#indieweb 2021-06-03
2021-06-03 UTC
emb, KartikPrabhu, UNIXCHAD_, batkin[m], [jacky], [schmarty] and maxwelljoslyn joined the channel
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maxwelljoslyn Welcome to the indieweb, Erin Brown :)
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[schmarty] 👏
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[capjamesg] !tell [snarfed] I agree that silos like WordPress have made it easier to register a domain. That's a big deal.
# [capjamesg] I haven't used WP / micro.blog for domain registration but I think this is something that should be standard in any hosted CMS / blog / website service.
# [capjamesg] As for a service like GoDaddy, even I got confused when I used it. And I mean a lot.
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# [capjamesg] I could never find the DNS page when I wanted to. Yes, that's a more advanced use case, but overall I found the experience navigating the dashboard subpar.
# [capjamesg] I shouldn't say "even I" because I think everyone has had at least one bad experience registering / managing a domain.
# [capjamesg] I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion but I think website first, domain second might be the way to go. Set up a website, share it, whatever, and then if you want get a domain name.
# [capjamesg] I think domain names are important but above all else what matters is getting someone a page on the internet that they want to say they built themselves.
# [capjamesg] Or, rather, a page that they say is their own: something that represents them.
# [capjamesg] I think Carrd does (or at least did, not used it in a while) this really well in that you can select a template, add some text, and you've got a page on the web. But it's not ideal for anyone who wants more than a page or two.
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# wonderer your chat.indieweb.org quite like
# wonderer is this avilable to download?
# sknebel the website is in https://github.com/indieweb/chat.indieweb.org
# wonderer ok thx sknebel
# wonderer ack!
# wonderer its only Nginx :/
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[manton] Catching up on the DNS discussion… Definitely still room for improving the user experience. If you register a domain name in Micro.blog, we auto-configure the DNS records for your blog, but there’s still a lot of potential confusion. Do you use “www” or not? What’s up with HTTPS? Email? What even is a DNS record? Long way to go until this is effortless.
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# [capjamesg] [manton] www is a big one.
# [capjamesg] I just found out my domain supports www.
# [capjamesg] I didn't even know that until I checked now 😄
# [capjamesg] It would be nice if there was like a "101 guide to domains" that popped up before someone registered a domain on any service (not sure how micro.blog does it, maybe this is an idea).
# [capjamesg] This guide would answer:
# [capjamesg] 2. How to use your domain (www. vs. no www)
# [capjamesg] 1. Why you might want a domain
# [capjamesg] 3. The padlock / https
# [capjamesg] 4. Maybe some jargon
# [capjamesg] I don't know what people want to know but presenting this information during the domain registratino onboarding service to a CMS that supports external domains could be helpful.
# [capjamesg] "Domain names let you choose how people access and refer to your site on the web. You can choose any domain name you want for your site. When someone visits your site, they will see a little padlock and https:// before your domain name. This tells the person looking at your connection to a website is encrypted and secure. You can configure your domain to meet your needs manually if you want to by visiting our settings page."
# [capjamesg] No idea who I'm writing this for. Just thinking.
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# [tw2113_Slack_] ambles in with his walker
# [tw2113_Slack_] back in my day, every domain had a www
# [snarfed] [capjamesg] that language sounds pretty good, we’d love to see some of it on https://indieweb.org/personal-domain too, feel free to jump in there and add it!
# [manton] [capjamesg] That sounds good. There is definitely a lot of confusion about www and subdomains, especially for people configuring a domain name bought somewhere else… I’m leaning toward always redirecting to the root domain name if people register with Micro.blog, but haven’t made that change yet.
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# [tw2113_Slack_] now i’m curious what the first TLD was that didn’t have a www. I was going to say first domain ever, but i think early university urls didn’t have them
# mgdm do you mean a www site that didn't have www. in the hostname?
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# [tw2113_Slack_] yeah, i believe so
# [tw2113_Slack_] say mywebsite.com instead of www.mywebsite.com
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# [capjamesg] Love it! [snarfed] I'll take a look at that wiki page.
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[dianoetic] What's www stand for? /jk
# [tw2113_Slack_] world wide whales
# [tw2113_Slack_] no one realizes how big whales really are
# [tw2113_Slack_] not comparable to a node_modules folder, but still pretty darn large
# mgdm the internet is of course a series of tubes but getting them through the narrow parts of the last mile is hard
# [tw2113_Slack_] stupid whale ping rate
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[tantek] when someone presents a UX for successfully picking a domain name that is comparable in ease of use to picking a username on a service like Twitter or Instagram, then we can start to call getting a domain name "easy". Until then, no, it is not "easy", and any insistence on that erases the real difficulties that folks experience, especially compared to their other name-selection-to-use-a-service experiences