#indieweb 2022-08-15

2022-08-15 UTC
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cambridgeport90[ Hi. I'm still here.
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cambridgeport90[ So that you didn't think I disappeared. For those interested, the FaebornOfficial Twitter account is back. It's right now just used to get more mainstream attention to IndieWeb stuff, but it's coming. I saw Kev's post earlier regarding whether it can ever be mainstream? I think it can, but I do think that more of a focus on user experience on new projects rather than trying to retrofit others with it might actually do the trick.
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cambridgeport90[ That's actually one of the reasons why I don't play with Wordpress anymore.
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GWG I'm in too deep, I guess
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cambridgeport90[ <GWG> "I'm in too deep, I guess" <- You've been using it forever, though.
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GWG I've considered going to ClassicPress. But there are issues there in terms of certain filters I'd like them to backport
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cambridgeport90[ The inspiration came from Carl Voit and Kev Querk... both are wondering about whether the IndieWeb can ever be a mainstream thing, and part of Kev's argument was how many plug ins it takes on Wordpress in order to actually make it work. He thinks that we should be focusing on Indieweb-first applications being newly built rather than trying to bolt features onto already complicated interfaces.
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GWG Maybe Known will make a comeback
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cambridgeport90[ I used to be sort of arrogant when it came to this sort of stuff, sort of caring less about the non-technical part of the population, but they are among us, and if we want to succeed, then we have to cater to them, as well as to the tinkerers and developers among us.
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cambridgeport90[ What happened to Known, anyway?
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GWG Complicated
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cambridgeport90[ GWG: I think I missed the memo. Tell me the story, if you know it.
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GWG Simple answer...there was an attempt at making it a hosted service business, it did not work.
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cambridgeport90[ GWG: Now I understand why my team went away from that and why we stayed safely in the "business" or open source development... see what I did there?
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cambridgeport90[ Either way, I haven't talked to Ben in a while... should I stop the automatic open collective donation I have going to it monthly? If not, is that going anywhere good at the moment?
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GWG Well, something has to pay the bills. In my case, this is a hobby, so not my concern. But for people who want to work on it all the time...
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GWG I'm not sure. I haven't talked to Ben in a while either. I thought I saw something about a new effort, but unsure.
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cambridgeport90[ GWG: I see where that comes in. I think that I can't imagine being a developer for a job and then also doing open source stuff. Sort of like how your work is completely different from your WP projects.
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Loqi friendly reminder cambridgeport90[, can you move the tech talk (open source) to #indieweb-dev to keep this channel more inclusive and inviting?
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cambridgeport90[ Oh. Whoops.
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GWG I'm not sure if this constitutes dev talk per se.
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GWG Possibly talk about the direction of the community, but..
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cambridgeport90[ Apparently the bot doesn't like that. LOL
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GWG The bot only knows keywords
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cambridgeport90[ Ah. Makes sense.
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cambridgeport90[ I need to import the dev channel into matrix over here; which I sort of forgot to do. I accidentally went idle for a while and got kicked from all of them.
jacky, geoffo, angelo, willnorris, reed, Loqi, jan6, aynish[m], fractal[m], jonnybarnes, thomas1, rvalue, petermolnar, tetov-irc, mro, kloenk, nertzy, ren, AramZS and chenghiz_ joined the channel; Lucas[m]12 left the channel
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[tantek] actually yes, talk of open source, and open source maintenance is strictly dev-talk, maybe meta (if it has to do with maintaining IndieWeb repo OSS)
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[tantek] the problem with that "not mainstream" article is that, as I noted to Jacky, it is all assuming an unspoken context of self-hosted, self-managed, and self-administrated WordPress, which is no longer "mainstream" either.
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[tantek] with or without IndieWeb plugins, that person's setup *isn't mainstream*, so it the article isn't really helpful in that regard.
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[tantek] if it's taken as a criticism of the admintax of setting up & maintaining IndieWeb on top of WordPress, then that may be useful for improving that particular experience, but that's for the #indieweb-wordpress channel frankly
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AramZ-S[m] I mean, it would always be good to improve that but honestly the bar for hosting and maintaining a self-hosted wordpress site feels to me like it has had a steep upword curve for the last 5 years.
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AramZ-S[m] It's why I've become very interested in alternatives. I like WordPress and it is very good for a variaty of use cases but, while I disagreed with the Ghost team when they said this when they split off, now I sort of agree with them that personal blogging seems to be an increasingly distant use case for the WordPress core. That's not a bad thing just a change.
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[tantek] It's not just that WordPress self-host/maintain usability has gotten worse/steepr, but also that the *ease-of-use expectations* for "posting your stuff" have gotten much higher
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[tantek] Even if WordPress had stood still, (which, like for example "RSS readers" essentially have from a UI perspective), social media has out-innovated UX so much that the game has significantly changed
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[tantek] This is why, for example, RSS readers are also "not mainstream" any more. They’re kind of dead ends
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Loqi hey [tantek]: it seems like this conversation is more appropriate for #indieweb-dev (RSS)
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[tantek] exactly
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AramZ-S[m] Yeah. That's true too. It's weird that WordPress's micro-pub theme never got big pick up. Or altered how authoring worked in the platform.
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[tantek] It's simple. Wordpress self-hosted is no longer "mainstream", and if/when hosted WordPress starts supporting IndieWeb standards they will have to be A LOT more hardened to handle the bad actors in the WordPress ecosystem
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[tantek] this is why I have yet to advocate strongly for WordPress to put much into "core" beyond IndieAuth which should "just work" with zero configuration, and maybe Micropub
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GWG They opted for application passwords over Indieauth... but you never know
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[tantek] that doesn't make any sense and has nothing to do with using your site as your own identity to authenticate into other sites
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AramZ-S[m] Yeah, I do agree that real self-hosted WordPress is no longer mainstream, though there are hybrid approaches that give you more conrol or less.
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[tantek] nah it's at best a footgun
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[tantek] for non-devs
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[tantek] or more generally, for folks who don't want to budget any regular time for WordPress admintax. their WordPress rots, gets taken over, and their answer is nearly always to abandon / delete it, because, see previously, THEY DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO FUTZ
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[tantek] I've seen too many smart, technical folks who had eagerly setup WordPress in the late 2000s or 2010s give-up and just delete and go to Medium or Substack or something else
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aaronpk it's almost like the "technical vs non-technical user" distinction isn't relevant
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[tantek] it's not, but it's always brought up as if it is, as if technical people have infinite time / infinite desire to deal with admintax
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aaronpk yep
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[tantek] this is exactly the set of people that SSGs won over
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[tantek] "technical", and have nearly zero time for "maintenance" or "updates" etc.
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[schmarty] 😎
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[tantek] oh if I use this (SSG) thing, I can just walk away from my website and it will just "keep working" no matter what?!? zero need to touch any software ever? great, sign me up
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[aciccarello] ^that
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aaronpk tbh that's pretty much how my PHP sites work too 😂
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[tantek] tbh this is why the only folks that I encourage down the WordPress (IndieWeb) path are folks who are already *very* bought into WordPress as part of their identity
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[tantek] aaronpk, I would say the same (about my PHP sites), except experience has shown that every few years, a PHP update (that the hosting provider forces upon you) breaks something that breaks something in one of my sites
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Loqi hey aaronpk, [tantek], we try to keep dev talk (PHP) out of this channel, can you move to #indieweb-dev?
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[tantek] lol
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[tantek] aaronpk tricked me 😛
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AramZ-S[m] Yeah, that is exactly the thought process that shifted a lot of my hobby work towards SSGs
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capjamesg SSG++
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Loqi SSG has 1 karma over the last year
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capjamesg I learned this week that SSGs are all fine and well until your nginx goes down :D
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jacky heh
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[tw2113_Slack_] shakes fish at servers
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[tw2113_Slack_] oh this never would have happened with Apache
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[tantek] anyway before Loqi warns us again, let's take the S S G talk details to #indieweb-dev
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[tantek] non-sequitor tw2113
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jacky ^ lol should somehow add a matcher for that
rvalue, [bneil], [benatwork], jacky, mro, angelo, mlncn, apophys and bterry joined the channel
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capjamesg While digging around with dig (no pun intended), I stumbled upon the nic.blog resolver that redirects to https://my.blog/
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capjamesg "Blogs have grown from simple online diaries into the content that fuels the Internet. But no matter what you create — or why you create it — own what you create by putting it on your domain. It’s time to be heard. It’s time to stop compromising. It’s time to own your online presence."
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capjamesg What is a blog?
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Loqi A blog (or weblog) is an online journal or diary typically written by one person (there are some group blogs) about whatever subjects they wish (like science or politics), usually on its own domain, often a personal IndieWeb site; blog or blogging is also the act of posting to a blog https://indieweb.org/blog
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[aciccarello] I see Manton is featured on that site https://my.blog/2017/01/19/micro-blog/
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Loqi [Erica V.] new dotblogger: micro.blog
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capjamesg :D
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capjamesg What is DNS?
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Loqi DNS is an abbreviation for Domain Name Server and often used to refer to the configuring thereof on a domain name registrar https://indieweb.org/DNS
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pyrmont waves 👋
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[tantek] I forgot to celebrate 20 years of my blog a week ago today
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