#indieweb 2025-09-23

2025-09-23 UTC
kat_, barnaby, Tiffany and aelaraji9 joined the channel
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girlonthemoon helloooo i'm new here but not new to the indieweb
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Kolev Welcome!
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girlonthemoon i have several personal sites: https://girlonthemoon.xyz/ is my IRL/more public site, but https://eunoia.sayitditto.net/ is where i do sillier fun stuff
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girlonthemoon and i have a blog that doesn't quite follow indieweb principles just yet but that's at https://bubblegum.girlonthemoon.xyz/
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girlonthemoon happy to be here!
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Kolev My website has a Nginx starter page because my server rebooted. I am in the process of redesignging my site with Zola.
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girlonthemoon good luck Kolev!
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Kolev I'm hoping I can put both blog posts and Notes under /posts/.
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starletvania hi. i just got here via girlonthemoon on here. shout out to her, i just need to know if there are rules here
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Kolev girlonthemoon, I'm going to use Readable CSS for the styling.
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Loqi hey Kolev, can you move the tech talk (nginx, CSS) to #indieweb-dev to keep this channel more inclusive and inviting?
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Kolev Oh, pardon.
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starletvania i'm personally new to the indieweb (idk if it's called that or indie web) but my new favorite hobby is making fanlistings. if that counts
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Loqi girlonthemoon has 1 karma over the last year
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[tantek] welcome girlonthemoon++
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[tantek] welcome starletvania++
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Loqi starletvania has 1 karma over the last year
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[tantek] what is code of conduct?
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Loqi 🌈 IndieWeb code of conduct tl;dr: Be respectful of other people, respectfully ask people to stop if you are bothered, and if you can't resolve an issue, contact staff. If you are being a problem, it will be apparent and you'll be asked to leave https://indieweb.org/code_of_conduct
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[tantek] (to answer your question)
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[tantek] amazing buttons page btw girlonthemoon! since you've made your own 88x31 buttons for linking to your site, feel free to add them to https://indieweb.org/88x31#IndieWeb_Examples like the others there if you wish!
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[tantek] what is HTML Day
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Loqi HTML Day is an annual celebration of HTML, run in the summer of 2024 and again in 2025 https://indieweb.org/HTML_Day
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[tantek] great site and posts too!
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[tantek] starletvania, re: "making fanlistings. if that counts", absolutely especially if it's on your own site! feel free to share your blog or personal site domain
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osteophage Finally got octothorpes working on my site, after reaching out to the project creators for help. Anyone else on here using them? The idea is that they're like hashtags for personal sites.
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[tantek] I mean, hashtags are hashtags for personal sites
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girlonthemoon thank you tantek! i might add my buttons there :)
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girlonthemoon HTML day was super fun, it's annual yeah
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osteophage Tantek, look: https://octothorp.es/~/indieweb
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[tantek] osteophage, yet many more here, and all you have to do is use a hashtag in your post marked up as a hashtag (HTML, no JS), and federate directly out, no dependency on any one site: https://indieweb.social/tags/indieweb
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osteophage How does that work without bridging?
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[tantek] that's like asking how do web pages work without HTML
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osteophage I actually don't know how to answer that question either, since I'm not sure if you're getting at the idea of other languages.
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[tantek] you publish hashtags on your personal site, and then propagation / discovery is for protocols (of which there are several depending on your use-cases, and to avoid getting into more jargon, the details are better suited for #indieweb-dev)
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osteophage Anyway I'm not interesting in pursuing that method for the time being.
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[tantek] that method of using your own site directly instead of a specific aggregator?
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osteophage If you want to phrase it that way. I need to go run an errand soon, but can I ask you a technical question in #indieweb-dev?
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[tantek] from a user/reader perspective, I'd rather link to a list/stream of hashtagged posts that works more broadly, regardless of what servers people are using. that seems like a more user-centric approach
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trwnh i don't see the difference between sending your post/page to octothorp.es vs sending your post/page to indieweb.social -- it's an aggregator either way, no?
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trwnh when you browse the tag page/feed, it's just "here are all the things tagged with this tag *that the current service is aware of*"
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trwnh it just seems like octothorp.es has their own bespoke way of doing that, kind of like webrings
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[tantek] except I don't send my post to indieweb.social in particular. that's the point. I federate and it ends up at indieweb.social or mastodon.social or lots of other decentralized places
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[tantek] as a publisher I don't have to think or cater to sending to a particular hashtag aggregator, and I prefer not having to think or depend on that
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[tantek] as reads of the hashtags I link to, any of those "current service is aware of" solutions has far more posts than manual-to-ping-in-particular hashtag aggregator
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[tantek] as readers*/users* of the hashtags I link to
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[tantek] as a publisher why would I do more work for less results?
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trwnh you're still sending the post even if you don't think about it, though
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[tantek] except I'm using a protocol, not a platform, as the saying goes
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Loqi [tantek]: it seems like this conversation is more appropriate for #indieweb-dev (decentralized, protocol)
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[tantek] lol there we go
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trwnh idk it just still seems like a webring to me
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[tantek] except I webrings are sign-up / link once and done. zero maintenance
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[tantek] idk less work per post seems obvious to me 🤷
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aaronpk Indienews is basically a hashtag aggregator
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[tantek] it's more of a bookmark aggregator
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trwnh from what i read of their site, this is also one-and-done. you just sign up with a particular group site and then add a link tag, and your visitor's browser will do the work for you. works with 100% static sites
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[tantek] from what I understand that "add a link tag" is one per post, and separate from any user-visible link tag, so it's not "one-and-done"
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trwnh i understand not everyone wants to register with an affinity group though
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[tantek] you had me at "not everyone wants to register"
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[tantek] that's part of the point of standards, to avoid solutions that require "registration"
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trwnh well other solutions still require someone to follow you or for you to send out notifications or whatever
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trwnh hence potential for spam
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[tantek] right, we're back to protocols (send out notifications) over platforms (a particular service). so no they are not the same
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[tantek] spam is an orthogonal problem in many kinds of systems
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trwnh maybe we're speaking past each other but it really doesn't seem meaningfully different than a webring to me. the goal is to only include a closed set of people, which is different than wanting your post to go out as widely as possible
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trwnh how you get your post to the destination, well, there's a dozen ways to do that
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trwnh but there is only one destination here and that is a feature as far as their target audience is concerned
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trwnh (not that there's anything preventing you from being part of multiple affinity groups)
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[tantek] I don't think closed is anyone's goal here
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[tantek] (in the context of this discussion)
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[tantek] I do think there's some interesting opportunities to explore for friends-only group-visible posts and such
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[tantek] Including subsets of such posts by hashtag
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[tantek] but no one has built that yet
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trwnh if i had to criticize the design or idea of how octothorp.es did what they did, it's that it's inefficient for cases where you want your tags to be tracked on multiple destinations. every new destination is another link you have to add and another request to be fired off by the visitor's browser
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trwnh but going any deeper into that would be #indieweb-dev territory
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[tantek] yes: "every new destination is another link you have to add" <-- this is getting at the heart of why and how this approach is really a platform more than a protocol
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[tantek] it's pretty much the same as when all those "verification" services popped up that each asked for a unique "meta" tag / hash for their brand of verification
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trwnh given that the point of the link is to have your browser issue a GET, it's equivalent to posting to multiple hubs
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[tantek] seems unnecessary though? I mean if you "browser issue a form submission" is your design goal, you can already do that with webmentions
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trwnh you could do it with mentions, you could do it with sub hubs, etc etc
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[tantek] I disagree with equating it to "hubs" as well. those link tags are dead-ends
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[tantek] they don't "hub out" to any other places
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[tantek] they're not "hubs", they're sinks
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trwnh i'd still liken it to a private hub with no subs
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trwnh or not "private", rather "closed membership"
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[tantek] neither is true however afaik with the example being discussed, private or "closed membership".
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[tantek] it may have some similar limitations, but none of the advantages of a "friends-only" aggregation / notification mechanism
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[tantek] the only aspects to "liken it to" are disadvantages, so that doesn't make any sense
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trwnh "these are all the posts by members" can be a feed visible to the public, so i don't think it's necessarily a disadvantage. again it depends on what you want
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[tantek] except there's no cohesion or "affinity" as you put it to the "members". just happens to be random subset of people on the internet who decided to do extra work - no relation to each other, so no value 🤷
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trwnh for https://octothorp.es/domains i guess sure? it's about as much a community as mastodon.social is a community
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trwnh but if a group of people wanted to selfhost it then that would be different
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[tantek] sure! if people want to experiment with more theoretical "wanted to" things then maybe things could be (not necessarily would be) different
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[tantek] right, neither are communities per se. I believe you were claiming one was a community as an advantage, and no that's not the case, that's my point.
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[tantek] again, bottom line is more work for less results, no advantage
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trwnh that group of people could also set up their own hub or mention endpoint, but then they would have to make their own POSTs instead of having browsers do it for them
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[tantek] yep, sounds like a possible experiment, if you or others think that's worth trying out, go for it with your personal site.
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[tantek] I'm saying given the current known & deployed experiment, I don't see any advantages to offset the extra work 🤷
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trwnh that's fine i guess but it really doesn't seem like "extra work" to me compared to the alternative of setting up something like bridgy fed
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[tantek] we do need lots more experiments of all kinds to try different things for friends-only posts and such
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trwnh bridgy fed is actually significantly harder
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[tantek] didn't seem like it when I set it up (blogged about it)
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[tantek] and massively more use-cases since it bridges to a protocol not a platform
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Loqi hey trwnh, [tantek]: would you mind moving this more technical conversation (endpoint, protocol) to #indieweb-dev? thanks!
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[tantek] actually, protocols plural
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trwnh this is probably the point that we should move over to #indieweb-dev lol
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[tantek] for example, I did zero work for getting the advantage of Bluesky users to be able to follow me
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trwnh probably exhausted any discussion on the social dynamics of it
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[tantek] never was about social dynamics
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[tantek] purely how much work for how much (if any benefit)
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trwnh i'll try to type up what i mean in #indieweb-dev i guess
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[tantek] people can make all sorts of pitches why supporting any one silo/platform is helpful and those typically are short term at best (silos die or break/close APIs or both)
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[tantek] so I tend to ignore setting up site-specific things like that for that reasons, have spent enough time doing so for things the just break and get shut down eventually anyway
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[tantek] prefer to focus on protocols and interoperability rather than site-specific silos/platforms.
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[Murray] Pretty fun take on the website-as-desktop style of design: https://posthog.com/blog/why-os
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girlonthemoon omg i saw that site [Murray]! it's sooo fun and cute
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starletvania good morning :D
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daisydenim Hello there I'm kinda new into the indie web and am learning how to code
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starletvania same
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daisydenim Hiii
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starletvania hi !!!
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daisydenim My codes kinda broken and stuff I'm glad I found a chat tho, Neocities doesn't seem to have a social feature
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starletvania you also use neocities??? (i also use that and nekoweb but they don't have social features. and nekoweb is the only one with a discord)
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daisydenim Nekoweb has a discord? I heard about nekoweb too, what's the difference between nekoweb and Neocities which is better? I want to only focus on one to not waste so much energy
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daisydenim And yeah I also realized that lots of ways to chat are mostly on discord
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starletvania discord server* oops
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daisydenim Oops
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starletvania all i know about nekoweb is that generative AI crawlers are banned. idk if neocities also has that but, there's that
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daisydenim Hmmmm depending on what I see I might move to the nekoweb an
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daisydenim Remove the and
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daisydenim Hmmmmmm I really like coding
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starletvania i'm going to edit this jayscassettes website that i made and only added blinkies in it
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daisydenim Joined what's your discord tag? I wanna add u
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starletvania tech_stars (but just so you know, i'm not on the nekoweb server on that account)
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daisydenim Oh
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daisydenim Alr
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daisydenim If you ever wanna chat there hmu, I'm gonna go to work now
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starletvania okay :D
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[jeremycherfas] Why do I have a strong sensation of bots in a chatroom?
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capjamesg Welcome everyone!
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starletvania i am not a bot 🥹✌️
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starletvania unless you mean in a different chatroom
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[jeremycherfas] I apologise unreservedly.
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girlonthemoon not sure if this is the place to put this, but: i made a page for myself on the indieweb wiki :) https://indieweb.org/User:Eunoia.sayitditto.net
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capjamesg girlonthemoon++
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Loqi girlonthemoon has 2 karma over the last year
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capjamesg Yay!
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girlonthemoon :D thank you!
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Loqi 😃
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capjamesg I love that you have a project called superlove! It reminds me of this song by one of my favourite duos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qZo5Lr7UIc
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capjamesg [edit] I love that you have a project called superlove! It reminds me of this song by one of my favourite duos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qZo5Lr7UIc
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girlonthemoon omg i've never heard of this one!!! i know several songs called superlove but not this!
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girlonthemoon i named the site after the tinashe song :D
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capjamesg I haven't heard that one! Listening now 🎶
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girlonthemoon it's very good!
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girlonthemoon such a fun summer bop
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capjamesg Great song!
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girlonthemoon YES i love it and tinashe so much
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girlonthemoon i remember i was thinking of names for the site as i was making it and it was becoming a real thing (i never formally launched it but i still needed a name!) and i had been listening to tinashe around then and decided that "superlove" would be really cute. and i was right!
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girlonthemoon similarly, the other project listed on the wiki page, love4eva, is named after the LOONA song of the same name :P
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capjamesg I should try and see if I can name a project with a Taylor Swift reference 👀
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Loqi +1
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[snarfed] paging gRegorLove 😁
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girlonthemoon yesss do it [capjamesg]!!!!
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[artlung] I always think of the Charli xcx song. On my 2014 mix. https://artlung.com/mixtapes/2014 … and if [gRegorLove] was in this I think he’d quip something like _“why isn’t there a song called Soup or Love?”_
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girlonthemoon omg [artlung], your mixtapes page inspires me a ton!!! i LOVE making playlists and mixtapes, i just haven't had the time to make pages for all my tapes on any of my sites >_>
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girlonthemoon the charli xcx song always turns up in searches for superlove more than the tinashe song i've noticed
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[artlung] Thanks! I dig your site girlonthemoon ! And yes, more mixtapes, jams, scrobbles! Still on my to dos list is for scans of tape covers and such. :)
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girlonthemoon aww thank you!!! omg scans of tape covers... that'd be such a tedious task for me but so fun too
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girlonthemoon i have way too many mixtapes, i actually do have a good amount of them archived on dreamwidth (https://chillwaves.dreamwidth.org/?poster=luckyzukky) but not all lol
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[Murray] very glad that there's a large community of people already scanning record covers 😅 makes life a lot easier!
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girlonthemoon oh for real [Murray]! discogs is a lifesaver
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[Murray] yep, between that and http://Last.fm's API, I'm able to cover most of the stuff on my collection microsite. Still had to make one or two myself 😄 but tape feels like a whole other challenge...
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girlonthemoon lastfm's API is a life saver!
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zachary.kai girlonthemoon Welcome! So lovely to have you here! And my goodness I had no idea you could self-host an AO3 fork! That's so cool.
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girlonthemoon thank you so much zachary.kai! i'm actually the third person ever to do it, after squidgeworld.org and adastrafanfic.com (latter person also runs a second site on the same code, i've helped a lot with that. we're all friends!)
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zachary.kai Wow, a rarified but wonderful bunch! What inspired putting it up?
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damianwalsh. Your mix tapes feature is great [artlung], I had a bash creating memory tapes sort of thing for my own amusement as part of a project to create a digital archive of my music collection (shameless plug: https://damianwalsh.co.uk/posts/creating-connections-with-music-and-technology/), seeing this sparks more ideas to explore...
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[artlung] just found girlonthemoon's mixtape blog post. https://bubblegum.girlonthemoon.xyz/articles/making-mixtapes
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[tantek] this is an excellent analog primer, and captured the key tips that I remember when I used to make mix tapes. girlonthemoon++
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Loqi girlonthemoon has 3 karma over the last year
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girlonthemoon zachary.kai, we all have individual motivations but for my friends it was mainly updating old archives that ran on older obsolete software-- for me i just thought it'd be funny lol!
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girlonthemoon also thanks [artlung] and [tantek] omg!! you're all very kind :')
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Loqi [indienews] New post: "“What need of telephones?”" https://artlung.com/blog/2025/09/23/phone-book/
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Caleb artlung: I'm still debating whether to put all posts under /posts/ or put blog posts under /blog/ and notes under /notes/.
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Caleb or [artlung], not sure.
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[artlung] one has to feel good about that decision. I was looking at some very, very, very old urls on my site, and making sure they properly redirect. they still do.
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[artlung] I see either sort of mention, eventually.
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gRegor I've been pretty pleased with no special directory, just /YYYY/MM/ for time-based posts, regardless if articles, notes, photos
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[tantek] I started with /log/ and eventually decided the years at top level were sufficient so now do /YYYY/DDD/
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Caleb I wish we had some Zola users in here.
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