#indieweb 2025-08-13

2025-08-13 UTC
ben__, strugee, kebokyo, JadedBlueEyes, stefen, tavare, Maker, Saphir, lane, zoglesby and doesnm joined the channel
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[tantek]
LLM/AI.
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[tantek]
I know there's mixed opinions on using LLMs here (mostly negative), however I'm curious about how people feel about a very specific use-case of "review" or "critique" or "proofread" where the LLM does not actually write any words for you, but rather only critiques your words (with explanations), and then perhaps in response, you rewrite your words. The output is still all your writing, however it was improved by way of critical feedback from an
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Loqi
[tantek]: it looks like this conversation is getting pretty technical (LLM), can you take it to #indieweb-dev?
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Loqi
hey [tantek], would you mind moving this more technical conversation (LLM) to #indieweb-dev? thanks!
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[tantek]
AI ChatBot then
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[tantek]
for example, see the "Postscript" in this post: https://maggieappleton.com/ai-enlightenment/
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.pi.r2.
tantek: For proofreading 100%, but critiquing might be trickier. Problem is that chat bots tend to be exceedingly agreeable (cloud ones at least, I have little experience with local ones). A colleague mentioned that GPT5 was the first to actually push back, so might be a better starting point.
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[Murray]
(Caveat because I don't want this to be hyper judgemental: I use AI occasionally, particularly for finding code documentation, and have no issues with other doing so critically)
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[Murray]
I'd say my personal concerns around "AI" are the unethical models of data acquisition, the societal impact, and the environmental damage. So the exact use model isn't that relevant.
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[Murray]
Though, as someone who has worked as a copy editor, and has seen plenty of colleagues start using it that way, I'd point out that the current raft of models are always driving towards the _mean_ in terms of language, so it all ends up sounding the same. You can likely do some prompt engineering around that to help retain a semblance of personal tone/voice, but I'd still be concerned about that
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[Murray]
More targeted tools, like Grammarly's tone analysis, would likely to a better job in that regard, but those also tend towards specific cultural biases (I find Grammarly, in particular, very clearly white, American, male, white-collar in terms of linguistic choices 😄)
[tantek]1, IWSlackGateway, [mattl]1, kebokyo, gRegor and doesnm joined the channel
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osteophage
If someone wants writing feedback they can just @ me.
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osteophage
Grammarly is certainly the popular choice for this kinds of thing. It also predates LLM chatbots as they're known today, which goes to show that more elaborate models are unnecessary for flagging basic and programmatically-identifiable issues. For anything more complex than that, there are plenty of people out there who are interested to help. https://tracydurnell.com/2024/12/01/gift-to-the-indie-web-i-will-edit-your-blog-post/
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osteophage
[edit] Grammarly is certainly the popular choice for this kinds of thing. It also predates LLM chatbots as they're known today, which goes to show that more elaborate models are unnecessary for flagging basic and programmatically-identifiable issues. For anything more complex than that, there are plenty of people out there who are interested to help. https://tracydurnell.com/2024/12/01/gift-to-the-indie-web-i-will-edit-your-blog-p
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Loqi
hey osteophage: that's a lot of dev jargon! LLM... can you move to #indieweb-dev?
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osteophage
Anyway here I'd been thinking about writing some kind of general writing/composition guide but had been holding back because I was like ah well no one's interested in that.
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osteophage
On the other hand I keep thinking about that time someone at Wikipedia suggested using bots for generating summaries of complex text and I'm like good grief I would really like for folks to understand why that supposed use case doesn't make any sense. Real "push code on a Friday" kind of idea.
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osteophage
[edit] Grammarly is certainly the popular choice for this kinds of thing. It also predates LLM chatbots as they're known today, which goes to show that more elaborate models are unnecessary for flagging basic and programmatically-identifiable issues. For anything more complex than that, there are plenty of people out there who are interested to help. https://tracydurnell.com/2024/12/01/gift-to-the-indie-web-i-will-edit-your-blog-p
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Loqi
[preview] [Tracy Durnell] Gift to the indie web: I will edit your blog post
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[artlung]
Blog food carnival. Kind of brilliant. Not something I have seen before and I have kind of seen it all.
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[tantek]
[schmarty] yes to better filters and that HUD metaphor (or literal) as long as it avoids AI HallUcination Displays 🙃
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[tantek]
[artlung] I am a fan of those three words. Curious where the emphasis is on their combination. I can think of several possibilities!
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[tantek]
interesting experiment.
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carrvo
Personally I don't like AI/LLMs for two reasons: 1) when the AI writes it, people will attribute it to themselves (which I believe to be akin to lying) -- of which having it as a proof-read is fine (and some times proof-readers are given credit) -- and 2) one of the benefits of these tools is their widespread use; of which if it is giving the same advice to everyone then it acts as a conformity force that reduces diversity. I recogniz
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carrvo
All in all, it does not mean I am particularly *against* AI, just suspicious and skeptical.
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Loqi
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London is starting soon! Join us! https://events.indieweb.org/rxHiCnmhSDz8
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[Jim_Mitchell]
👋 Hey all. New IndieWeb Slack member here... https://jimmitchell.org
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Loqi
[Jim_Mitchell] has 1 karma over the last year
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[tantek]
[Jim_Mitchell]++ welcome and nice Microblog t-shirt and coffee art!
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gRegor
Welcome, Jim! o/
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capjamesg
Welcome!
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suki, kebokyo, bret, paulgrmn, ggarcia247, rvalue-, barnaby, rob32 and zimnickico joined the channel; zimnickico left the channel
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zimnickico
hey everyone, another new joiner here, joining via irc. been following the indieweb movement for a while and finally decided to start adopting the principles myself. pleasure to meet you all.
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[mattl]
welcome!
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[aciccarello]
Hi zimnickico!
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[aciccarello]
Do you have a website yet?
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zimnickico
yes i do! although it's still very barebones. feel free to visit it if you'd like anyway: https://zimnicki.co/
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zimnickico
i'm planning to move stuff from twitter, substack and medium there over the coming days, so wish me luck hah
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[aciccarello]
Nice! Those screenshots look really clean! Is that some of your portfolio?
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zimnickico
thank you! correct, this is some of my work. did digital product design for the past 3-ish years.
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[tantek]
what is backfill
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Loqi
backfill is the action of importing all your past posts, typically from a social media silo, into your own site https://indieweb.org/backfill
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[tantek]
zimnickico++ welcome and check that out ^ for some tips, tools, examples of moving stuff from twitter, substack and medium over to your personal site
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Loqi
zimnickico has 1 karma over the last year
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[aciccarello]
I've backfilled my content from twitter, Medium, and Instagram. I still have a draft sitting around to post the node.js script I used to generate the markdown files for my site.
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[aciccarello]
Good luck with that! Definitely a fun challenge to cleanup the export data from those sites.
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zimnickico
thanks tantek, will have a look at that! side-question, mind if i ask what karma does here? it's the first time i'm seeing something like this.
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[aciccarello]
What is loqi?
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Loqi
Loqi is a friendly and useful bot/digital therapist present in the IndieWeb discussion channels https://indieweb.org/Loqi
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[aciccarello]
What is karma?
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Loqi
Karma is a community recognition tool used in the IndieWeb community and powered by the friendly bot Loqi https://indieweb.org/Karma
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[aciccarello]
zimnickico, it's mostly a fun way to recognize people. 😁
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zimnickico
oh that is very cool, thanks. that "what is" command will probably come in handy more than i'd like to admit.
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[aciccarello]
Yep, Loqi helps us quickly add and read from the wiki from chat. Anything that has a direct IndieWeb relevance should have a page in the wiki. In addition to the backfill page, you might want to check out the pages for silos like Twitter and Medium for tips.
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[aciccarello]
What is getting started?
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Loqi
🎉 Get started on the indieweb by connecting with the IndieWeb community, getting a personal domain, a place for your content, and setting up your home page and other IndieWeb essentials https://indieweb.org/getting_started
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[aciccarello]
You probably already saw that page, but it's also a good starting point.
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gRegor
what is love?
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gRegor
We have some fun things like that as well :)
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zimnickico
aciccarello, yeah that is the page i was following :) very useful indeed!
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[aciccarello]
😸 gRegor++
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Loqi
gRegor has 8 karma in this channel over the last year (121 in all channels)
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zimnickico
gRegor, hah i love that
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gRegor
And belated, welcome! o/
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Loqi
[preview] Dr. Matt Lee
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[Jo]
Weclome from me as well !
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zimnickico
thanks for the warm welcome you both!
Maker, Maker1 and fauxbic joined the channel
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Loqi
Homebrew Website Club - Eastern is starting soon! Join us! https://events.indieweb.org/svj0umndcvjH
balintm joined the channel
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capjamesg
Thanks to everyone for joining HWC!
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capjamesg
The next Europe event is on the 20th!
JustBleedFan, rvalue, rvalue- and bterry joined the channel
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capjamesg
[mattl]++ for HWC Eastern!
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Loqi
[mattl] has 11 karma in this channel over the last year (101 in all channels)
kebokyo, Maker and balintm joined the channel
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[tantek]
[mattl]++ for hosting HWC East!
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Loqi
[mattl] has 12 karma in this channel over the last year (102 in all channels)