#indieweb 2026-08-31

2026-08-31 UTC
potter, cotsuka, toastal, barnaby, [Mike]1, [pcarrier]1, [Mike], [pcarrier], lavandula, Pixi`, seleno, aldur6, brennan, morganwebdev, lockywolf_, TwinAdam, lavandula_ and coldfeet joined the channel; toastal and athenaeryma left the channel
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[capjamesg] I’m not sure where this would go on the wiki but https://humancode.us/2026/08/28/royalty-free-images is a cool resource.
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[tantek] What is design?
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Loqi 📐🖌 Design is a term that broadly encompasses graphics & other aspects of visual design such as typography, user interface (UI), user experience (UX), information architecture (IA), URL design, and everything else that affects how users experience a web site & its pages and interact with them https://indieweb.org/design
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[tantek] Maybe there?
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[capjamesg] Perfect!
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[capjamesg] design << [https://humancode.us/2026/08/28/royalty-free-images Where to get free, human-made, royalty-free images]
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Loqi ok, I added "[https://humancode.us/2026/08/28/royalty-free-images Where to get free, human-made, royalty-free images]" to the "See Also" section of /design https://indieweb.org/wiki/index.php?diff=113194&oldid=111649
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wturrell can't believe I forgot about ooh.directory as I actually read Phil Gyford's blog - though the thing is he doesn't tend to bang on about projects he's already created. The chart of pending suggestions he's got to work through is scary…
IWSlackGateway, tricon, ruecharli, [0x3b0b], vikanezrimaya, plantroon, barnaby, powerLien, alison, owls, potter, dustinm`, Saige_Leah, wturrell, lavandula, lavandula_, brennan, cotsuka, fw14, dmowitz, gordinator, bterry, aldur65, [pfefferle] and ben joined the channel; toastal left the channel
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Loqi [indienews] New post: "Journey; destination" https://thamara.co.uk/notebook/2026/08/journey-destination
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[capjamesg] https://xixxii.neocities.org/projects/suckatsomethingseptember is fun!
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gRegor Haha, that's a nice back to back with Weird Web October
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[tantek] lolol
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[Trevor_Morris] That reminds me, I want to try Inktober this year. With my son. New iPad and Pencil, so will use it to learn that.
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gRegor I like the September idea, though maybe not even as a web-based thing for me. Like maybe I'll try to draw more.
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gRegor Added https://indieweb.org/September#Challenges
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[aciccarello] Oh, I love this "half-marathon"/"5k" version of inktober https://inktober.com/rules
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[aciccarello] I wouldn't consider myself an artist but I like the idea of participating weekly.
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herenti my little personal website, in progress. just a space for me to be silly and share some things i am into. kind of like how a social media profile should be. https://anpan.moe
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herenti i have no idea how to get my site in any indie search engines though
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[aciccarello] herenti, welcome!
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[aciccarello] What is discover?
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Loqi Discovery is a variety of methods for finding content, websites, communities, or people to follow on the web including search, directories, recommendation engines, tags, or other serendipitous methods; there are also discovery-algorithms for developers https://indieweb.org/discover
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[aciccarello] That page has some projects that collect lists of sites.
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[aciccarello] There's also the search wiki page https://indieweb.org/search#Alternate_Search_Engines
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herenti [aciccarello]: i looked at discover but it just seems to be for finding other peoples sites, not listing my own
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[aciccarello] True, but if you reverse that (get listed on those discovery sites) people will be able to find yours
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[aciccarello] For example, I registered with http://personalsit.es
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[aciccarello] What is a webring?
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Loqi A webring is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure; check out the indiewebring, a webring across IndieWeb sites and blogs https://indieweb.org/webring
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[aciccarello] That's another popular way to join a group of related websites
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herenti [aciccarello]: i dont see anywhere to register on there
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[aciccarello] Which webring or directory are you looking to join?
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herenti i mean just general ones, idk lol
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gRegor The site is a wiki with links out to various webrings. The webrings aren't maintained by us. Well, mostly. IndieWeb Webring is maintained by schmarty
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herenti would be nice to just show up in the main search engines
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eliasebn1r Hello!
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[aciccarello] hello eliasebn1r!
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gRegor I think most smaller, indie search engines should have a form you can submit your site to
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eliasebn1r how do i change my nick name man
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eliasebn1r i tried with /nick
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[tantek] what client are you using eliasebn1r?
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eliasebner oh no i got it
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eliasebner let's go
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eliasebner i'm using irssi, but the issue was that i already had an account which used that username
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eliasebner which is why it didn't work with /nick. i had to use the regain command on nickserv
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eliasebner all good, but thanks though
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eliasebner i am very new to this IRC stuff, exactly how is this supposed to be used, since it does not have a central server and i cannot read messages while i'm away, how am i supposed to read them?
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eliasebner am i supposed to keep a server runing 24/7?
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[tantek] what are chat archives?
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Loqi 💬 Join #indieweb discussions via Discord, Slack, web chat, or IRC, (they are all bridged!) with focused channels for developers, events, meta topics, and WordPress — please keep chats brief and relevant to the IndieWeb community across all indieweb chat channels https://indieweb.org/chat_archives
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[tantek] ^ click through and you shall be rewarded with links to chat archives 😄
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eliasebner well yes but this is exclusive to #indieweb
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eliasebner what about other channels?
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eliasebner i'm talking about the general philosophy of IRC, are you supposed to keep a server running? (i forgot that not everyone that is reading this is on IRC right now, since the whole thing is bridged across platforms)
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[capjamesg] #indieweb-dev, #indieweb-events, #indieweb-meta, and other channels are bridged to IRC.
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eliasebner yes, i understand that, but i'm referring to other channels of completely different organizations. not everyone has a bridge. in that case, is it expected of me to have a computer running 24/7 to be connected to the IRC server such that i can read the messages when i come back?
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eliasebner i don't quite get how this is supposed to work otherwise...
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[capjamesg] You can if you want a local copy, or you can read the chat archives to catch up at https://chat.indieweb.org, which show the contents too.
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[capjamesg] For other groups, they may have archives, or they may have a web client that they recommend joining from that gives you logs, or they may not have any logging and expect you to stay connected.
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eliasebner i see... thank you very much
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[capjamesg] Happy to help!
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eliasebner anyhow, I have my own website, where is a good place to post it? i just joined this indieweb thing and have no idea where to start
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[capjamesg] Here is the right place 🙂
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eliasebner my site is quite a bit older thuogh, i've had it for almost half a year
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eliasebner great, go check it out
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eliasebner eliasebner.com
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wturrell the chat archives here are rather easier to follow than elsewhere; the webpage keeps working whether you're logged in or not, and you can just browse everything by date
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eliasebner i'm a freelance software developer and am studying computer science while i work. my actual job involves web development but i'm very passionate about more theoretical computer science concepts and low level programming. i don't just write about technical stuff though, i sometimes like to post my thoughts and experiences (in fact, i would like to write more about that than about technical stuff)
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[capjamesg] Your site looks cool!
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eliasebner my articles probably appeal more to other developers than to the general population, but i still like to talk about things that might interest everyone
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eliasebner thank you
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eliasebner i came up with the design myself, coded it from scratch with html and css
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eliasebner i have to say i'm quite proud of the design
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[capjamesg] It does look clean!
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[capjamesg] And I like the scrollbar effect at the top too.
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[capjamesg] Re: writing. You’ll find many people on the IndieWeb that chat about a mix of software and personal thoughts, etc.
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eliasebner i was thinking of maybe transitioning to a more nerdy style (basically an almost text-only site with just a black background and monospace font) but i'm not sure
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eliasebner i think this appeals to a more wider audience
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[capjamesg] I find your site easy to read as it is right now.
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[capjamesg] But definitely play around if you want, even if it’s just for one page. Part of the fun of the IndieWeb is exploring!
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eliasebner also, i had a question. i really like this idea of building my own online platform that i ACTUALLY own (in the sense that i completely control how it looks and what i put on it) and i would like to make writing blog articles my job if possible. To do that i would somehow have to monetize this. Is that seen badly in this community?
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eliasebner like, are affiliate links or advertisements or trying to sell something seen badly?
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eliasebner i would like to avoid ads since they ruin the look of the site
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gRegor Welcome, eliasebner! Nice site
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eliasebner also, thanks for the feedback
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gRegor For things you publish on your own site, I don't think affiliate links are really a consideration for most of us, so should be fine. Part of the nice thing about having our own little corner of the web. :)
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eliasebner alright i see, thanks
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eliasebner i'm not planning to do that now, but just to figure out what the general sentiment is around here
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eliasebner do you guys want to send me some of your sites? i would like to check them out
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[artlung] eliasebner I think there's no unified opinion on monetization. https://indieweb.org/Category:Commerce links to some topics. I have in the past had affiliate links for hosting (I don't at present) and linked amazon products using an affiliate marker (I don't at present) as well as hosting ads from a few ad networks (all removed at present). I think we do value tools which make such motives plain and visible.
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eliasebner I understand, that makes sense
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[artlung] for example, Mozilla' Firefox's "copy link without tracking" tool is something most IndieWeb folks view positively.
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gRegor I didn't know that was a thing! neat
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wturrell eliasebner: don't underestimate how tough it can be to make money from writing, though (unfortunately)
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[artlung] And based on the number of times I've shared my screen during meetings and someone present has said "You don't use an adblocker Joe?" I think a fair number of us run aggressive ad blocking tools.
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eliasebner wturrell: is that true? like, can't you get a bunch of visits with SEO and after building a name for yourself people genuinely know you?
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gRegor yeah, a patron model seems to work "better" for monetization, though I'm sure it's still tough (no firsthand experience)
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eliasebner i could make something genuinely useful and sell it, no?
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eliasebner like some software or something
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eliasebner gRegor: or maybe, as you said, just based on donations through a patreon or something similar like buymeacoffee idk
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eliasebner are there any people making a living off of this here?
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[capjamesg] https://brennan.day is a full-time writer if I recall correctly, but he contributes to other sites as well as his own. I think most people are here to use their site as a way to have a presence on the web that they own rather than being a source of income.
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wturrell I would take a guess those who get any sort of income from buymeacoffee are probably the sort who'll give a lot of it back to other people whose sites they like
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eliasebner but in what way do these people "give back to other sites"? do they write articles for them? or like, donate?
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wturrell part of this is writing is a creative industry and it's typically hard to make money in the creative industry, because (a) capitalism and (b) people's innate desire to be creative (supply > demand, etc.) – read Cory Doctorow..
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eliasebner yeah i mean, i know it's hard
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eliasebner but writing doesn't have to be creative, it can also be informative
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eliasebner i can make guides and tutorials, i love teaching
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[capjamesg] You’re right that you can use your site as a place to share something you have made and want to sell. There aren’t many people doing that who are in this chat right now that I know, but there are certainly examples on the broader web.
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eliasebner the thing is, with AI overviews people get the answer they need very quickly without visiting a site (even if sometimse it's wrong)
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eliasebner but thank you very much, you guys are very patient
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eliasebner i still haven't seen any of your sites though
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[capjamesg] What is discovery?
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Loqi Discovery is a variety of methods for finding content, websites, communities, or people to follow on the web including search, directories, recommendation engines, tags, or other serendipitous methods; there are also discovery-algorithms for developers https://indieweb.org/discovery
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[capjamesg] You can see lots of IndieWeb sites here ^^
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[capjamesg] Or, rather, through the links on that page.
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[capjamesg] https://blogroll.org/ is my go to when I’m looking for indie sites to explore 😄
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gRegor what is chat names
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Loqi The chat names page is for IndieWeb community members to to add their commonly used nicknames on discussion channels, optionally with icons, sorted by nickname with their website and usual timezone(s) https://indieweb.org/chat-names
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gRegor Can also find a lot of sites of community regulars who have opted in on that page ^
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eliasebner thank you so much, i'll look into all of this stuff
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[tantek] eliasebner if you're looking for a site to just scroll some indieweb posts, there's also https://stream.indieweb.org/
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[tantek] Works great on mobile and has a very minimalist design. Great for easy reading
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[aciccarello] I personally haven't bothered with ads or affiliate links because i know my site doesn't get enough traffic for it to matter.
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[aciccarello] I also feel like with search shifting to more AI summaries, it's harder to generate significant traffic these days if that is your goal.
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[aciccarello] What I like about having a personal site is that I have the freedom to post what/when I want.
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[aciccarello] That said, plenty of people make good money with blogs.
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eliasebner Yeah, but I don't really like the "commercial" writing that is (probably, i assume) required for optimizing for profits, if you know what i mean...
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eliasebner /server server.eliasebner.com +6969 eliasebner:<pass>
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eliasebner shit sorry guys
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morganwebdev Joining in later on the money/monetization discussion, Ill just be honest that basically the biggest struggle for me is to walk the line between my blog being me and individual expression and also "hey, an employer might find this or see this, and I dont mind if it expresses me some, but I probably wouldn't put everything there". So basically Im not monetizing it but Im self censoring it to a degree to keep it cheery for people researching
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morganwebdev me. I dont feel, and have never felt, fully comfortable with this state of affairs.
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[tantek] it's a challenging balance morganwebdev, and it's ok to feel that struggle.
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morganwebdev Indeed! thank you. I think a related concept I find very interesting is ephemerality. How long stuff lives. Definitely blogging I think has a focus on very long lived content, whereas anything money related for me is like a temporary job posting or something like that. Many good indieweb people have written about how they find a balance, capjamesg++ inspired me with their choices re how they present themselves for jobs and stuff
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