I've read this before, and honestly I'm not convinced. I don't really care if one of my social media sites goes sideways. I'm willing to completely abandon a social media handle if a site starts...
I've read this before, and honestly I'm not convinced. I don't really care if one of my social media sites goes sideways. I'm willing to completely abandon a social media handle if a site starts to go in a direction I don't like, and I've done so a number of times. I've deleted Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit in the past with relatively little friction and honestly it's not particularly been much of a loss any of those times. So, what am I - a pretty average guy with no projects that I care to share with strangers, and no particular desire for a persistent web presence - supposed to get from building a web site?
Well, I for one have enjoyed reading your takes on life and Christianity, even as a nonbeliever. I find this post to be a much more convincing take (no offence to the posted article). The main...
Well, I for one have enjoyed reading your takes on life and Christianity, even as a nonbeliever.
I find this post to be a much more convincing take (no offence to the posted article).
The main reason to have it entirely yourself is so that you're not at the mercy of somebody else. A blog doesn't need to be much more than a folder full of text files that you upload somewhere when you want to publish.
And I say this all as someone who periodically gets the itch to start a blog, but then gets distracted by all the other stuff I'm supposed to do.
Well, first of all, I appreciate you saying that. I've enjoyed a lot of conversations here at Tildes, and I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that conversations here and a few other...
Well, first of all, I appreciate you saying that. I've enjoyed a lot of conversations here at Tildes, and I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that conversations here and a few other sites have shaped my view of the world by exposing me to types of people and ways of thinking that I likely would never have been exposed to otherwise. I still think, though, that the value of those things were that they were conversations. They had value and I remember the impact they've had, but they were part of a moment. I wouldn't obsessively record conversations that I have with folks IRL and put them up on a wall, and I don't really see a need to collect my thoughts and ramblings and put them somewhere permanent online, either. I get that other folks feel differently, though. Some folks write in diaries or journal about conversations that they have, but I've never felt that need either. So I get that a blog or web site is of value for some people, I'm just not convinced that it's a necessity for everyone.
You could have an old-school low-effort blog. Not that you have to, but it's nice to remember that blogs were very casual once, and to many people they still are. A few hundred examples.
You could have an old-school low-effort blog. Not that you have to, but it's nice to remember that blogs were very casual once, and to many people they still are. A few hundred examples.
This is probably the thing that I would be most likely to do, but honestly I'm not sure blogging is for me. I find a lot more value in conversation and dialogue than I do in just writing essays or...
This is probably the thing that I would be most likely to do, but honestly I'm not sure blogging is for me. I find a lot more value in conversation and dialogue than I do in just writing essays or blogposts. My wife, on the other hand, habitually writes essays that no one else will ever see just to organize her own thoughts so that she can understand them herself. I've tried to convince her to start a blog, but really I think that whole process if more for her own benefit, and that writing for others to potentially see might actually make her self-censor or be less honest with herself about her own thoughts, maybe.
I love Bearblog! I had started one myself and posted to it occasionally. I found writing out my thoughts where others would read them made me want to take the time to write something I would want...
I love Bearblog! I had started one myself and posted to it occasionally. I found writing out my thoughts where others would read them made me want to take the time to write something I would want to present to people, even if it was anonymously. It was a great way to express myself, and I hope I'll be able to pick it up again one day.
If I make a website to link my socials on and spend all my time still on my socials... Isn't this really saying "have a hobby" of "build something" because I don't think it matters if I have a...
If I make a website to link my socials on and spend all my time still on my socials... Isn't this really saying "have a hobby" of "build something" because I don't think it matters if I have a website.
I saw someone mention "showcasing projects," but I'm not a programmer. My projects are not something I can share on a website for a variety of logistical and legal reasons. I'm comfortable enough with tech to run a website, I probably own a domain name somewhere (I spite bought one to fuck with someone once.... I'm probably not paying for it anymore. Probably)
It's just another "thing" to maintain that doesn't bring me joy. Happy it works for the OP and the linked OP and all, but it's a weird absolute.
I think the idea behind that is that you need to own your identity online. Own your own house instead of renting a room in 7 different megacorp offices. Even if your house is just an empty plot...
I think the idea behind that is that you need to own your identity online.
Own your own house instead of renting a room in 7 different megacorp offices. Even if your house is just an empty plot with addresses to your rented megacorp offices :)
That way if, for some reason, all of your online presence on 3rd party sites goes away people can still find you if they want to.
Depending on what you do it doesn't have to be a site, some people have a mailing list. Chronically/professionally online people will have multiple backup accounts linked with the main account so that if the main one gets banned/suspended, their ability to contact their audience doesn't completely disappear.
I just don't see how that is my presence online unless it contains all those photos of the dinner I made once or if it's even findable amid the SEO muck. Because if I'm banned I can't tell anyone...
I just don't see how that is my presence online unless it contains all those photos of the dinner I made once or if it's even findable amid the SEO muck. Because if I'm banned I can't tell anyone about my website.
Also all those interconnected accounts can get banned by say Google at the same time, so I don't get it I guess.
"Create something" I understand, but "stake a claim to a piece of the internet" -which still basically requires using tools with ToS and such - makes no sense to me. I really do want to understand the point because it feels like I'm just missing it.
Yeah, I’ve been getting the feeling that a lot of the points about identity and ownership (partially the original post, partially ones here in the comments) would be better served by owning a...
Yeah, I’ve been getting the feeling that a lot of the points about identity and ownership (partially the original post, partially ones here in the comments) would be better served by owning a domain and having your email there, unless you’re posting enough public content that labels like “blogger” or “photographer” might start to fit. [Edit: see above]
Email is effectively the single point of failure for the vast majority of accounts, and getting cut off by Google seems like a genuine and far-reaching risk of your access to everything disappearing, including stuff that Google doesn’t manage at all; a custom domain that you actually own mitigates a ton of that (not absolutely all of it, but I’d say at least 95%) because you can always point it somewhere else if the original email provider has issues.
Individual social accounts I’d kind of say once you’re gone, you’re gone. It’d suck to be cut off like that, but I don’t see much recourse from having a personal pseudo-linktree. Unless someone’s well known enough in a given community that people would go searching their username if they stopped posting, I guess - that’s the only real workaround I see for the “if a blogger posts in the forest with no SEO to hear it, does it make a sound?” issue.
Yeah, but running your own email does come with more admin than just a website. I guess ultimately I just don't see enough of a risk of "all the social media disappearing" where "personal website"...
Yeah, but running your own email does come with more admin than just a website.
I guess ultimately I just don't see enough of a risk of "all the social media disappearing" where "personal website" balances that out but "my phone number and email" don't.
And unless I post my basically empty website on my social media, how would they realistically know about it? (My name is far too common to be found easily on a search without putting more of my personal info on said website, which is also not my inclination.)
I get why it makes sense for some I just don't see the benefit.
Oh absolutely, I was meaning custom domain with the email itself hosted by Proton Mail, or Google Workspace, or whatever - I’ve been writing code and running servers for 20+ years and I still...
Oh absolutely, I was meaning custom domain with the email itself hosted by Proton Mail, or Google Workspace, or whatever - I’ve been writing code and running servers for 20+ years and I still don’t want to bother hosting my own email, so fully agreed that it’s not on the cards for the vast majority! Just something that you can pick up and take elsewhere if a particular provider becomes untenable for whatever reason, basically.
It can be as much of a "presence" as you want of course. If the photos you took of your dinner is what you want people to see, put them on your own site in addition to whatever social media site...
It can be as much of a "presence" as you want of course.
If the photos you took of your dinner is what you want people to see, put them on your own site in addition to whatever social media site you want to. This can be automated to a decent degree if you want to (with IFTT, Zapier, n8n, etc).
Let's take a hypothetical: If I follow you on social media, I'll most likely see your home page URL multiple times, maybe I'll even click on it to find out about your other accounts. If you suddenly disappear from whatever site, I have at least a vague memory that you had a site you controlled. No matter how downranked it is by search engines, I can at least go try to find it or maybe it's still in my browser history or I'll remember it off the top of my head. I can go there and check if you have any info why the account went away.
But if you really don't care about people finding you when some AI moderation system decides arbitrarily to nuke your profiles from existence, then by all means don't have a central place you control. I don't care and I don't have a "homepage". I couldn't care less about my "personal brand". There are exactly three photos of me on the internet and I've been here when Netscape 4.7 was the shizznizzle.
I've just seen way too many people cry how their whole livelihood disappeared when their main account got disappeared from whatever site they were using and want to tell them that there are options they can control.
This seems like a more important point than I maybe initially thought. I’m in the same boat as you, been online forever and deliberately don’t have any meaningful public profile - so my thinking...
I've just seen way too many people cry how their whole livelihood disappeared when their main account got disappeared from whatever site they were using and want to tell them that there are options they can control.
This seems like a more important point than I maybe initially thought. I’m in the same boat as you, been online forever and deliberately don’t have any meaningful public profile - so my thinking below was around “unless you’re posting enough public content…” - but I guess a huge number of people are posting enough public content for it to matter to them.
The few of us saying “I recognise the risk, and it doesn’t apply to me” are perhaps forgetting that the risk does apply to an awful lot of the people who don’t recognise it.
There are people who sell actual things they make and their only online presence is on Meta-controlled sites. If something happens to that, they lose their whole following AND their business....
There are people who sell actual things they make and their only online presence is on Meta-controlled sites. If something happens to that, they lose their whole following AND their business. They're so young or so chronically online that they can't fathom a world outside Instagram for example.
Even small tweaks to The Algorithm that decides who sees their posts is a huge hit to their revenue if they're doing something that doesn't get promoted as much.
Meanwhile I'm here feeling faintly uneasy that I can't independently own the phone number I've had for the last few decades, just in case some unprecedented glitch at the network provider...
Meanwhile I'm here feeling faintly uneasy that I can't independently own the phone number I've had for the last few decades, just in case some unprecedented glitch at the network provider unassigns it from my account...
And ironically, the only reason I care is because purely IP-based services like Signal, WhatsApp, and some less-secure 2FA implementations still use it as a mandatory ID.
Oh sure the folks that this applies to, it makes sense. But I disagree that it's universal advice is all which the article frames in an insistent manner.
Oh sure the folks that this applies to, it makes sense. But I disagree that it's universal advice is all which the article frames in an insistent manner.
I don't really want to share those with the entire world, no. But the "automation" part immediately puts it past "I'm not a programmer and find maintaining a website a burden from the start" into...
It can be as much of a "presence" as you want of course.
If the photos you took of your dinner is what you want people to see, put them on your own site in addition to whatever social media site you want to. This can be automated to a decent degree if you want to (with IFTT, Zapier, n8n, etc).
I don't really want to share those with the entire world, no. But the "automation" part immediately puts it past "I'm not a programmer and find maintaining a website a burden from the start" into "I've heard of one of those and used none and would just be recreating my Facebook photos. "
Let's take a hypothetical: If I follow you on social media, I'll most likely see your home page URL multiple times, maybe I'll even click on it to find out about your other accounts. If you suddenly disappear from whatever site, I have at least a vague memory that you had a site you controlled. No matter how downranked it is by search engines, I can at least go try to find it or maybe it's still in my browser history or I'll remember it off the top of my head. I can go there and check if you have any info why the account went away.
Why would you see my empty homepage url and not my email or my phone number? Or message my partner or mutual friends?
And if that site just basically links to those same things what's the gain? I just.. I don't know, if I'm gone from Tildes tomorrow, you don't know me, would you Google me? Or even notice? Perhaps I'm just ok with that impermanence.
But if you really don't care about people finding you when some AI moderation system decides arbitrarily to nuke your profiles from existence, then by all means don't have a central place you control. I don't care and I don't have a "homepage". I couldn't care less about my "personal brand". There are exactly three photos of me on the internet and I've been here when Netscape 4.7 was the shizznizzle.
Shizznizzle dates you more than Netscape. Us, really, as I've been online as long as you at least.
If the AI moderation system nukes all my profiles from everywhere I think I have worse problems than can be solved by a website. But I wouldn't control the website either, I'm still beholden to multiple other companies ToS. Equally nuke-able.
I've just seen way too many people cry how their whole livelihood disappeared when their main account got disappeared from whatever site they were using and want to tell them that there are options they can control
Sure, I get why it's useful for some folks, but my livelihood isn't connected to my social media or my web presence. Students will not stop needing emotional support or being homeless. My industry doesn't really benefit from a web presence. I don't think it's bad advice but I think it's not actually universal to folks like myself.
I was genuinely hoping I was missing something, and I don't think I am.
There might be a disconnect here. If your only online connections are to people who are close enough to you personally for you to give them your personal phone number or email address (or home...
Why would you see my empty homepage url and not my email or my phone number? Or message my partner or mutual friends?
There might be a disconnect here. If your only online connections are to people who are close enough to you personally for you to give them your personal phone number or email address (or home address), this is not for you.
I do NOT want people cold-calling my partner either by email or phone if my accounts go missing and my online-only friends/acquaintances start to wonder where I disappeared. Those people don't even know if I have a partner, many of them have no clue where I live, they most definitely don't know my real name, phone number or email.
My online presence and offline persona are separate for a reason and very rarely do they mix. I think we're both in the generation where sharing your face, real name etc. online was considered bad form and a bad idea in general.
Now it has become the norm to paste your face and real name on every thought you have.
We are from similar eras, but my understanding of this original advice was that it was suggesting professional personas, not anonymized social media ones, and thus I was thinking more of facebook...
We are from similar eras, but my understanding of this original advice was that it was suggesting professional personas, not anonymized social media ones, and thus I was thinking more of facebook (or LinkedIn, I guess, I don't use it) than Reddit/Tildes/Bluesky. But I think the conclusion I draw is similar:
For the professional/public persona
I did say message my partner, as I meant if I were banned from Facebook, those friends mostly share mutuals or know my partner or family or something. Most of my Facebook friends have some other connection to me, and if they wanted to find me, if my account went dark, they could go through other people. I only really share pictures and real personal life stuff via these sort of platforms, Snapchat or Facebook, where I control who sees what as much as possible.
For my more anonymous personas: No, I don't want people calling me if they don't already have my number, but if I'm banned from Tiktok, only the people who are connected to me elsewhere notice (and only because we can't pebble vids at each other) if I'm banned from Tildes/Reddit/Bluesky I don't anticipate most people trying to find me. In this scenario, I now need at least two websites, one for that professional persona and one for how "Not a Fae" I am at any moment.
So if I understand your thoughts, I'd have a NotAFae website that links.... not even to all my socials since that would cross those lines. And only people who know this username would be able to find me via a search engine anyway? So then I need other websites for other personas? that's why my understanding
I played WoW for quite a while and formed really strong online connections with folks that I've stayed friends with some to this day - even dated one - but those connections are strong enough that we can text, email or message each other on various platforms. And they're individual connections not group ones. Making a website feels like the opposite of those individual connections.
So yeah, we were definitely talking about different "personas" having this space. But I have even less idea of what I'd link to or host on a NotAFae website than I do for a MyProfessionalSelf website. And feel no particular need for either. I think the article had a narrow view of what people need/do, and then insisted that this was the new skill everyone should learn. I could just as easily argue that "you yes you should learn how to knit" but it'd be at best a hyperbolic take.
I sort-of have mixed overall feelings about this. I do think there's value to in some sense, having more (but not entire, given you still rely on a host, domain registrar, etc a lot of the time)...
Exemplary
I sort-of have mixed overall feelings about this. I do think there's value to in some sense, having more (but not entire, given you still rely on a host, domain registrar, etc a lot of the time) ownership of your online identity, or at least one aspect of it where you're in much more control than any social media platforms, and I think the web is more beautiful and enjoyable when more of us have these small individual presences vs. the "corporate web" which is a large portion of the rest of it. I do wish we lived in a world/society/etc where people were so free to do what they wish without the binds of constant labor and money worries that they were able to seek out hobbies and more creative endeavors and take the time to find what speaks to them- maybe then they'd feel like they have the time or energy to learn a bit more about websites and ways we can use technology that works for us more and against us less. But even in this ideal world I don't see how sites benefit everyone necessarily.
The reality is... for most of my friends and family, and for millions in the world, I honestly don't think having their own website really provides them any value. In fact, it may work against them. It also comes with a lot of underlying learning that will end up being a distraction or an investment of time and effort that just precludes them ever going through with it. Because, sure, lowering the technical barrier is one thing, but recommending everyone has a website means they need to learn a lot more about implications in general, but in particular, privacy, especially after the big social media companies have gotten them used to the opposite, and that's just scratching the surface.
I think manifestos like this bubble up out of the joy of the small web and the value a lot of us (including myself) get out of it. But I think there's a parallel between this and the people that are so enamored with Linux that they think it's for everyone and try to recommend it as some kind of solution for everyone's OS woes. I feel similarly to personal websites as I do to Linux- I get tons of personal enjoyment out of them (and I use Linux on a daily basis as my daily driver), but they really only provide value to a subset of people, and they're otherwise going to just be an annoyance, a headache, or a pointless endeavor for others that doesn't serve their needs.
I'm not going to recommend anyone in my family build their own website. Nothing in their lives would be improved or useful for them to do so. It would be a distraction from what they're already doing. Sure, the "having a fallback for people to contact you through when social media goes away" sounds convincing at first, but people already have fallbacks, like email and phone numbers and chat apps and other social media, the chance of all of those going away at once, or quickly, is unlikely. A fallback that you own is nice yeah, but so many other things already fill that void.
I think some of us web-savvy and techie people get too caught up in our own bubble that things we see value in we start to think are universal solutions to apply elsewhere. We have to realize there are so many people out there unlike us, leading completely different lives, with completely different needs, and approach things with that in mind. Yes, I absolutely love the idea of demystifying technology for the non-savvy, and showing them how to use tech mindfully, and less fearfully, but in ways that can improve their lives and meet them where they are.
I've dabbled in creating my own website. I've even dabbled with coding on it, and low-code options for it. In the end, it's not as easy for me, someone with ADHD, to remember that it exists, and I...
I've dabbled in creating my own website. I've even dabbled with coding on it, and low-code options for it. In the end, it's not as easy for me, someone with ADHD, to remember that it exists, and I am basically paying for a hampered wordpress site and a domain that I own through Namecheap. I kind of gave up, because I couldn't figure out how to make my HTTPS certificate work on the site, and just.... stopped posting. I would love to use it to get verified on bluesky, as well as instagram, but I really need someone to help me who has the ability to sit with me and show me what to do so I know for the future.
I understand where you're coming from. I have a website that I built from scratch but never update because I hate how amateurish it looks. Every now and then, I get the urge to improve the design...
I understand where you're coming from. I have a website that I built from scratch but never update because I hate how amateurish it looks. Every now and then, I get the urge to improve the design and start writing articles. However, as a developer, I always want it to have a "wow" factor, and that's where I get stuck.
That said, the article isn't suggesting you must have a blog. Your website can be a simple page with links to your social media and a few projects you'd like to showcase. This way, you won't feel the pressure to constantly add new content.
I could help you to set it up if is something simple.
Thank you! It is a simple site, that I have linking to my insta and youtube, as well as my redbubble shop, but the links keep breaking. I'm always happy to have help with getting it updated! I'm...
Thank you! It is a simple site, that I have linking to my insta and youtube, as well as my redbubble shop, but the links keep breaking. I'm always happy to have help with getting it updated! I'm happy to pay for services as well!
I'll be honest—maybe it's because I agree—but I don't think there's anything particularly noteworthy in the manifesto. I'm sharing it just to remind you (yes, you!) to create your own website.
I'll be honest—maybe it's because I agree—but I don't think there's anything particularly noteworthy in the manifesto. I'm sharing it just to remind you (yes, you!) to create your own website.
I largely agree, which is why I have my website now. It's on https://bearblog.dev and I am paying to use a custom domain as well as bearblog's image hosting. My domain is on Porkbun. I am not a...
I largely agree, which is why I have my website now. It's on https://bearblog.dev and I am paying to use a custom domain as well as bearblog's image hosting. My domain is on Porkbun. I am not a developer. I tried having a static website many times, but I always stopped at some point when I felt overwhelmed by complexity. I know most people on Tildes will say that a static site is easy... what can I say, it is not easy for me.
If, for some unforeseen reason, I become incapable of paying for my custom domain, my previously uploaded images will remain, and my blog will still be accessible through its bearblog subdomain. I find that reassuring.
You control your website
I do, although bearblog itself could take my website offline for some reason. I don't believe they will, but I archive all my posts locally, as well as on archive.org and archive.ph. As I write, I wondered... can I just wget or httrack my own website from time to time? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Your website is your fallback plan
Agreed.
You will feel better if you have control over your technology
bearblog is very simple, you write in markdown, you can create pages, you have access to the style.css, and you can add your own Javascript (only on the paid tier I think). People make all sorts of changes and some will revamp their bearblogs completely. I chose bearblog partly because it is fast and minimalistic by default. I wanted something that wouldn't require me to change much. I'm considering adding a guestbook though.
It is worthwhile to become a bit tech literate even though it takes effort
I'm pretty literate already but I couldn't care less about that. I do not wish to code.
bearblog is similar to Tildes. A minimalistic website owned and operated by one person which has proven to be reliable. If Herman keeps doing his thing, I have no reason to worry. And there are provisions in place for any eventuality that makes Bearblog's owner incapable of maintaining it. That doesn't feel any worse than trusting a nameless corporation. You can export the whole website to JSON I think, but there's a proposal to allow exporting to multiple markdown files. That would be neat. But I'm keeping everything archived just in case.
Never heard of Bear Blog, but really needed something for a professional website right now. I plan to build a static website of my own (and I am going to use 11ty for it) but this can be a good...
Never heard of Bear Blog, but really needed something for a professional website right now. I plan to build a static website of my own (and I am going to use 11ty for it) but this can be a good intermediary while I am a bit swamped with life and work right now.
If the point was about control, you're still subject to the terms and conditions of the host running your website, your ISP if you decide to completely self-host it from your own network, and the...
If the point was about control, you're still subject to the terms and conditions of the host running your website, your ISP if you decide to completely self-host it from your own network, and the registrar that holds the DNS records for you. Each of these getting disrupted is enough to take your site offline from the perspective of your readers, not much different than getting your social media account banned.
And the suggestion is a website full of outbound links to walled gardens where the bulk of the value of your online presence is? Even back in the 2000s Google didn't like those kinds of sites one bit and you'll get tanked SEO wise, which is the complete opposite of building up your "reputation" if that site is not discoverable in search results. I don't think people with social media networks are looking specifically to exit the network and bookmark's someone's equivalent of a self-hosted Linktree.
I don't believe the idea is for a website to serve exclusively to hold links to social media profiles. The website would have content in the body of the pages. In addition to that it might have...
I don't believe the idea is for a website to serve exclusively to hold links to social media profiles. The website would have content in the body of the pages. In addition to that it might have links to social media profiles.
Self-hosting a Linktree gives you full control of your data and links. You can find out where people come from and which links they click if you care about that. You can also upgrade it from just...
Self-hosting a Linktree gives you full control of your data and links. You can find out where people come from and which links they click if you care about that.
You can also upgrade it from just a link collection to an actual site later on without having to change the link in multiple places.
The goal isn't to have your self-hosted linktree to be indexed by Google, the goal is to have it in your social media profiles and people can go there to find more - instead of linktree and the like.
Related to this is POSSE: https://indieweb.org/POSSE (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) If you spend any major time writing a comment or creating any content about a subject on a...
If you spend any major time writing a comment or creating any content about a subject on a 3rd party platform, store it somewhere YOU control. It doesn't have to be a public site (I use Obsidian personally).
Then when you eventually end up writing about the same content, you can either link to your site (which is downranked by pretty much all social media sites btw) or just copy/paste your existing text again, modifying it as needed.
I think among many of us who've been online long enough--including many here who I suspect like me have been online since the BBS/IRC days--it's melted deep enough into our brains to autonomically...
I think among many of us who've been online long enough--including many here who I suspect like me have been online since the BBS/IRC days--it's melted deep enough into our brains to autonomically believe in the importance of "permanence" online. Like, just as a person. Completely separate consideration from whether you make a living or are public enough to warrant it, I think there's a deep impulse to maintain a "contiguous soul" online that really feels universal but in reality isn't.
I admit I certainly feel it to be fundamental need, though intellectually I know it isn't. I remember being devastated when I shut down my Livejournal (due to it being bought) around the same time the forum I posted on frequently for years lost most of its archives due to an apocalyptic server failure...it truly felt, and a bit still feels I suppose, like I just lost some version of myself that existed for about 8 years when all of that writing/posting disappeared. It wasn't that any of the content itself was historically or artistically important--it definitely wasn't--and it wasn't like I didn't have a complete life outside of the Internet--I definitely did. It was about a kind of sense of self that I think a lot of us project onto the Internet that got erased, and like I had to start over somehow.
I don't and have never had much of an online footprint, but to the point of the OP, I have been dancing around the idea of having my own site in some fashion. I kind of want to start blogging again for reasons that don't bear a dry retelling. Could be about "refinding my soul" viz. the above, but that's probably melodramatic and way overthinking it. But I started an account recently on WhiteWind, an ATProtocol-based website that works directly with your Bluesky account PDS, uses Markdown, syndicates Bluesky reactions as comments within the blog, and is free. The tradeoff is that it's a new and still extremely immature platform and even its few features (especially commenting) don't seem to work a lot of the time. It's not "your" site but everything's written to your PDS, which I'd considered close enough but lately I'm starting to wonder.
These comments have me down a rabbithole of looking at other options. Leprd seems pretty stable, full-featured, and is the closest to what I'm used to from having had my own sites in the past. Bearblog seems the dead simplest to manage and post on, and has a discovery feed (it could be easier to find though), but doesn't have comments or image hosting. Still thinking about it.
Anyway. I don't at all think that everyone needs to have their own website. The truth is there's absolutely no way to 100% own your entire existence online anyway, any more than it's ever possible to have total privacy online unless you unplug your computer and walk away from it. Nor is it in fact at all necessary to have some kind of contiguous existence over time on the Internet. But the OP's argument still resonates with me, to the point that I'm spending all of this morning on my day off looking at various ways to try building back a piece of my "self". Even though I know that's a bit silly--or at least, not actually real.
I've read this before, and honestly I'm not convinced. I don't really care if one of my social media sites goes sideways. I'm willing to completely abandon a social media handle if a site starts to go in a direction I don't like, and I've done so a number of times. I've deleted Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit in the past with relatively little friction and honestly it's not particularly been much of a loss any of those times. So, what am I - a pretty average guy with no projects that I care to share with strangers, and no particular desire for a persistent web presence - supposed to get from building a web site?
Well, I for one have enjoyed reading your takes on life and Christianity, even as a nonbeliever.
I find this post to be a much more convincing take (no offence to the posted article).
The main reason to have it entirely yourself is so that you're not at the mercy of somebody else. A blog doesn't need to be much more than a folder full of text files that you upload somewhere when you want to publish.
And I say this all as someone who periodically gets the itch to start a blog, but then gets distracted by all the other stuff I'm supposed to do.
Well, first of all, I appreciate you saying that. I've enjoyed a lot of conversations here at Tildes, and I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that conversations here and a few other sites have shaped my view of the world by exposing me to types of people and ways of thinking that I likely would never have been exposed to otherwise. I still think, though, that the value of those things were that they were conversations. They had value and I remember the impact they've had, but they were part of a moment. I wouldn't obsessively record conversations that I have with folks IRL and put them up on a wall, and I don't really see a need to collect my thoughts and ramblings and put them somewhere permanent online, either. I get that other folks feel differently, though. Some folks write in diaries or journal about conversations that they have, but I've never felt that need either. So I get that a blog or web site is of value for some people, I'm just not convinced that it's a necessity for everyone.
You could have an old-school low-effort blog. Not that you have to, but it's nice to remember that blogs were very casual once, and to many people they still are. A few hundred examples.
People used to write blogs for themselves, not to farm massive engagement or to build a personal brand.
This is probably the thing that I would be most likely to do, but honestly I'm not sure blogging is for me. I find a lot more value in conversation and dialogue than I do in just writing essays or blogposts. My wife, on the other hand, habitually writes essays that no one else will ever see just to organize her own thoughts so that she can understand them herself. I've tried to convince her to start a blog, but really I think that whole process if more for her own benefit, and that writing for others to potentially see might actually make her self-censor or be less honest with herself about her own thoughts, maybe.
I love Bearblog! I had started one myself and posted to it occasionally. I found writing out my thoughts where others would read them made me want to take the time to write something I would want to present to people, even if it was anonymously. It was a great way to express myself, and I hope I'll be able to pick it up again one day.
If I make a website to link my socials on and spend all my time still on my socials... Isn't this really saying "have a hobby" of "build something" because I don't think it matters if I have a website.
I saw someone mention "showcasing projects," but I'm not a programmer. My projects are not something I can share on a website for a variety of logistical and legal reasons. I'm comfortable enough with tech to run a website, I probably own a domain name somewhere (I spite bought one to fuck with someone once.... I'm probably not paying for it anymore. Probably)
It's just another "thing" to maintain that doesn't bring me joy. Happy it works for the OP and the linked OP and all, but it's a weird absolute.
I think the idea behind that is that you need to own your identity online.
Own your own house instead of renting a room in 7 different megacorp offices. Even if your house is just an empty plot with addresses to your rented megacorp offices :)
That way if, for some reason, all of your online presence on 3rd party sites goes away people can still find you if they want to.
Depending on what you do it doesn't have to be a site, some people have a mailing list. Chronically/professionally online people will have multiple backup accounts linked with the main account so that if the main one gets banned/suspended, their ability to contact their audience doesn't completely disappear.
I just don't see how that is my presence online unless it contains all those photos of the dinner I made once or if it's even findable amid the SEO muck. Because if I'm banned I can't tell anyone about my website.
Also all those interconnected accounts can get banned by say Google at the same time, so I don't get it I guess.
"Create something" I understand, but "stake a claim to a piece of the internet" -which still basically requires using tools with ToS and such - makes no sense to me. I really do want to understand the point because it feels like I'm just missing it.
Yeah, I’ve been getting the feeling that a lot of the points about identity and ownership (partially the original post, partially ones here in the comments) would be better served by owning a domain and having your email there, unless you’re posting enough public content that labels like “blogger” or “photographer” might start to fit. [Edit: see above]
Email is effectively the single point of failure for the vast majority of accounts, and getting cut off by Google seems like a genuine and far-reaching risk of your access to everything disappearing, including stuff that Google doesn’t manage at all; a custom domain that you actually own mitigates a ton of that (not absolutely all of it, but I’d say at least 95%) because you can always point it somewhere else if the original email provider has issues.
Individual social accounts I’d kind of say once you’re gone, you’re gone. It’d suck to be cut off like that, but I don’t see much recourse from having a personal pseudo-linktree. Unless someone’s well known enough in a given community that people would go searching their username if they stopped posting, I guess - that’s the only real workaround I see for the “if a blogger posts in the forest with no SEO to hear it, does it make a sound?” issue.
Yeah, but running your own email does come with more admin than just a website.
I guess ultimately I just don't see enough of a risk of "all the social media disappearing" where "personal website" balances that out but "my phone number and email" don't.
And unless I post my basically empty website on my social media, how would they realistically know about it? (My name is far too common to be found easily on a search without putting more of my personal info on said website, which is also not my inclination.)
I get why it makes sense for some I just don't see the benefit.
Oh absolutely, I was meaning custom domain with the email itself hosted by Proton Mail, or Google Workspace, or whatever - I’ve been writing code and running servers for 20+ years and I still don’t want to bother hosting my own email, so fully agreed that it’s not on the cards for the vast majority! Just something that you can pick up and take elsewhere if a particular provider becomes untenable for whatever reason, basically.
And yeah, pretty much with you on the rest!
It can be as much of a "presence" as you want of course.
If the photos you took of your dinner is what you want people to see, put them on your own site in addition to whatever social media site you want to. This can be automated to a decent degree if you want to (with IFTT, Zapier, n8n, etc).
Let's take a hypothetical: If I follow you on social media, I'll most likely see your home page URL multiple times, maybe I'll even click on it to find out about your other accounts. If you suddenly disappear from whatever site, I have at least a vague memory that you had a site you controlled. No matter how downranked it is by search engines, I can at least go try to find it or maybe it's still in my browser history or I'll remember it off the top of my head. I can go there and check if you have any info why the account went away.
But if you really don't care about people finding you when some AI moderation system decides arbitrarily to nuke your profiles from existence, then by all means don't have a central place you control. I don't care and I don't have a "homepage". I couldn't care less about my "personal brand". There are exactly three photos of me on the internet and I've been here when Netscape 4.7 was the shizznizzle.
I've just seen way too many people cry how their whole livelihood disappeared when their main account got disappeared from whatever site they were using and want to tell them that there are options they can control.
This seems like a more important point than I maybe initially thought. I’m in the same boat as you, been online forever and deliberately don’t have any meaningful public profile - so my thinking below was around “unless you’re posting enough public content…” - but I guess a huge number of people are posting enough public content for it to matter to them.
The few of us saying “I recognise the risk, and it doesn’t apply to me” are perhaps forgetting that the risk does apply to an awful lot of the people who don’t recognise it.
There are people who sell actual things they make and their only online presence is on Meta-controlled sites. If something happens to that, they lose their whole following AND their business. They're so young or so chronically online that they can't fathom a world outside Instagram for example.
Even small tweaks to The Algorithm that decides who sees their posts is a huge hit to their revenue if they're doing something that doesn't get promoted as much.
Meanwhile I'm here feeling faintly uneasy that I can't independently own the phone number I've had for the last few decades, just in case some unprecedented glitch at the network provider unassigns it from my account...
And ironically, the only reason I care is because purely IP-based services like Signal, WhatsApp, and some less-secure 2FA implementations still use it as a mandatory ID.
Oh sure the folks that this applies to, it makes sense. But I disagree that it's universal advice is all which the article frames in an insistent manner.
I don't really want to share those with the entire world, no. But the "automation" part immediately puts it past "I'm not a programmer and find maintaining a website a burden from the start" into "I've heard of one of those and used none and would just be recreating my Facebook photos. "
Why would you see my empty homepage url and not my email or my phone number? Or message my partner or mutual friends?
And if that site just basically links to those same things what's the gain? I just.. I don't know, if I'm gone from Tildes tomorrow, you don't know me, would you Google me? Or even notice? Perhaps I'm just ok with that impermanence.
Shizznizzle dates you more than Netscape. Us, really, as I've been online as long as you at least.
If the AI moderation system nukes all my profiles from everywhere I think I have worse problems than can be solved by a website. But I wouldn't control the website either, I'm still beholden to multiple other companies ToS. Equally nuke-able.
Sure, I get why it's useful for some folks, but my livelihood isn't connected to my social media or my web presence. Students will not stop needing emotional support or being homeless. My industry doesn't really benefit from a web presence. I don't think it's bad advice but I think it's not actually universal to folks like myself.
I was genuinely hoping I was missing something, and I don't think I am.
There might be a disconnect here. If your only online connections are to people who are close enough to you personally for you to give them your personal phone number or email address (or home address), this is not for you.
I do NOT want people cold-calling my partner either by email or phone if my accounts go missing and my online-only friends/acquaintances start to wonder where I disappeared. Those people don't even know if I have a partner, many of them have no clue where I live, they most definitely don't know my real name, phone number or email.
My online presence and offline persona are separate for a reason and very rarely do they mix. I think we're both in the generation where sharing your face, real name etc. online was considered bad form and a bad idea in general.
Now it has become the norm to paste your face and real name on every thought you have.
We are from similar eras, but my understanding of this original advice was that it was suggesting professional personas, not anonymized social media ones, and thus I was thinking more of facebook (or LinkedIn, I guess, I don't use it) than Reddit/Tildes/Bluesky. But I think the conclusion I draw is similar:
For the professional/public persona
I did say message my partner, as I meant if I were banned from Facebook, those friends mostly share mutuals or know my partner or family or something. Most of my Facebook friends have some other connection to me, and if they wanted to find me, if my account went dark, they could go through other people. I only really share pictures and real personal life stuff via these sort of platforms, Snapchat or Facebook, where I control who sees what as much as possible.
For my more anonymous personas: No, I don't want people calling me if they don't already have my number, but if I'm banned from Tiktok, only the people who are connected to me elsewhere notice (and only because we can't pebble vids at each other) if I'm banned from Tildes/Reddit/Bluesky I don't anticipate most people trying to find me. In this scenario, I now need at least two websites, one for that professional persona and one for how "Not a Fae" I am at any moment.
So if I understand your thoughts, I'd have a NotAFae website that links.... not even to all my socials since that would cross those lines. And only people who know this username would be able to find me via a search engine anyway? So then I need other websites for other personas? that's why my understanding
I played WoW for quite a while and formed really strong online connections with folks that I've stayed friends with some to this day - even dated one - but those connections are strong enough that we can text, email or message each other on various platforms. And they're individual connections not group ones. Making a website feels like the opposite of those individual connections.
So yeah, we were definitely talking about different "personas" having this space. But I have even less idea of what I'd link to or host on a NotAFae website than I do for a MyProfessionalSelf website. And feel no particular need for either. I think the article had a narrow view of what people need/do, and then insisted that this was the new skill everyone should learn. I could just as easily argue that "you yes you should learn how to knit" but it'd be at best a hyperbolic take.
I sort-of have mixed overall feelings about this. I do think there's value to in some sense, having more (but not entire, given you still rely on a host, domain registrar, etc a lot of the time) ownership of your online identity, or at least one aspect of it where you're in much more control than any social media platforms, and I think the web is more beautiful and enjoyable when more of us have these small individual presences vs. the "corporate web" which is a large portion of the rest of it. I do wish we lived in a world/society/etc where people were so free to do what they wish without the binds of constant labor and money worries that they were able to seek out hobbies and more creative endeavors and take the time to find what speaks to them- maybe then they'd feel like they have the time or energy to learn a bit more about websites and ways we can use technology that works for us more and against us less. But even in this ideal world I don't see how sites benefit everyone necessarily.
The reality is... for most of my friends and family, and for millions in the world, I honestly don't think having their own website really provides them any value. In fact, it may work against them. It also comes with a lot of underlying learning that will end up being a distraction or an investment of time and effort that just precludes them ever going through with it. Because, sure, lowering the technical barrier is one thing, but recommending everyone has a website means they need to learn a lot more about implications in general, but in particular, privacy, especially after the big social media companies have gotten them used to the opposite, and that's just scratching the surface.
I think manifestos like this bubble up out of the joy of the small web and the value a lot of us (including myself) get out of it. But I think there's a parallel between this and the people that are so enamored with Linux that they think it's for everyone and try to recommend it as some kind of solution for everyone's OS woes. I feel similarly to personal websites as I do to Linux- I get tons of personal enjoyment out of them (and I use Linux on a daily basis as my daily driver), but they really only provide value to a subset of people, and they're otherwise going to just be an annoyance, a headache, or a pointless endeavor for others that doesn't serve their needs.
I'm not going to recommend anyone in my family build their own website. Nothing in their lives would be improved or useful for them to do so. It would be a distraction from what they're already doing. Sure, the "having a fallback for people to contact you through when social media goes away" sounds convincing at first, but people already have fallbacks, like email and phone numbers and chat apps and other social media, the chance of all of those going away at once, or quickly, is unlikely. A fallback that you own is nice yeah, but so many other things already fill that void.
I think some of us web-savvy and techie people get too caught up in our own bubble that things we see value in we start to think are universal solutions to apply elsewhere. We have to realize there are so many people out there unlike us, leading completely different lives, with completely different needs, and approach things with that in mind. Yes, I absolutely love the idea of demystifying technology for the non-savvy, and showing them how to use tech mindfully, and less fearfully, but in ways that can improve their lives and meet them where they are.
Ugh I am so bad at being concise :)
I've dabbled in creating my own website. I've even dabbled with coding on it, and low-code options for it. In the end, it's not as easy for me, someone with ADHD, to remember that it exists, and I am basically paying for a hampered wordpress site and a domain that I own through Namecheap. I kind of gave up, because I couldn't figure out how to make my HTTPS certificate work on the site, and just.... stopped posting. I would love to use it to get verified on bluesky, as well as instagram, but I really need someone to help me who has the ability to sit with me and show me what to do so I know for the future.
I understand where you're coming from. I have a website that I built from scratch but never update because I hate how amateurish it looks. Every now and then, I get the urge to improve the design and start writing articles. However, as a developer, I always want it to have a "wow" factor, and that's where I get stuck.
That said, the article isn't suggesting you must have a blog. Your website can be a simple page with links to your social media and a few projects you'd like to showcase. This way, you won't feel the pressure to constantly add new content.
I could help you to set it up if is something simple.
Thank you! It is a simple site, that I have linking to my insta and youtube, as well as my redbubble shop, but the links keep breaking. I'm always happy to have help with getting it updated! I'm happy to pay for services as well!
I'll be honest—maybe it's because I agree—but I don't think there's anything particularly noteworthy in the manifesto. I'm sharing it just to remind you (yes, you!) to create your own website.
I largely agree, which is why I have my website now. It's on https://bearblog.dev and I am paying to use a custom domain as well as bearblog's image hosting. My domain is on Porkbun. I am not a developer. I tried having a static website many times, but I always stopped at some point when I felt overwhelmed by complexity. I know most people on Tildes will say that a static site is easy... what can I say, it is not easy for me.
If, for some unforeseen reason, I become incapable of paying for my custom domain, my previously uploaded images will remain, and my blog will still be accessible through its bearblog subdomain. I find that reassuring.
I do, although bearblog itself could take my website offline for some reason. I don't believe they will, but I archive all my posts locally, as well as on archive.org and archive.ph. As I write, I wondered... can I just wget or httrack my own website from time to time? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Agreed.
bearblog is very simple, you write in markdown, you can create pages, you have access to the style.css, and you can add your own Javascript (only on the paid tier I think). People make all sorts of changes and some will revamp their bearblogs completely. I chose bearblog partly because it is fast and minimalistic by default. I wanted something that wouldn't require me to change much. I'm considering adding a guestbook though.
I'm pretty literate already but I couldn't care less about that. I do not wish to code.
bearblog is similar to Tildes. A minimalistic website owned and operated by one person which has proven to be reliable. If Herman keeps doing his thing, I have no reason to worry. And there are provisions in place for any eventuality that makes Bearblog's owner incapable of maintaining it. That doesn't feel any worse than trusting a nameless corporation. You can export the whole website to JSON I think, but there's a proposal to allow exporting to multiple markdown files. That would be neat. But I'm keeping everything archived just in case.
Never heard of Bear Blog, but really needed something for a professional website right now. I plan to build a static website of my own (and I am going to use 11ty for it) but this can be a good intermediary while I am a bit swamped with life and work right now.
Thanks for this link.
If the point was about control, you're still subject to the terms and conditions of the host running your website, your ISP if you decide to completely self-host it from your own network, and the registrar that holds the DNS records for you. Each of these getting disrupted is enough to take your site offline from the perspective of your readers, not much different than getting your social media account banned.
And the suggestion is a website full of outbound links to walled gardens where the bulk of the value of your online presence is? Even back in the 2000s Google didn't like those kinds of sites one bit and you'll get tanked SEO wise, which is the complete opposite of building up your "reputation" if that site is not discoverable in search results. I don't think people with social media networks are looking specifically to exit the network and bookmark's someone's equivalent of a self-hosted Linktree.
I don't believe the idea is for a website to serve exclusively to hold links to social media profiles. The website would have content in the body of the pages. In addition to that it might have links to social media profiles.
Self-hosting a Linktree gives you full control of your data and links. You can find out where people come from and which links they click if you care about that.
You can also upgrade it from just a link collection to an actual site later on without having to change the link in multiple places.
The goal isn't to have your self-hosted linktree to be indexed by Google, the goal is to have it in your social media profiles and people can go there to find more - instead of linktree and the like.
Related to this is POSSE: https://indieweb.org/POSSE (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere)
If you spend any major time writing a comment or creating any content about a subject on a 3rd party platform, store it somewhere YOU control. It doesn't have to be a public site (I use Obsidian personally).
Then when you eventually end up writing about the same content, you can either link to your site (which is downranked by pretty much all social media sites btw) or just copy/paste your existing text again, modifying it as needed.
I think among many of us who've been online long enough--including many here who I suspect like me have been online since the BBS/IRC days--it's melted deep enough into our brains to autonomically believe in the importance of "permanence" online. Like, just as a person. Completely separate consideration from whether you make a living or are public enough to warrant it, I think there's a deep impulse to maintain a "contiguous soul" online that really feels universal but in reality isn't.
I admit I certainly feel it to be fundamental need, though intellectually I know it isn't. I remember being devastated when I shut down my Livejournal (due to it being bought) around the same time the forum I posted on frequently for years lost most of its archives due to an apocalyptic server failure...it truly felt, and a bit still feels I suppose, like I just lost some version of myself that existed for about 8 years when all of that writing/posting disappeared. It wasn't that any of the content itself was historically or artistically important--it definitely wasn't--and it wasn't like I didn't have a complete life outside of the Internet--I definitely did. It was about a kind of sense of self that I think a lot of us project onto the Internet that got erased, and like I had to start over somehow.
I don't and have never had much of an online footprint, but to the point of the OP, I have been dancing around the idea of having my own site in some fashion. I kind of want to start blogging again for reasons that don't bear a dry retelling. Could be about "refinding my soul" viz. the above, but that's probably melodramatic and way overthinking it. But I started an account recently on WhiteWind, an ATProtocol-based website that works directly with your Bluesky account PDS, uses Markdown, syndicates Bluesky reactions as comments within the blog, and is free. The tradeoff is that it's a new and still extremely immature platform and even its few features (especially commenting) don't seem to work a lot of the time. It's not "your" site but everything's written to your PDS, which I'd considered close enough but lately I'm starting to wonder.
These comments have me down a rabbithole of looking at other options. Leprd seems pretty stable, full-featured, and is the closest to what I'm used to from having had my own sites in the past. Bearblog seems the dead simplest to manage and post on, and has a discovery feed (it could be easier to find though), but doesn't have comments or image hosting. Still thinking about it.
Anyway. I don't at all think that everyone needs to have their own website. The truth is there's absolutely no way to 100% own your entire existence online anyway, any more than it's ever possible to have total privacy online unless you unplug your computer and walk away from it. Nor is it in fact at all necessary to have some kind of contiguous existence over time on the Internet. But the OP's argument still resonates with me, to the point that I'm spending all of this morning on my day off looking at various ways to try building back a piece of my "self". Even though I know that's a bit silly--or at least, not actually real.
I have a cite hosted on neocities, but I want to self host it. What would be the simplest (most GNU, if you will) way to host my own html website?