. I do something similar with my website. My newsletter is just a list of emails I have in a .txt file. I email to everyone when I write a blog post and we chat through email exchanges about it. The interactions feel more in-depth, and as you say, less performative as the exchange is just between us. Now I'm thinking of adding an email link at the end of every blog post with the blog title.
- a-french-anon 2y agoPersonally, I wouldn't consider a blog without a newsfeed usable, newsletters are the wrong tool IMO (select push vs pull available to everyone without maintenance). (In Ballmer's voice) RSS! RSS! RSS!
- benoliver999 2y agoThat's exactly what I do and it works great.
- samename 2y agoIsn’t Hacker News a form of a comment section?
- Etheryte 2y agoIt is, but HN has the saving grace that dang is an angel and Y Combinator pays him to do the chores every day.
- bluebarbet 2y agoThat's important, and what gives it the edge over peers, but IMO it's more than that. It's mainly that this is a specialized forum (so its community already has something in common beyond the lowest common denominator of politics) and it's dedicated to highly technical subjects (so contributors here tend to be more literalist and, let's say, spectrum-tending, which really helps with text communication). That's how I explain it.
- vacuity 2y agoAs much as I like HN, I'm not sure the average discussion is all that, and for all its supposed virtues I don't see them in practice usually. But when there's a good thread, it's really good. I think it's worth navigating the churn for those. In real time or as an archive, there's lots of gold to be found.
- rchaud 2y agoBut without moderation, there is decay over time. It will just happen more slowly in a purposeful forum, but it will happen. Before HN, there was Slashdot after all.
- bluebarbet 2y agoYes, I agree. That's why I say it has the edge over its peers, i.e. Slashdot. But AFAIK Slashdot is still operating just fine. It's probably helped by its sophisticated distributed-moderation system, but surely mainly because it's the same kind of users as here.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt is nowadays, not just because of spam (there's both hosted and 3rd party solutions for that) but non-spam but unwanted / vile comments. Internet anonymity has always brought out the worst in people.
- mojuba 2y agoAnd not a word about discoverability? The web went the way it went because ultimately centralization wins both in terms economics and discoverability. You host your blog (or rather "blog") on Facebook for free and get a chance to be discovered by strangers, for better or worse. Not saying it's necessarily a good thing, because now you are at a mercy of corporate censorship that isn't even required to abide by the users' constitutional rights and freedoms. They can limit your speech in any way they like and it's what they do: their platform, their rules. On the other hand, without centralization the web is expensive and not very discoverable. Your standalone web site is like a cactus in the middle of a vast desert nobody cares about, in fact now at a mercy of Google's indexing policies. There is no bottom line here. It's all about economy and capitalism, which seem to always win.
- lynx97 2y ago[dead]
- tomsmeding 2y agoA lot here depends on how much you care about discoverability. If you want to earn money off your website, then sure, you care a lot about discoverability. But the post in question is about creating, about having your own space, about art. Sure, having other people look at your art is cool, but it isn't necessary to do art. If you want people to look at your website, ask them to.
- yakshaving_jgt 2y agoFor what it's worth, I don't think Instagram has much discoverability. Not anymore, anyway. The only content you can discover is lowest common denominator stuff. Thirst traps, cute animals, influencer crap, etc.
- mojuba 2y agoMojuba's law says: "Over time, everything tends towards mediocrity" :) which is exactly what you described as lowest common denominator, it's the same thing. This is true in practically everything if you think about it. Car and furniture designs. Social networks. Politics. Art, cinema, even music. At first there's novelty and excitement, then comes commoditization and mediocrity, almost like a law of nature.
- bix6 2y agoThat was a fun read. Love the default theme and ability to swap themes. I recently deleted IG so maybe it’s time for a personal website. The world needs more 5 course meal generators :)
- croisillon 2y agooh thanks i missed that, the hours i spent on the CSS zen garden!
- FreesiaGaul 2y agoI 1000% stand behind this. When I was thinking how I was going to make my personal website personal - I really had to think. One of the great charms in "websites of the past" is all of the neat gifs and unconventional formatting. It has really inspired me in making mine (it's still under construction at freesiagaul.com). Of course I'm not amazing, but frontend should feel like art, because that's what it is.
- vaylian 2y agoI love the animation on your start page. Well done!
- FreesiaGaul 2y agoThanks, I appreciate it! :D I'm planning on making many more, and hoping as I get better I can make little ascii-characters look as if they're interacting with the site https://github.com/freesiagaul/site-ascii https://github.com/freesiagaul/site-ascii The code is super bare-bones for now, but it's been a great learning exercise for someone from an EE background
- heyyfurqan 2y agoAwesome animation in the start.
- FreesiaGaul 2y agoThanks! :D
- anal_reactor 2y agoWhen I moved into my current apartment I had a difficult task. On one hand, I wanted it to look modern and sleek. On the other, I wanted it to be mine. It's my apartment, nobody else's. It is still huge work-in-progress and the amount of effort is way above reasonable amounts and it's going to be a problem once I want to sell the apartment, but I'm proud of myself, because I'm at the point where you can slowly see where things are going.
- Angostura 2y ago20 years ago in the UK most ISPs gave you a little bit of web space free with your account - and an email box of two. One of the sad changes that happened is that this has gone now. It used to make it really easy to have a cool little website. I used mine for a simple blog - now gone.
- badgersnake 2y agoIf they have any kind of comments box it’s pretty ambiguous as to whether or not your personal home pages is illegal now in the UK.
- TomK32 2y agoBased on which law?
- badgersnake 2y agoOnline Safety Act.
- praptak 2y agoTBH I wouldn't expose unfiltered comment boxes on today's internet anyway. That's guaranteed web spam plus a small but non-zero security risk. Maybe one where comments only show up after I manually approve each one.
- badgersnake 2y agoMy understanding is that would be exempt from the regulations provided you ensure the comments are related to the content. But the legislation is super vague and IANAL.
- croisillon 2y agoi agree it was very enticing to get started, OTOH having an email address linked to a particular ISP meant people not daring to change it and having to update their email everywhere
- laurentlb 2y agoI expected to see an "under construction" animated gif, but what I found was better. The garden theme made me smile. Now, I'm considering redesigning my website. I removed the links from my website a decade ago, but I enjoyed looking at the section on the page. Not sure what I'll do about it.
- dmilicic 2y agoI don't remember the last time I had so much fun building a web project than working on my personal website: https://dmilicic.com/ https://dmilicic.com/ The spirit of doing what you want is exactly what inspired me to do it, it's not the best nor the fastest web but it doesn't matter, I simply wanted to do it in a different way (Flutter & WASM).
- adzm 2y agoShout out to my favorite one-joke website, https://www.sometimesredsometimesblue.com/ https://www.sometimesredsometimesblue.com/ which has remained a constant in my life over the years and has never let me down
- dzuc 2y agoglad to be of service
- memhole 2y agoI hope you take this the right way. Seeing your work gives me so much more confidence in my own creativity. I showed someone at the supply store a rough draft I had and they were encouraging, but also said I’ve never seen anything like it. Which is both possibly cool and doubtful.
- neebz 2y agoI remember back in the summer of 1996 in Pakistan our household was one of the first few to have to internet. At that time angelfire.com used to give free webspace. My brother got hold of a pirated version of CorelDraw and setup a fan website of his favorite rock band Junoon, which incidentally is still online: https://www.angelfire.com/pa/JUNOON https://www.angelfire.com/pa/JUNOON And then when my brother met the band at a concert and they actually recognized him due to the website. I guess first time we realized how impactful internet is going to be.
- eszed 2y agoI love your brother's site, so much. It looks like the web counter is still working, and that I'm not the only person from here checking it out, so I hope angelfire is ready for a bit of a "hug".
- aosaigh 2y agoI wonder is this a sign of the times? I've (nearly ...) quit all social media and re-embraced my personal website. It's also under construction, but it's going to be the main place I update everything (work, personal, photos, updates etc.). I don't care if no one reads it. It's mine.
- zwnow 2y agoI think its really nice to have an own "digital garden". In Germany you unfortunately have to dox yourself with stuff like this, and I really dont want people to know my address. I know people will argue "thats only for business websites", but that's far from the truth. It's for every website that might(!) has a business aspect. So I couldn't even name products on a personal blog as that could be seen as advertisment that I got paid for... I hate this country so much.
- xingped 2y agoWhy do you have to dox yourself in Germany?
- mgraupner 2y agoIf you are publishing from your own (German) domain in Germany, you will need to add an impress with your personal address.
- u_sama 2y agoI think he is referring to this section 3 https://www.denic.de/en/content-pool/denic-domain-terms-and-conditions https://www.denic.de/en/content-pool/denic-domain-terms-and-... To register a .de domain you need to give your address and legal name. And your national ccTLD is usually the only one that you are sure won't get pulled under you because there are some legally binding rules around it unlike .tv or .me
- zwnow 2y agoIts because of "Impressumspflicht" which requires me to have my legal name, address and phone number in an imprint on my website.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoMore on the POSSE approach (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE
- scotty79 2y agoI think people who'd like to bring a piece of old world back have a blind spot for the fact that social networks and their algorithms provide essential service of content discovery and possibly enabling building up on existing content (comments, reactions). Any attempt to bring back home pages must essentially include a way to discover them. Search engines has been dead for that purpose for more than a decade. If you want to give back autonomy to publishers, your solution must also grant the same autonomy to commenters. You need to enable all people to control their content, whether they are original posters or pre-posters and commenters.
- ghaff 2y ago>You need to enable all people to control their content, whether they are original posters or pre-posters and commenters. Not at all. On my webpage/blog, if I have comments enabled, I absolutely have the right to erase your comment or just not make it visible in the first place.
- scotty79 2y agoNobody is going to comment because of that, among other things. Imagine you published a blog but the hosting provider could delete it any time they want or just not make it visible in the first place. It would be unfair because you are paying money, but readers/commenters of your posts pay with their effort and if they have no guarantee of you honoring your informal obligations they won't be doing that for you.
- ghaff 2y agoIt's ironic that you are commenting on this site where moderators will absolutely erase content they feel is inappropriate. I will do the same on my blog--assuming Google hasn't just scrubbed what they consider spam in the first place.
- scotty79 2y agoYou might find that ironic or you might try to figure out why they are commenting here not somewhere else. You won't be able to replicate it on a single blog. But any attempt to bring back blogs as a viable choice for others will need to replicate what hn, Facebook, Twitter already do and improve upon it.
- tiniuclx 2y agoI set up my personal website [0] quite a while ago - 2020 or so. I've been updating it a lot more regularly in the last few years and I've found it very rewarding. It's great to have my own place where I am in full control of everything, and I've also learned a lot about webdev which is not my core focus usually. The best part by far is people going out of their way to get in touch & let me know that the found a post of mine interesting or useful. [0] https://tiniuc.com https://tiniuc.com
- r_c_a_d 2y ago"quite a while ago - 2020" I think in the context of this article, 2020 is very recent. But otherwise, yes I agree. Incidentally, my own site started out in 1999 as a personal site, became a poster for my writing, then back to a personal site and is now a poster for my tutoring. All the old content is still there, just with a different emphasis https://richardtaylor.co.uk/ https://richardtaylor.co.uk/
- tiniuclx 2y agoI hadn't even learned how to walk in 1999, let alone host a personal website! I grew up during a bit a transitional period of the internet. My earliest memories involve playing Flash games on Newgrounds, reading about Bionicle lore online & listening to Cryoshell and Daughtry, thanks again to Bionicle. I also used to hang out on quite a few internet forums. While this is not quite the "personal website" internet advocated for in the post, it's a lot rougher and edgier than the Facebooks & Instagrams we have today. Amongst my peers it's not really 'normal' to have a personal website - I only know one person IRL who does that, and we met because I noticed he was coding in Haskell while I was performing live music at a pub! I do fear that personal websites will become less and less common - young techies these days basically grew up in the big tech walled gardens without any chance to experience the rougher, non-commercial web of yore. The idea of going through all the trouble to get a website going may seem pointless in a world where everyone you know is on Instagram.
- r_c_a_d 2y agoYay! We have lots of Bionicles in the house still. My boys used to buy me a new one when I started a new job for my desk - when working in the office was a thing. Not having your own website is an opportunity missed for techies especially, I think.
- santoshalper 2y agoPeople who host their own websites are becoming like vegans in that they won't STFU about it. Having your own website is not a substitute for having a personality.
- gessha 2y agoI’m rediscovering the personal web myself but I do agree we shouldn’t be obnoxious about it. My thinking is people get nostalgic about the old times and excited about counteracting the Big Tech Corp forces.
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- fjallstrom 2y agoI found this (super short) episode inspiring, on the same topic: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5n6BYw5VU7cLipoRKE1COU https://open.spotify.com/episode/5n6BYw5VU7cLipoRKE1COU (The Poetic Internet, with Kristoffer Tjalve)
- hsnice16 2y agoThis is so great! I am working on this - https://personal-logs.vercel.app/anime https://personal-logs.vercel.app/anime
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- reitoei 2y agoIs there a place/system for discovering or aggregating personal websites like this? Remember old school "directory" sites and tools like del.icio.us? There were awesome compared to being at the mercy of google.
- listenfaster 2y agoI just have bookmarks to directory sites, as you say, like https://ooh.directory/ https://ooh.directory/
- reitoei 2y agoThis is awesome, I like it.
- crakhamster01 2y ago+1 to this! If it doesn't exist already, what would it look like? The simple solution could be another search index that hasn't been commoditized like Google has, but I wonder if a manual curation approach might lead to higher quality? Something along the lines of a weekly digest of personal sites that are interesting/unique/fun. Process could look like: 1. Users submit their personal sites for review, accompanied by some blurb/tags. Essentially something to make the cost of submission > 0. 2. Site admin reviews submissions once a week and either select their top X favorite, or just remove any low quality/slop submissions and shares the rest. I suppose this approach depends on the judgement of whoever does the curating, but I feel like that's not necessarily a worse alternative to the opaque algorithms we deal with today.
- crakhamster01 2y agoNever mind, sounds like https://ooh.directory/ https://ooh.directory/ that listenfaster shared is essentially this!
- listenfaster 2y agoI like it because the submissions are easy and I think curated / QC’d. I thought Kagi was going to do more with https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb but it’s kind of like going to https://wiby.me/ https://wiby.me/ and hitting “surprise me”, which everyone should do at least once a day.
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- listenfaster 2y agoI really enjoyed this and the ensuing conversation here. Great list of links at the end too! Always looking for things to bookmark as inspiring motivators on days when it all feels pointless - this is going on the list.
- rchaud 2y agoAs an erstwhile teenaged Geocities fanatic, all these "old web was good, let's go back to it" posts miss some key factors that block such a way back. 1. Most of the Old Web site experiences were one-and-done. We checked out a website, then checked out the next one on the webring or Geocities neighborhood. Unless the site "looked" like it was updated with news, we generally didn't re-visit the site, or really even remember it. Your old website could feel just as disposable and stale as the average social media post. 2. RSS and algo-free chronological feeds won't return us to a time of civility. I have never stopped using RSS. But the system isn't designed to support a feed where 10% of the sites post 90% of the content. The experience is awful, there is no way to order things so as to see a diversified feed. RSS of course also flattens web pages into a lifeless scroll of text, defeating the purpose of home-made web pages. 3. Webdev is too complicated now compared to a time when your ISP gave you an FTP folder and Notepad was all that was needed to write some HTML and display some images. Modern webdev (code editor, SSL, hosting, mobile-ready CSS) creates an adverse selection problem where the people with the time and skill to make websites, already do so in their work and thus create the most boring websites imaginable....code-heavy tech blogs or wispy 'digital transformation' thought leadership.
- listenfaster 2y agoI agree with you on rss 100%.
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- lawlesst 2y agoThe first love letter I've enjoyed reading in quite some time. It left me wondering if my minimal, rarely updated website of ~12 years qualifies since it's hosted on big tech backed Github pages.