IndieWeb Summit 2016 Demo

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Will Norris",
        "url": "https://willnorris.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "http://willnorris.dev/2016/06/indieweb-demo",
    "published": "2016-06-04T18:44:49+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Demoing my simple publishing workflow at IndieWeb Summit 2016.</p>",
        "text": "Demoing my simple publishing workflow at IndieWeb Summit 2016."
    },
    "name": "IndieWeb Summit 2016 Demo",
    "_id": "329439",
    "_source": "248",
    "_is_read": true
}

Attending IndieWeb Summit 2016

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Will Norris",
        "url": "https://willnorris.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "http://willnorris.dev/2016/05/indieweb-summit",
    "published": "2016-05-25T19:44:41+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "<img src=\"http://willnorris.dev/indiewebcamp-logo-lockup-color.svg\" alt=\"\" /><p>I\u2019ll be attending <a href=\"http://2016.indieweb.org/\">IndieWeb Summit</a> in Portland next week,  probably working on the\n<a href=\"http://willnorris.dev/go/microformats\">go microformats library</a> which I started focusing on a few weeks ago as part of a\nwebmention service I\u2019ve been thinking about lately.  As I\u2019ve been working on that library though,\nI\u2019ve found a few discrepancies between the different popular microformat libraries, so there\u2019s a\npretty good chance I\u2019ll spend at least a little time building a little service to compare the\nresults from those.</p>",
        "text": "I\u2019ll be attending IndieWeb Summit in Portland next week,  probably working on the\ngo microformats library which I started focusing on a few weeks ago as part of a\nwebmention service I\u2019ve been thinking about lately.  As I\u2019ve been working on that library though,\nI\u2019ve found a few discrepancies between the different popular microformat libraries, so there\u2019s a\npretty good chance I\u2019ll spend at least a little time building a little service to compare the\nresults from those."
    },
    "name": "Attending IndieWeb Summit 2016",
    "_id": "329440",
    "_source": "248",
    "_is_read": true
}

Attending IndieWebCamp SF 2015

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Will Norris",
        "url": "https://willnorris.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "http://willnorris.dev/2015/10/attending-indiewebcamp",
    "published": "2015-10-23T16:28:15+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>I\u2019m looking forward to attending <a href=\"https://kylewm.com/2015/12/indiewebcamp-sf-2015\">IndieWebCamp SF 2015</a> this year.  I\u2019ve missed the last couple of events for\nvarious reasons, and really want to get back into things.  I\u2019m thinking about maybe hacking on <a href=\"https://camlistore.org/\">Camlistore</a> a bit this year, perhaps doing some <a href=\"https://github.com/camlistore/camlistore/commits?author=willnorris\">more work</a> on\ndocumentation.</p>",
        "text": "I\u2019m looking forward to attending IndieWebCamp SF 2015 this year.  I\u2019ve missed the last couple of events for\nvarious reasons, and really want to get back into things.  I\u2019m thinking about maybe hacking on Camlistore a bit this year, perhaps doing some more work on\ndocumentation."
    },
    "name": "Attending IndieWebCamp SF 2015",
    "_id": "329443",
    "_source": "248",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-15T23:32:01+00:00",
    "url": "http://stream.boffosocko.com/2018/benwerd-instead-of-gutenberg-id-have-core-support-for-the",
    "syndication": [
        "https://twitter.com/ChrisAldrich/status/996533706893545472"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://twitter.com/benwerd/status/996394932028899328"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "@benwerd Instead of Gutenberg, I'd have core support for the micropub spec and allow a free ecosystem for creating small user friendly custom apps for creating posts of all kinds.",
        "html": "<a href=\"https://twitter.com/benwerd\">@benwerd</a> Instead of Gutenberg, I'd have core support for the micropub spec and allow a free ecosystem for creating small user friendly custom apps for creating posts of all kinds."
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Chris Aldrich",
        "url": "http://stream.boffosocko.com/profile/chrisaldrich",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/stream.boffosocko.com/d0ba9f65fcbf0cef3bdbcccc0b6a1f42b1310f7ab2e07208c7a396166cde26b1.jpg"
    },
    "_id": "328783",
    "_source": "192",
    "_is_read": true
}

Should receive webmentions for replies to externally posted replies

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-15T17:52:58-04:00",
    "summary": "If I write a post that is a reply to one of Manton\u2019s posts on my site, and then I send a webmention, micro.blog takes that reply and inserts it into the timeline as a reply to Manton\u2019s post.",
    "url": "https://eddiehinkle.com/2018/05/15/21/reply/",
    "category": [
        "microblog",
        "indieweb",
        "issue"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://github.com/microdotblog/issues"
    ],
    "name": "Should receive webmentions for replies to externally posted replies",
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Eddie Hinkle",
        "url": "https://eddiehinkle.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/eddiehinkle.com/cf9f85e26d4be531bc908d37f69bff1c50b50b87fd066b254f1332c3553df1a8.jpg"
    },
    "refs": {
        "https://github.com/microdotblog/issues": {
            "type": "entry",
            "url": "https://github.com/microdotblog/issues",
            "name": "https://github.com/microdotblog/issues"
        }
    },
    "_id": "328407",
    "_source": "226",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-15T01:38:56-04:00",
    "summary": "Yep, I have an \u201cOn This Day\u201d feature of my website. My website is mostly Jekyll so it\u2019s definitely possible with Jekyll, but if/when manton decided to implement it, it would probably be easiest to store the posts in some external system rather than integrating it with the actual Jekyll instance. I think On This Day is a great feature. I really enjoy it. I actually wonder if there is some way to build an external service that could follow/parse a site and provide your posts back to you \ud83e\udd14 Maybe something IndieWeb related that just parses mf2. We\u2019d need to improve the mf2 on some of the m.b themes first though",
    "url": "https://eddiehinkle.com/2018/05/15/6/reply/",
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://micro.blog/smokey/563066"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Yep, I have an \u201cOn This Day\u201d feature of my website. My website is mostly Jekyll so it\u2019s definitely possible with Jekyll, but if/when manton decided to implement it, it would probably be easiest to store the posts in some external system rather than integrating it with the actual Jekyll instance.\nI think On This Day is a great feature. I really enjoy it. I actually wonder if there is some way to build an external service that could follow/parse a site and provide your posts back to you \ud83e\udd14 Maybe something IndieWeb related that just parses mf2. We\u2019d need to improve the mf2 on some of the m.b themes first though",
        "html": "<p>Yep, I have an \u201cOn This Day\u201d feature of my website. My website is mostly Jekyll so it\u2019s definitely possible with Jekyll, but if/when manton decided to implement it, it would probably be easiest to store the posts in some external system rather than integrating it with the actual Jekyll instance.\nI think On This Day is a great feature. I really enjoy it. I actually wonder if there is some way to build an external service that could follow/parse a site and provide your posts back to you \ud83e\udd14 Maybe something IndieWeb related that just parses mf2. We\u2019d need to improve the mf2 on some of the m.b themes first though</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Eddie Hinkle",
        "url": "https://eddiehinkle.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/eddiehinkle.com/cf9f85e26d4be531bc908d37f69bff1c50b50b87fd066b254f1332c3553df1a8.jpg"
    },
    "refs": {
        "https://micro.blog/smokey/563066": {
            "type": "entry",
            "url": "https://micro.blog/smokey/563066",
            "name": "https://micro.blog/smokey/563066"
        }
    },
    "_id": "325813",
    "_source": "226",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-15T04:45:13+00:00",
    "url": "http://stream.boffosocko.com/2018/fionajvoss-just-for-fun-i-built-an-own-your-own",
    "syndication": [
        "https://twitter.com/ChrisAldrich/status/996250210228756480"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://twitter.com/fionajvoss/status/996203404404944897"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "@fionajvoss Just for fun I built an own your own AMA page using webmention: \nhttps://boffosocko.com/about/ama/",
        "html": "<a href=\"https://twitter.com/fionajvoss\">@fionajvoss</a> Just for fun I built an own your own AMA page using webmention: <br /><a href=\"https://boffosocko.com/about/ama/\">https://boffosocko.com/about/ama/</a>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Chris Aldrich",
        "url": "http://stream.boffosocko.com/profile/chrisaldrich",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/stream.boffosocko.com/d0ba9f65fcbf0cef3bdbcccc0b6a1f42b1310f7ab2e07208c7a396166cde26b1.jpg"
    },
    "_id": "325695",
    "_source": "192",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-14T23:38:00+0000",
    "url": "http://known.kevinmarks.com/2018/as-we-count-down-to-gdpr-christmas",
    "category": [
        "GDPR",
        "indieweb"
    ],
    "syndication": [
        "https://twitter.com/kevinmarks/status/996172813068206086"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "As we count down to #GDPR Christmas on the 25th May, @dsearls explains why you may need to rethink your entire approach to communicating with people. Talk to them. Assume they are human. Don't treat them as eyeballs attached to wallets. https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/ #indieweb",
        "html": "As we count down to <a href=\"http://known.kevinmarks.com/tag/GDPR\" class=\"p-category\">#GDPR</a> Christmas on the 25th May, @dsearls explains why you may need to rethink your entire approach to communicating with people. Talk to them. Assume they are human. Don't treat them as eyeballs attached to wallets. <a href=\"https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/\">https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/</a> <a href=\"http://known.kevinmarks.com/tag/indieweb\" class=\"p-category\">#indieweb</a>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Kevin Marks",
        "url": "http://known.kevinmarks.com/profile/kevinmarks",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/known.kevinmarks.com/f893d11435a62200ec9585e0ea3d84b2bdc478aa0a056dda35a43ce4c04d58a0.jpg"
    },
    "_id": "325370",
    "_source": "205",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-14T09:55:28-04:00",
    "summary": "Welcome!! Sounds like you a great time exploring everything. Let me know if you have questions as you delve into Microsub! I\u2019ve built one of the early Microsub readers, so I\u2019ve had a lot of experience with it. In fact, I\u2019m reading your post right now in my Microsub reader. It really is a great group of people. I\u2019ve been involved with the IndieWeb for about a year and a half.",
    "url": "https://eddiehinkle.com/2018/05/14/1/reply/",
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://www.stillmuchtoponder.com/blog/2018/05/a-mini-sabbatical/"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Welcome!! Sounds like you a great time exploring everything. Let me know if you have questions as you delve into Microsub!  I\u2019ve built one of the early Microsub readers, so I\u2019ve had a lot of experience with it. In fact, I\u2019m reading your post right now in my Microsub reader. It really is a great group of people. I\u2019ve been involved with the IndieWeb for about a year and a half.",
        "html": "<p>Welcome!! Sounds like you a great time exploring everything. Let me know if you have questions as you delve into Microsub!  I\u2019ve built one of the early Microsub readers, so I\u2019ve had a lot of experience with it. In fact, I\u2019m reading your post right now in my Microsub reader. It really is a great group of people. I\u2019ve been involved with the IndieWeb for about a year and a half.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Eddie Hinkle",
        "url": "https://eddiehinkle.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/eddiehinkle.com/cf9f85e26d4be531bc908d37f69bff1c50b50b87fd066b254f1332c3553df1a8.jpg"
    },
    "refs": {
        "https://www.stillmuchtoponder.com/blog/2018/05/a-mini-sabbatical/": {
            "type": "entry",
            "url": "https://www.stillmuchtoponder.com/blog/2018/05/a-mini-sabbatical/",
            "name": "https://www.stillmuchtoponder.com/blog/2018/05/a-mini-sabbatical/"
        }
    },
    "_id": "324718",
    "_source": "226",
    "_is_read": true
}

Disabled SNAP and Brid.gy Syndication

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/disabled-snap-brid-gy-syndication/",
    "published": "2018-05-14T19:15:55+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p><a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.</a></p>\nFollowing Amanda <a href=\"http://www.arush.io/?p=93681\">lead</a> I have disabled the <a href=\"https://www.nextscripts.com/social-networks-auto-poster-for-wordpress/\">Social Networks Auto Poster</a> and <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/bridgy-publish/\">Brid.gy</a> plugins and will no longer automatically syndicate links to social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure how long this experiment will last or how it will affect website traffic. But I won\u2019t know unless I try. I am also leaning toward making <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/Webmention\">Webmention</a> the only form of a comment this website accepts. But I am not ready to do that yet. I want to try using the open source <a href=\"https://posativ.org/isso/\">Isso</a> commenting system first.\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/disabled-snap-brid-gy-syndication/\">Disabled SNAP and Brid.gy Syndication</a> by <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Kh\u00fcrt Williams</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net</a>.</p>",
        "text": "Island in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.\nFollowing Amanda lead I have disabled the Social Networks Auto Poster and Brid.gy plugins and will no longer automatically syndicate links to social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure how long this experiment will last or how it will affect website traffic. But I won\u2019t know unless I try. I am also leaning toward making Webmention the only form of a comment this website accepts. But I am not ready to do that yet. I want to try using the open source Isso commenting system first.\nThe post Disabled SNAP and Brid.gy Syndication by Kh\u00fcrt Williams appeared first on Island in the Net."
    },
    "name": "Disabled SNAP and Brid.gy Syndication",
    "_id": "324396",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}

POSSE

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/posse/",
    "published": "2018-05-14T18:48:39+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "Replied to <a href=\"http://www.arush.io/?p=93681\">Speaking as a citizen of the indieweb and not one \u2026</a> by <a href=\"http://www.arush.io/?author=1\"><img src=\"http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/94ae98c7302aa5b10f1d9a4255cf83ba?s=40&amp;d=mm&amp;r=g\" alt=\"Amanda\" />Amanda</a><em> (Amanda Unvarnished)</em>\n<blockquote>To add to all this, for me, social media, (with the exception of Mastodon and Micro.blog), has, to put it charitably, lost its luster. It\u2019s become a chore, both personally and professionally, and the bad has finally gotten to the point where it outweighs the good for me. On a professional level, publishing criteria are getting so strict that publishing content, (especially when you\u2019re scheduling it so as to not spend all your time staring at a social media client), has become fairly difficult, both because of the publishing rules themselves and because of the inaccessibility of scheduling services and their apps. This is most of the reason why I\u2019m pulling the trigger and going full indieweb later this month. How the closed platforms treat their third-party developers also has some influence on my decision to pull the trigger.\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.</a></p>\nAmanda, I agree, the social platform experiment has become tiring for me. My use of Facebook and Twitter have fallen off dramatically while my use of RSS feeds continues unabated. Even the act of POSSEing my content to social media is a chore. I have almost stopped doing it. And because of concerns about GDPR I no longer back feed comments and like from social silos. I disabled Brid.gy syndication to Facebook and Flickr and only occasionally syndicate to Twitter.\n<p>Avoiding syndication to social platforms has made discovery more challenging but I am hoping as the IndieWeb grows, this problem will be solved.  We\u2019ll find each other the old-fashioned \u201cWeb\u201d way. For example, I discovered your post and your website via <a href=\"https://boffosocko.com/2018/05/12/amanda-rush-on-syndication-amanda-unvarnished/\">Chris Aldrich\u2019s</a> website.</p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/posse/\">POSSE</a> by <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Kh\u00fcrt Williams</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net</a>.</p>",
        "text": "Replied to Speaking as a citizen of the indieweb and not one \u2026 by Amanda (Amanda Unvarnished)\nTo add to all this, for me, social media, (with the exception of Mastodon and Micro.blog), has, to put it charitably, lost its luster. It\u2019s become a chore, both personally and professionally, and the bad has finally gotten to the point where it outweighs the good for me. On a professional level, publishing criteria are getting so strict that publishing content, (especially when you\u2019re scheduling it so as to not spend all your time staring at a social media client), has become fairly difficult, both because of the publishing rules themselves and because of the inaccessibility of scheduling services and their apps. This is most of the reason why I\u2019m pulling the trigger and going full indieweb later this month. How the closed platforms treat their third-party developers also has some influence on my decision to pull the trigger.\n\n\nIsland in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.\nAmanda, I agree, the social platform experiment has become tiring for me. My use of Facebook and Twitter have fallen off dramatically while my use of RSS feeds continues unabated. Even the act of POSSEing my content to social media is a chore. I have almost stopped doing it. And because of concerns about GDPR I no longer back feed comments and like from social silos. I disabled Brid.gy syndication to Facebook and Flickr and only occasionally syndicate to Twitter.\nAvoiding syndication to social platforms has made discovery more challenging but I am hoping as the IndieWeb grows, this problem will be solved.  We\u2019ll find each other the old-fashioned \u201cWeb\u201d way. For example, I discovered your post and your website via Chris Aldrich\u2019s website.\nThe post POSSE by Kh\u00fcrt Williams appeared first on Island in the Net."
    },
    "name": "POSSE",
    "_id": "324302",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}

Taking Back The Web

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-14T18:19:16",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/articles/13879",
    "name": "Taking Back The Web",
    "content": {
        "text": "Listen to the audio\n\nWatch the video\n\nDownload the slides\n\nThank you. Thank you very much, Mike; it really is an honour and a privilege to be here.  Kia Ora! Good morning.\n\nThis is quite intimidating. I\u2019m supposed to open the show and there\u2019s all these amazing, exciting speakers are going to be speaking for the next two days on amazing, exciting topics, so I\u2019d better level up: I\u2019d better talk about something exciting. So, let\u2019s do it!\n\nEconomics\n\nYeah, we need to talk about capitalism. Capitalism is one of a few competing theories on how to structure an economy and the theory goes that you have a marketplace and the marketplace rules all and it is the marketplace that self-regulates through its kind of invisible hand. Pretty good theory, the idea being that through this invisible hand in the marketplace, wealth can be distributed relatively evenly; sort of a bell-curve distribution of wealth where some people have more, some people have less, but it kind of evens out. You see bell-curve distributions right for things like height and weight or IQ. Some have more, some have less, but the difference isn\u2019t huge. That\u2019s the idea, that economies could follow this bell-curve distribution.\n\n\n\nBut, without any kind of external regulation, what tends to happen in a capitalistic economy is that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and it runs out of control. Instead of a bell-curve distribution you end up with something like this which is a power-law distribution, where you have the wealth concentrated in a small percentage and there\u2019s a long tail of poverty.\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s the thing about capitalism: it sounds great in theory, but not so good in practice.\n\nMonopoly\n\nThe theory, I actually agree with, the theory being that competition is good and that competition is healthy. I think that\u2019s a sound theory. I like competition: I think there should be a marketplace of competition, to try and avoid these kind of monopolies or duopolies that you get in these power-law distributions. The reason I say that is that we as web designers and web developers, we\u2019ve seen what happens when monopolies kick in.\n\n\n\nWe were there: we were there when there was a monopoly; when Microsoft had an enormous share of the browser market, it was like in the high nineties, percentage of browser share with Internet Explorer, which they achieved because they had an enormous monopoly in the desktop market as well, they were able to bundle Internet Explorer with the Windows Operating System. Not exactly an invisible hand regulating there. \n\nBut we managed to dodge this bullet. I firmly believe that the more browsers we have, the better. I think a diversity of browsers is a really good thing. I know sometimes as developers, \u201cOh wouldn\u2019t it be great if there was just one browser to develop for: wouldn\u2019t that be great?\u201d No. No it would not! We\u2019ve been there and it wasn\u2019t pretty. Firefox was pretty much a direct result of this monopoly situation in browsers. But like I say, we dodged this bullet. In some ways the web interpreted this monopoly as damage and routed around it. This idea of interpreting something as damaged and routing around it, that\u2019s a phrase that comes from network architecture\n\nNetworks\n\nAs with economies, there are competing schools of thought on how you would structure a network; there\u2019s many ways to structure a network.\n\n\n\nOne way, sort of a centralised network approach is, you have this hub and spoke model, where you have lots of smaller nodes connecting to a single large hub and then those large hubs can connect with one another and this is how the telegraph worked, then the telephone system worked like this. Airports still pretty much work like this. You\u2019ve got regional airports connecting to a large hub and those large hubs connect to one another, and it\u2019s a really good system. It works really well until the hub gets taken out. If the hub goes down, you\u2019ve got these nodes that are stranded: they can\u2019t connect to one another. That\u2019s a single point of failure, that\u2019s a vulnerability in this network architecture.\n\n\n\nIt was the single point of failure, this vulnerability, that led to the idea of packet-switching and different network architectures that we saw in the ARPANET, which later became the Internet. The impetus there was to avoid the single point of failure. What if you took these nodes and gave them all some connections?\n\n\n\nThis is more like a bell-curve distribution of connections now. Some nodes have more connections than others, some have fewer, but there isn\u2019t a huge difference between the amount of connections between nodes. Then the genius of packet-switching is that you just need to get the signal across the network by whatever route works best at the time. That way, if a node were to disappear, even a relatively well-connected one, you can route around the damage. Now you\u2019re avoiding the single point of failure problem that you would have with a hub and spoke model.\n\n\n\nLike I said, this kind of thinking came from the ARPANET, later the Internet and it was as a direct result of trying to avoid having that single point of failure in a command-and-control structure. If you\u2019re in a military organisation, you don\u2019t want to have that single point of failure. You\u2019ve probably heard that the internet was created to withstand a nuclear attack and that\u2019s not exactly the truth but the network architecture that we have today on the internet was influenced by avoiding that command-and-control, that centralised command-and-control structure.\n\nSome people kind of think there\u2019s sort of blood on the hands of the internet because it came from this military background, DARPA\u2026Defence Advance Research Project. But actually, the thinking behind this was not to give one side the upper hand in case of a nuclear conflict: quite the opposite. The understanding was, if there were the chance of a nuclear conflict and you had a hub and spoke model of communication, then actually you know that if they take out your hub, you\u2019re screwed, so you\u2019d better strike first. Whereas if you\u2019ve got this kind of distributed network, then if there\u2019s the possibility of attack, you might be more willing to wait it out and see because you know you can survive that initial first strike. And so this network approach was not designed to give any one side the upper hand in case of a nuclear war, but to actually avoid nuclear war in the first place. On the understanding that this was in place for both sides, so Paul Baran and the other people working on the ARPANET, they were in favour of sharing this technology with the Russians, even at the height of the Cold War.\n\nThe World Wide Web\n\nIn this kind of network architecture, there\u2019s no hubs, there\u2019s no regional nodes, there\u2019s just nodes on the network. It\u2019s very egalitarian and the network can grow and shrink infinitely; it\u2019s scale-free, you can just keep adding nodes to network and you don\u2019t need to ask permission to add a node to this network. That same sort of architecture then influenced the World Wide Web, which is built on top of the Internet and Tim Berners-Lee uses this model where anybody can add a website to the World Wide Web: you don\u2019t need to ask for permission, you just add one more node to the network; there\u2019s no plan to it, there\u2019s no structure and so it\u2019s a mess! It\u2019s a sprawling, beautiful mess with no structure. \n\nWalled Gardens\n\nAnd it\u2019s funny, because in the early days of the Web it wasn\u2019t clear that the Web was going to win; not at all. There was competition. You had services like Compuserve and AOL. I\u2019m not talking about AOL the website. Before it was a website, it was this thing separate to the web, which was much more structured, much safer; these were kind of the walled gardens and they would make wonderful content for you and warn you if you tried to step outside the bounds of their walled gardens into the wild, lawless lands of the World Wide Web and say, ooh, you don\u2019t want to go out there. And yet the World Wide Web won, despite its chaoticness, its lawlessness. People chose the Web and despite all the content that Compuserve and AOL and these other walled gardens were producing, they couldn\u2019t compete with the wild and lawless nature of the Web. People left the walled gardens and went out into the Web.\n\nAnd then a few years later, everyone went back into the walled gardens. Facebook, Twitter, Medium. Very similar in a way to AOL and Compuserve: the nice, well-designed places, safe spaces not like those nasty places out in the World Wide Web and they warn you if you\u2019re about to head out into the World Wide Web. But there\u2019s a difference this time round: AOL and Compuserve, they were producing content for us, to keep us in the walled gardens. With the case of Facebook, Medium, Twitter, we produce the content. These are the biggest media companies in the world and they don\u2019t produce any media. We produce the media for them.\n\nHow did this happen? How did we end up with this situation when we returned into the walled gardens? What happened?\n\nFacebook, I used to wonder, what is the point of Facebook? I mean this in the sense that when Facebook came along, there were lots of different social networks, but they all kinda had this idea of being about a single, social object. Flickr was about the photograph and upcoming.org was about the event and Dopplr was about travel. And somebody was telling me about Facebook and saying, \u201cYou should get on Facebook.\u201d I was like, \u201cOh yeah? What\u2019s it for?\u201d He said: \u201cEveryone\u2019s on it.\u201d \u201cYeah, but\u2026what\u2019s it for? Is it photographs, events, what is it?\u201d And he was like, \u201cEveryone\u2019s on it.\u201d And now I understand that it\u2019s absolutely correct: the reason why everyone is on Facebook is because everyone is on Facebook. It\u2019s a direct example of Metcalfe\u2019s Law.\n\n\n\nAgain, it\u2019s a power-law distribution: that the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes on a network. Basically, the more people on the network the better. The first person to have a fax machine, that\u2019s a useless lump of plastic. As soon as one more person has a fax machine, it\u2019s exponentially more useful. Everyone is on Facebook because everyone is on Facebook. Which turns it into a hub. It is now a centralised hub, which means it is a single point of failure, by the way. In security terms, I guess you would talk about it having a large attack surface. \n\nLet\u2019s say you wanted to attack media outlets, I don\u2019t know, let\u2019s say you were trying to influence an election in the United States of America\u2026 Instead of having to target hundreds of different news outlets, you now only need to target one because it has a very large attack surface.\n\nIt\u2019s just like, if you run WordPress as a CMS, you have to make sure to keep it patched all the time because it\u2019s a large attack surface. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s any more or less secure or vulnerable than any other CMS, it\u2019s just that it\u2019s really popular and therefore is more likely to be attacked. Same with a hub like Facebook.\n\nOK. Why then? Why did we choose to return to these walled gardens? Well, the answer\u2019s actually pretty obvious, which is: they\u2019re convenient. Walled gardens are nice to use. The user experience is pretty great; they\u2019re well-designed, they\u2019re nice. \n\nThe disadvantage is what you give up when you gain this convenience. You give up control. You no longer have control over the content that you publish. You don\u2019t control who\u2019s going to even see what you publish. Some algorithm is taking care of that. These silos\u2014Facebook, Twitter, Medium\u2014they now have control of the hyperlinks.  Walled gardens give you convenience, but the cost is control.\n\nThe Indie Web\n\nThis is where this idea of the indie web comes in, to try and bridge this gap that you could somehow still have the convenience of using these beautiful, well-designed walled gardens and yet still have the control of owning your own content, because let\u2019s face it, having your own website, that\u2019s a hassle: it\u2019s hard work, certainly compared to just opening up Facebook, opening a Facebook account, Twitter account, Medium account and just publishing, boom. The barrier to entry is really low whereas setting up your own website, registering a domain, do you choose a CMS? There\u2019s a lot of hassle involved in that.\n\nBut maybe we can bridge the gap. Maybe we can get both: the convenience and the control. This is the idea of the indie web. At its heart, there\u2019s a fairly uncontroversial idea here, which is that you should have your own website. I mean, there would have been a time when that would\u2019ve been a normal statement to make and these days, it sounds positively disruptive to even suggest that you should have your own website. \n\nLongevity\n\nI have my own personal reasons for wanting to publish on my own website. If anybody was here back in the\u2026six years ago, I was here at Webstock which was a great honour and I was talking about digital preservation and longevity and for me, that\u2019s one of the reasons why I like to have the control over my own content, because these things do go away. If you published your content on, say, MySpace: I\u2019m sorry. It\u2019s gone. And there was a time when it was unimaginable that MySpace could be gone; it was like Facebook, you couldn\u2019t imagine the web without it. Give it enough time. MySpace is just one example, there\u2019s many more. I used to publish in GeoCities. Delicious; Magnolia, Pownce, Dopplr. Many, many more.\n\nNow, I\u2019m not saying that everything should be online for ever. What I\u2019m saying is, it should be your choice. You should be able to choose when something stays online and you should be able to choose when something gets taken offline. The web has a real issue with things being taken offline. Linkrot is a real problem on the web, and partly that\u2019s to do with the nature of the web, the fundamental nature of the way that linking works on the web.\n\nHyperlinks\n\nWhen Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau were first coming up with the World Wide Web, they submitted a paper to a hypertext conference, I think it was 1991, 92, about this project they were building called the World Wide Web. The paper was rejected. Their paper was rejected by these hypertext experts who said, this system: it\u2019ll never work, it\u2019s terrible. One of the reasons why they rejected it was it didn\u2019t have this idea of two-way linking. Any decent hypertext system, they said, has a concept of two-way linking where there\u2019s knowledge of the link at both ends, so in a system that has two-way linking, if a resource happens to move, the link can move with it and the link is maintained. Now that\u2019s not the way the web works. The web has one-way linking; you can just link to something, that\u2019s it and the other resource has no knowledge that you\u2019re linking to it but if that resource moves or goes away, the link is broken. You get linkrot. That\u2019s just the way the web works.\n\nBut. There\u2019s a little technique that if you sort of squint at it just the right way, it sort of looks like two-way linking on the web and involves a very humble bit of HTML. The rel attribute. Now, you\u2019ve probably seen the rel attribute before, you\u2019ve probably seen it on the link element. Rel is short for relationship, so the value of the rel attribute will describe the relationship of the linked resource, whatever\u2019s inside the href; so I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve probably typed this at some point where you say rel=stylesheet on a link element. What you\u2019re saying is, the linked resource, what\u2019s in the href, has the relationship of being a style sheet for the current document.\n\nlink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"...\"\n\n\nYou can use it on A elements as well. There\u2019s rel values like prev for previous and next, say this is the relationship of being the next document, or this is the relationship of being the previous document. Really handy for pagination of search results, for example.\n\na rel=\"prev\" href=\"...\"\na rel=\"next\" href=\"...\"\n\n\nAnd then there\u2019s this really silly value, rel=me.\n\na rel=\"me\" href=\"...\"\n\n\nNow, how does that work? The linked document has a relationship of being me? Well, I use this. I use this on my own website. I have A elements that link off to my profiles on these other sites, so I\u2019m saying, that Twitter profile over there: that\u2019s me. And that\u2019s me on Flickr and that\u2019s me on GitHub.\n\na rel=\"me\" href=\"https://twitter.com/adactio\"\na rel=\"me\" href=\"https://flickr.com/adactio\"\na rel=\"me\" href=\"https://github.com/adactio\"\n\n\nOK, but still, these are just regular, one-way hyperlinks I\u2019m making. I\u2019ve added a rel value of \u201cme\u201d but so what?\n\nWell, the interesting thing is, if you go to any of those profiles, when you\u2019re signing up, you can add your own website: that\u2019s one of the fields. There\u2019s a link from that profile to your own website and in that link, they also use rel=me.\n\na rel=\"me\" href=\"https://adactio.com\"\n\n\nI\u2019m linking to my profile on Twitter saying, rel=me; that\u2019s me. And my Twitter profile is linking to my website saying, rel=me; that\u2019s me. And so you\u2019ve kind of got two-way linking. You\u2019ve got this confirmed relationship, these claims have been verified. Fine, but what can you do with that?\n\nRelMeAuth\n\nWell, there\u2019s a technology called RelMeAuth that uses this, kind of piggy-backs on something that all these services have in common: Twitter and Flickr and GitHub. All of these services have OAuth, authentication. Now, if I wanted to build an API, I should probably, for a right-API, I probably need to be an OAuth provider. I am not smart enough to become an OAuth provider; that sounds way too much like hard work for me. But I don\u2019t need to because Twitter and Flickr and GitHub are already OAuth providers, so I can just piggy-back on the functionality that they provide, just be adding rel=me. \n\nHere\u2019s an example of this in action. There\u2019s an authentication service called IndieAuth and I literally sign in with my URL. I type in my website name, it then finds the rel=me links, the ones that are reciprocal; I choose which one I feel like logging in with today, let\u2019s say Twitter, I get bounced to Twitter, I have to be logged in on Twitter for this to work and then I\u2019ve authenticated. I\u2019ve authenticated with my own website; I\u2019ve used OAuth without having to write OAuth, just by adding rel=me to a couple of links that were already on my site. \n\nMicropub\n\nWhy would I want to authenticate? Well, there\u2019s another piece of technology called micropub. Now, this is definitely more complicated than just adding rel=me to a few links. This is an end-point on my website and can be an end-point on your website and it accepts POST requests, that\u2019s all it does. And if I\u2019ve already got authentication taken care of and now I\u2019ve got an end-point for POST requests, I\u2019ve basically got an API, which means I can post to my website from other places. Once that end-point exists, I can use somebody else\u2019s website to post to my website, as long as they\u2019ve got this micropub support. I log in with that IndieAuth flow and then I\u2019m using somebody else\u2019s website to post to my website. That\u2019s pretty nice. As long as these services have micropub support, I can post from somebody else\u2019s posting interface to my own website and choose how I want to post. \n\nIn this example there, I was using a service called Quill; it\u2019s got a nice interface. You can do long-form writing on it. It\u2019s got a very Medium-like interface for long-form writing because a lot of people\u2014when you talk about why are they on Medium\u2014it\u2019s because the writing experience is so nice, so it\u2019s kind of been reproduced here. This was made by a friend of mine named Aaron Parecki and he makes some other services too. He makes OwnYourGram and OwnYourSwarm, and what they are is they\u2019re kind of translation services between Instagram and Swarm to micropub.\n\nInstagram and Swarm do not provide micropub support but by using these services, authenticating with these services using the rel=me links, I can then post from Instagram and from Swarm to my own website, which is pretty nice. If I post something on Swarm, it then shows up on my own website. And if I post something on Instagram, it goes up on my own website. Again I\u2019m piggy-backing. There\u2019s all this hard work of big teams of designers and engineers building these apps, Instagram and Swarm, and I\u2019m taking all that hard work and I\u2019m using it to post to my own websites. It feels kind of good.\n\n\n\nSyndication\n\nThere\u2019s an acronym for this approach, and it\u2019s PESOS, which means you Publish Elsewhere and Syndicate to your Own Site. There\u2019s an alternative to this approach and that\u2019s POSSE, or you Publish on your Own Site and then you Syndicate Elsewhere, which I find preferable, but sometimes it\u2019s not possible. For example, you can\u2019t publish on your own site and syndicate it to Instagram; Instagram does not allow any way of posting to it except through the app. It has an API but it\u2019s missing a very important method which is post a photograph. But you can syndicate to Medium and Flickr and Facebook and Twitter. That way, you benefit from the reach, so I\u2019m publishing the original version on my own website and then I\u2019m sending out copies to all these different services.\n\nFor example, I\u2019ve got this section on my site called Notes which is for small little updates of say, oh, I don\u2019t know, 280 characters and I\u2019ve got the option to syndicate if I feel like it to say, Twitter or Flickr. When I post something on my own website\u2014like this lovely picture of an amazingly good dog called Huxley\u2014I can then choose to have that syndicated out to other places like Flickr or Facebook. The Facebook one\u2019s kind of a cheat because I\u2019m just using an \u201cIf This Then That\u201d recipe to observe my site and post any time I post something. But I can syndicate to Twitter as well. The original URL is on my website and these are all copies that I\u2019ve sent out into the world.\n\nWebmention\n\nOK, but what about\u2026what about when people comment or like or retweet, fave, whatever it is they\u2019re doing, the copy? They don\u2019t come to my website to leave a comment or a fave or a like, they\u2019re doing it on Twitter or Flickr. Well, I get those. I get those on my website too and that\u2019s possible because of another building block called webmention. Webmention is another end-point that you can have on your site but it\u2019s very, very simple: it just accepts pings. It\u2019s basically a ping tracker.  Anyone remember pingback? We used to have pingbacks on blogs; and it was quite complicated because it was XML-RPC and all this stuff. This is literally just a post that goes \u201cping\u201d.\n\nLet\u2019s say you link to something on my website; I have no way of knowing that you\u2019ve linked to me, I have no way of knowing that you\u2019ve effectively commented on something I\u2019ve posted, so you send me a ping using webmention and then I can go check and see, is there really a link to this article or this post or this note on this other website and if there is: great. It\u2019s up to me now what I do with that information. Do I display it as a comment? Do I store it to the database? Whatever I want to do. \n\nAnd you don\u2019t even have to have your own webmention end-point. There\u2019s webmentions as a service that you can subscribe to. Webmention.io is one of those; it\u2019s literally like an answering service for pings. You can check in at the end of the day and say, \u201cAny pings for me today?\u201d Like a telephone answering service but for webmentions. \n\nAnd then there\u2019s this really wonderful service, a piece of open source software called Bridgy, which acts as a bridge. Places like Twitter and Flickr and Facebook, they do not send webmentions every time someone leaves a reply, but Bridgy\u2014once you\u2019ve authenticated with the rel=me values\u2014Bridgy monitors your social media accounts and when somebody replies, it\u2019ll take that and translate it into a webmention and send it to your webmention end-point. Now, any time somebody makes a response on one of the copies of your post, you get that on your own website, which is pretty neat.\n\nIt\u2019s up to you what you do with those webmentions. I just display them in a fairly boring manner, the replies appear as comments and I just say how many shares there were, how many likes, but this is a mix of things coming from Twitter, from Flickr, from Facebook, from anywhere where I\u2019ve posted copies. But you could make them look nicer too. Drew McLellan has got this kind of face-pile of the user accounts of the people who are responding out there on Twitter or on Flickr or on Facebook and he displays them in a nice way. \n\nDrew, along with Rachel Andrew, is one of the people behind Perch CMS; a nice little CMS where a lot of this technology is already built in. It has support for webmention and all these kind of things, and there\u2019s a lot of CMSs have done this where you don\u2019t have to invent this stuff from scratch. If you like what you see and you think, \u201cOh, I want to have a webmention end-point, I want to have a micropub end-point\u201d, chances are it already exists for the CMS you\u2019re using. If you\u2019re using something like WordPress or Perch or Jekyll or Kirby: a lot of these CMSs already have plug-ins available for you to use.\n\nBuilding Blocks\n\nThose are a few technologies that we can use to try and bridge that gap, to try and still get the control of owning your own content on your own website and still have the convenience of those third party services that we get to use their interfaces, that we get to have those conversations, the social effects that come with having a large network. Relatively simple building blocks: rel=me, micropub and webmention.\n\nBut they\u2019re not the real building blocks of the indie web; they\u2019re just technologies. Don\u2019t get too caught up with the technologies. I think the real building blocks of the indie web can be found here in the principles of the indie web.\n\nThere\u2019s a great page of design principles about why are we even doing this. There are principles like own your own data; focus on the user experience first; make tools for yourself and then see how you can scale them and share them with other people. But the most important design principle, I think, that\u2019s on that list comes at the very end and it\u2019s this: that we should \ud83c\udf89 have fun (and the emoji is definitely part of the design principle).\n\nYour website is your playground; it\u2019s a place for you to experiment. You hear about some new technologies, you want to play with them? You might not get the chance at work but you can try out that CSS grid and the service worker or the latest JavaScript APIs you want to play with. Use your website as a playground to do that. \n\nI also think we should remember the original motto of the World Wide Web, which was: let\u2019s share what we know. And over the next few days, you\u2019re going to hear a lot of amazing, inspiring ideas from amazing, inspiring people and I hope that you would be motivated to maybe share your thoughts. You could share what you know on Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s website. You could share what you know on Ev Williams\u2019s website. You could share what you know on Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey\u2019s website. But I hope you\u2019ll share what you know on your own website.\n\nThank you.",
        "html": "<ul><li>Listen to <a href=\"http://adactio.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/articles/webstock2018takingbacktheweb.mp3\">the audio</a>\n</li>\n<li>Watch <a href=\"https://vimeo.com/265121482\">the video</a>\n</li>\n<li>Download <a href=\"https://adactio.com/extras/slides/indieweb.pdf\">the slides</a>\n</li>\n</ul><p>Thank you. Thank you very much, Mike; it really is an honour and a privilege to be here.  Kia Ora! Good morning.</p>\n\n<p>This is quite intimidating. I\u2019m supposed to open the show and there\u2019s all these amazing, exciting speakers are going to be speaking for the next two days on amazing, exciting topics, so I\u2019d better level up: I\u2019d better talk about something exciting. So, let\u2019s do it!</p>\n\n<h3>Economics</h3>\n\n<p>Yeah, we need to talk about capitalism. Capitalism is one of a few competing theories on how to structure an economy and the theory goes that you have a marketplace and the marketplace rules all and it is the marketplace that self-regulates through its kind of invisible hand. Pretty good theory, the idea being that through this invisible hand in the marketplace, wealth can be distributed relatively evenly; sort of a bell-curve distribution of wealth where some people have more, some people have less, but it kind of evens out. You see bell-curve distributions right for things like height and weight or IQ. Some have more, some have less, but the difference isn\u2019t huge. That\u2019s the idea, that economies could follow this bell-curve distribution.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/bellcurve.png\" alt=\"A graph showing a bell-curve distribution.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>But, without any kind of external regulation, what tends to happen in a capitalistic economy is that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and it runs out of control. Instead of a bell-curve distribution you end up with something like this which is a power-law distribution, where you have the wealth concentrated in a small percentage and there\u2019s a long tail of poverty.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/powerlaw.png\" alt=\"A graph showing a power-law distribution.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>That\u2019s the thing about capitalism: it sounds great in theory, but not so good in practice.</p>\n\n<h3>Monopoly</h3>\n\n<p>The theory, I actually agree with, the theory being that competition is good and that competition is healthy. I think that\u2019s a sound theory. I like competition: I think there should be a marketplace of competition, to try and avoid these kind of monopolies or duopolies that you get in these power-law distributions. The reason I say that is that we as web designers and web developers, we\u2019ve seen what happens when monopolies kick in.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/internetexplorer.png\" alt=\"The icon for Microsoft Internet Explorer.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>We were there: we were there when there was a monopoly; when Microsoft had an enormous share of the browser market, it was like in the high nineties, percentage of browser share with Internet Explorer, which they achieved because they had an enormous monopoly in the desktop market as well, they were able to bundle Internet Explorer with the Windows Operating System. Not exactly an invisible hand regulating there. </p>\n\n<p>But we managed to dodge this bullet. I firmly believe that the more browsers we have, the better. I think a diversity of browsers is a really good thing. I know sometimes as developers, \u201cOh wouldn\u2019t it be great if there was just one browser to develop for: wouldn\u2019t that be great?\u201d No. No it would not! We\u2019ve been there and it wasn\u2019t pretty. Firefox was pretty much a direct result of this monopoly situation in browsers. But like I say, we dodged this bullet. In some ways the web interpreted this monopoly as damage and routed around it. This idea of interpreting something as damaged and routing around it, that\u2019s a phrase that comes from network architecture</p>\n\n<h3>Networks</h3>\n\n<p>As with economies, there are competing schools of thought on how you would structure a network; there\u2019s many ways to structure a network.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/hubandspoke.png\" alt=\"A ring of small circles, each one connected to a larger circle in the middle.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>One way, sort of a centralised network approach is, you have this hub and spoke model, where you have lots of smaller nodes connecting to a single large hub and then those large hubs can connect with one another and this is how the telegraph worked, then the telephone system worked like this. Airports still pretty much work like this. You\u2019ve got regional airports connecting to a large hub and those large hubs connect to one another, and it\u2019s a really good system. It works really well until the hub gets taken out. If the hub goes down, you\u2019ve got these nodes that are stranded: they can\u2019t connect to one another. That\u2019s a single point of failure, that\u2019s a vulnerability in this network architecture.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/spokes.png\" alt=\"A circle of  small circles, with no connections between them.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>It was the single point of failure, this vulnerability, that led to the idea of packet-switching and different network architectures that we saw in the ARPANET, which later became the Internet. The impetus there was to avoid the single point of failure. What if you took these nodes and gave them all some connections?</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/distributed.png\" alt=\"A scattering of circles, each one with some connections to other circles.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>This is more like a bell-curve distribution of connections now. Some nodes have more connections than others, some have fewer, but there isn\u2019t a huge difference between the amount of connections between nodes. Then the genius of packet-switching is that you just need to get the signal across the network by whatever route works best at the time. That way, if a node were to disappear, even a relatively well-connected one, you can route around the damage. Now you\u2019re avoiding the single point of failure problem that you would have with a hub and spoke model.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/damagerouting.png\" alt=\"The same scattering of circles, with one of them removed. The other circles are still connected.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>Like I said, this kind of thinking came from the ARPANET, later the Internet and it was as a direct result of trying to avoid having that single point of failure in a command-and-control structure. If you\u2019re in a military organisation, you don\u2019t want to have that single point of failure. You\u2019ve probably heard that the internet was created to withstand a nuclear attack and that\u2019s not exactly the truth but the network architecture that we have today on the internet was influenced by avoiding that command-and-control, that centralised command-and-control structure.</p>\n\n<p>Some people kind of think there\u2019s sort of blood on the hands of the internet because it came from this military background, DARPA\u2026Defence Advance Research Project. But actually, the thinking behind this was not to give one side the upper hand in case of a nuclear conflict: quite the opposite. The understanding was, if there were the chance of a nuclear conflict and you had a hub and spoke model of communication, then actually you know that if they take out your hub, you\u2019re screwed, so you\u2019d better strike first. Whereas if you\u2019ve got this kind of distributed network, then if there\u2019s the possibility of attack, you might be more willing to wait it out and see because you know you can survive that initial first strike. And so this network approach was not designed to give any one side the upper hand in case of a nuclear war, but to actually avoid nuclear war in the first place. On the understanding that this was in place for both sides, so Paul Baran and the other people working on the ARPANET, they were in favour of sharing this technology with the Russians, even at the height of the Cold War.</p>\n\n<h3>The World Wide Web</h3>\n\n<p>In this kind of network architecture, there\u2019s no hubs, there\u2019s no regional nodes, there\u2019s just nodes on the network. It\u2019s very egalitarian and the network can grow and shrink infinitely; it\u2019s scale-free, you can just keep adding nodes to network and you don\u2019t need to ask permission to add a node to this network. That same sort of architecture then influenced the World Wide Web, which is built on top of the Internet and Tim Berners-Lee uses this model where anybody can add a website to the World Wide Web: you don\u2019t need to ask for permission, you just add one more node to the network; there\u2019s no plan to it, there\u2019s no structure and so it\u2019s a mess! It\u2019s a sprawling, beautiful mess with no structure. </p>\n\n<h3>Walled Gardens</h3>\n\n<p>And it\u2019s funny, because in the early days of the Web it wasn\u2019t clear that the Web was going to win; not at all. There was competition. You had services like Compuserve and AOL. I\u2019m not talking about AOL the website. Before it was a website, it was this thing separate to the web, which was much more structured, much safer; these were kind of the walled gardens and they would make wonderful content for you and warn you if you tried to step outside the bounds of their walled gardens into the wild, lawless lands of the World Wide Web and say, ooh, you don\u2019t want to go out there. And yet the World Wide Web won, despite its chaoticness, its lawlessness. People chose the Web and despite all the content that Compuserve and AOL and these other walled gardens were producing, they couldn\u2019t compete with the wild and lawless nature of the Web. People left the walled gardens and went out into the Web.</p>\n\n<p>And then a few years later, everyone went back into the walled gardens. Facebook, Twitter, Medium. Very similar in a way to AOL and Compuserve: the nice, well-designed places, safe spaces not like those nasty places out in the World Wide Web and they warn you if you\u2019re about to head out into the World Wide Web. But there\u2019s a difference this time round: AOL and Compuserve, they were producing content for us, to keep us in the walled gardens. With the case of Facebook, Medium, Twitter, we produce the content. These are the biggest media companies in the world and they don\u2019t produce any media. We produce the media for them.</p>\n\n<p>How did this happen? How did we end up with this situation when we returned into the walled gardens? What happened?</p>\n\n<p>Facebook, I used to wonder, what is the point of Facebook? I mean this in the sense that when Facebook came along, there were lots of different social networks, but they all kinda had this idea of being about a single, social object. Flickr was about the photograph and upcoming.org was about the event and Dopplr was about travel. And somebody was telling me about Facebook and saying, \u201cYou should get on Facebook.\u201d I was like, \u201cOh yeah? What\u2019s it for?\u201d He said: \u201cEveryone\u2019s on it.\u201d \u201cYeah, but\u2026what\u2019s it for? Is it photographs, events, what is it?\u201d And he was like, \u201cEveryone\u2019s on it.\u201d And now I understand that it\u2019s absolutely correct: the reason why everyone is on Facebook is because everyone is on Facebook. It\u2019s a direct example of Metcalfe\u2019s Law.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/facebook.png\" alt=\"The icon for Facebook, superimposed on a graph showing a power-law distribution.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<p>Again, it\u2019s a power-law distribution: that the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes on a network. Basically, the more people on the network the better. The first person to have a fax machine, that\u2019s a useless lump of plastic. As soon as one more person has a fax machine, it\u2019s exponentially more useful. Everyone is on Facebook because everyone is on Facebook. Which turns it into a hub. It is now a centralised hub, which means it is a single point of failure, by the way. In security terms, I guess you would talk about it having a large attack surface. </p>\n\n<p>Let\u2019s say you wanted to attack media outlets, I don\u2019t know, let\u2019s say you were trying to influence an election in the United States of America\u2026 Instead of having to target hundreds of different news outlets, you now only need to target one because it has a very large attack surface.</p>\n\n<p>It\u2019s just like, if you run WordPress as a CMS, you have to make sure to keep it patched all the time because it\u2019s a large attack surface. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s any more or less secure or vulnerable than any other CMS, it\u2019s just that it\u2019s really popular and therefore is more likely to be attacked. Same with a hub like Facebook.</p>\n\n<p>OK. Why then? Why did we choose to return to these walled gardens? Well, the answer\u2019s actually pretty obvious, which is: they\u2019re convenient. Walled gardens are nice to use. The user experience is pretty great; they\u2019re well-designed, they\u2019re nice. </p>\n\n<p>The disadvantage is what you give up when you gain this convenience. You give up control. You no longer have control over the content that you publish. You don\u2019t control who\u2019s going to even see what you publish. Some algorithm is taking care of that. These silos\u2014Facebook, Twitter, Medium\u2014they now have control of the hyperlinks.  Walled gardens give you convenience, but the cost is control.</p>\n\n<h3>The Indie Web</h3>\n\n<p>This is where this idea of the indie web comes in, to try and bridge this gap that you could somehow still have the convenience of using these beautiful, well-designed walled gardens and yet still have the control of owning your own content, because let\u2019s face it, having your own website, that\u2019s a hassle: it\u2019s hard work, certainly compared to just opening up Facebook, opening a Facebook account, Twitter account, Medium account and just publishing, boom. The barrier to entry is really low whereas setting up your own website, registering a domain, do you choose a CMS? There\u2019s a lot of hassle involved in that.</p>\n\n<p>But maybe we can bridge the gap. Maybe we can get both: the convenience and the control. This is the idea of the <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/\">indie web</a>. At its heart, there\u2019s a fairly uncontroversial idea here, which is that you should have your own website. I mean, there would have been a time when that would\u2019ve been a normal statement to make and these days, it sounds positively disruptive to even suggest that you should have your own website. </p>\n\n<h3>Longevity</h3>\n\n<p>I have my own personal reasons for wanting to publish on my own website. If anybody was here back in the\u2026six years ago, I was here at Webstock which was a great honour and I was talking about digital preservation and longevity and for me, that\u2019s one of the reasons why I like to have the control over my own content, because these things do go away. If you published your content on, say, MySpace: I\u2019m sorry. It\u2019s gone. And there was a time when it was unimaginable that MySpace could be gone; it was like Facebook, you couldn\u2019t imagine the web without it. Give it enough time. MySpace is just one example, there\u2019s many more. I used to publish in GeoCities. Delicious; Magnolia, Pownce, Dopplr. Many, many more.</p>\n\n<p>Now, I\u2019m not saying that everything should be online for ever. What I\u2019m saying is, it should be your choice. You should be able to choose when something stays online and you should be able to choose when something gets taken offline. The web has a real issue with things being taken offline. Linkrot is a real problem on the web, and partly that\u2019s to do with the nature of the web, the fundamental nature of the way that linking works on the web.</p>\n\n<h3>Hyperlinks</h3>\n\n<p>When Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau were first coming up with the World Wide Web, they submitted a paper to a hypertext conference, I think it was 1991, 92, about this project they were building called the World Wide Web. The paper was rejected. Their paper was rejected by these hypertext experts who said, this system: it\u2019ll never work, it\u2019s terrible. One of the reasons why they rejected it was it didn\u2019t have this idea of two-way linking. Any decent hypertext system, they said, has a concept of two-way linking where there\u2019s knowledge of the link at both ends, so in a system that has two-way linking, if a resource happens to move, the link can move with it and the link is maintained. Now that\u2019s not the way the web works. The web has one-way linking; you can just link to something, that\u2019s it and the other resource has no knowledge that you\u2019re linking to it but if that resource moves or goes away, the link is broken. You get linkrot. That\u2019s just the way the web works.</p>\n\n<p>But. There\u2019s a little technique that if you sort of squint at it just the right way, it sort of looks like two-way linking on the web and involves a very humble bit of HTML. The <code>rel</code> attribute. Now, you\u2019ve probably seen the <code>rel</code> attribute before, you\u2019ve probably seen it on the <code>link</code> element. Rel is short for relationship, so the value of the <code>rel</code> attribute will describe the relationship of the linked resource, whatever\u2019s inside the <code>href</code>; so I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve probably typed this at some point where you say <code>rel=stylesheet</code> on a <code>link</code> element. What you\u2019re saying is, the linked resource, what\u2019s in the <code>href</code>, has the relationship of being a style sheet for the current document.</p>\n\n<pre><code>link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"...\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You can use it on <code>A</code> elements as well. There\u2019s <code>rel</code> values like <code>prev</code> for previous and <code>next</code>, say this is the relationship of being the next document, or this is the relationship of being the previous document. Really handy for pagination of search results, for example.</p>\n\n<pre><code>a rel=\"prev\" href=\"...\"\na rel=\"next\" href=\"...\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>And then there\u2019s this really silly value, <code>rel=me</code>.</p>\n\n<pre><code>a rel=\"me\" href=\"...\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Now, how does that work? The linked document has a relationship of being <em>me</em>? Well, I use this. I use this on <a href=\"https://adactio.com/\">my own website</a>. I have <code>A</code> elements that link off to my profiles on these other sites, so I\u2019m saying, that Twitter profile over there: that\u2019s me. And that\u2019s me on Flickr and that\u2019s me on GitHub.</p>\n\n<pre><code>a rel=\"me\" href=\"https://twitter.com/adactio\"\na rel=\"me\" href=\"https://flickr.com/adactio\"\na rel=\"me\" href=\"https://github.com/adactio\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>OK, but still, these are just regular, one-way hyperlinks I\u2019m making. I\u2019ve added a <code>rel</code> value of \u201cme\u201d but so what?</p>\n\n<p>Well, the interesting thing is, if you go to any of those profiles, when you\u2019re signing up, you can add your own website: that\u2019s one of the fields. There\u2019s a link from that profile to your own website and in that link, they also use <code>rel=me</code>.</p>\n\n<pre><code>a rel=\"me\" href=\"https://adactio.com\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>I\u2019m linking to my profile on Twitter saying, <code>rel=me</code>; that\u2019s me. And my Twitter profile is linking to my website saying, <code>rel=me</code>; that\u2019s me. And so you\u2019ve kind of got two-way linking. You\u2019ve got this confirmed relationship, these claims have been verified. Fine, but what can you do with that?</p>\n\n<h3>RelMeAuth</h3>\n\n<p>Well, there\u2019s a technology called <a href=\"http://microformats.org/wiki/relmeauth\">RelMeAuth</a> that uses this, kind of piggy-backs on something that all these services have in common: Twitter and Flickr and GitHub. All of these services have OAuth, authentication. Now, if I wanted to build an API, I should probably, for a right-API, I probably need to be an OAuth provider. I am not smart enough to become an OAuth provider; that sounds way too much like hard work for me. But I don\u2019t need to because Twitter and Flickr and GitHub are already OAuth providers, so I can just piggy-back on the functionality that they provide, just be adding <code>rel=me</code>. </p>\n\n<p>Here\u2019s an example of this in action. There\u2019s an authentication service called IndieAuth and I literally sign in with my URL. I type in my website name, it then finds the <code>rel=me</code> links, the ones that are reciprocal; I choose which one I feel like logging in with today, let\u2019s say Twitter, I get bounced to Twitter, I have to be logged in on Twitter for this to work and then I\u2019ve authenticated. I\u2019ve authenticated with my own website; I\u2019ve used OAuth without having to write OAuth, just by adding <code>rel=me</code> to a couple of links that were already on my site. </p>\n\n<h3>Micropub</h3>\n\n<p>Why would I want to authenticate? Well, there\u2019s another piece of technology called <a href=\"https://micropub.net/\">micropub</a>. Now, this is definitely more complicated than just adding <code>rel=me</code> to a few links. This is an end-point on my website and can be an end-point on your website and it accepts POST requests, that\u2019s all it does. And if I\u2019ve already got authentication taken care of and now I\u2019ve got an end-point for POST requests, I\u2019ve basically got an API, which means I can post to my website from other places. Once that end-point exists, I can use somebody else\u2019s website to post to my website, as long as they\u2019ve got this micropub support. I log in with that IndieAuth flow and then I\u2019m using somebody else\u2019s website to post to my website. That\u2019s pretty nice. As long as these services have micropub support, I can post from somebody else\u2019s posting interface to my own website and choose how I want to post. </p>\n\n<p>In this example there, I was using a service called <a href=\"https://quill.p3k.io/\">Quill</a>; it\u2019s got a nice interface. You can do long-form writing on it. It\u2019s got a very Medium-like interface for long-form writing because a lot of people\u2014when you talk about why are they on Medium\u2014it\u2019s because the writing experience is so nice, so it\u2019s kind of been reproduced here. This was made by a friend of mine named Aaron Parecki and he makes some other services too. He makes <a href=\"http://ownyourgram.com/\">OwnYourGram</a> and <a href=\"https://ownyourswarm.p3k.io/\">OwnYourSwarm</a>, and what they are is they\u2019re kind of translation services between Instagram and Swarm to micropub.</p>\n\n<p>Instagram and Swarm do not provide micropub support but by using these services, authenticating with these services using the <code>rel=me</code> links, I can then post from Instagram and from Swarm to my own website, which is pretty nice. If I post something on Swarm, it then shows up on my own website. And if I post something on Instagram, it goes up on my own website. Again I\u2019m piggy-backing. There\u2019s all this hard work of big teams of designers and engineers building these apps, Instagram and Swarm, and I\u2019m taking all that hard work and I\u2019m using it to post to my own websites. It feels kind of good.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/swarminstagram.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshots of posts on Swarm and Instagram, accompanied by screenshots of the same content on adactio.com.\" title=\"\" /></p>\n\n<h3>Syndication</h3>\n\n<p>There\u2019s an acronym for this approach, and it\u2019s PESOS, which means you Publish Elsewhere and Syndicate to your Own Site. There\u2019s an alternative to this approach and that\u2019s POSSE, or you Publish on your Own Site and then you Syndicate Elsewhere, which I find preferable, but sometimes it\u2019s not possible. For example, you can\u2019t publish on your own site and syndicate it to Instagram; Instagram does not allow any way of posting to it except through the app. It has an API but it\u2019s missing a very important method which is post a photograph. But you can syndicate to Medium and Flickr and Facebook and Twitter. That way, you benefit from the reach, so I\u2019m publishing the original version on my own website and then I\u2019m sending out copies to all these different services.</p>\n\n<p>For example, I\u2019ve got this section on my site called <a href=\"https://adactio.com/notes\">Notes</a> which is for small little updates of say, oh, I don\u2019t know, 280 characters and I\u2019ve got the option to syndicate if I feel like it to say, Twitter or Flickr. When I post something on my own website\u2014like <a href=\"https://adactio.com/notes/12917\">this lovely picture of an amazingly good dog called Huxley</a>\u2014I can then choose to have that syndicated out to other places like <a href=\"https://flickr.com/photos/adactio/36762472894\">Flickr</a> or Facebook. The Facebook one\u2019s kind of a cheat because I\u2019m just using an \u201cIf This Then That\u201d recipe to observe my site and post any time I post something. But I can syndicate to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/adactio/status/915184489273446400\">Twitter</a> as well. The original URL is on my website and these are all copies that I\u2019ve sent out into the world.</p>\n\n<h3>Webmention</h3>\n\n<p>OK, but what about\u2026what about when people comment or like or retweet, fave, whatever it is they\u2019re doing, the copy? They don\u2019t come to my website to leave a comment or a fave or a like, they\u2019re doing it on Twitter or Flickr. Well, I get those. I get those on my website too and that\u2019s possible because of another building block called <a href=\"https://webmention.net/\">webmention</a>. Webmention is another end-point that you can have on your site but it\u2019s very, very simple: it just accepts pings. It\u2019s basically a ping tracker.  Anyone remember pingback? We used to have pingbacks on blogs; and it was quite complicated because it was XML-RPC and all this stuff. This is literally just a post that goes \u201cping\u201d.</p>\n\n<p>Let\u2019s say you link to something on my website; I have no way of knowing that you\u2019ve linked to me, I have no way of knowing that you\u2019ve effectively commented on something I\u2019ve posted, so you send me a ping using webmention and then I can go check and see, is there really a link to this article or this post or this note on this other website and if there is: great. It\u2019s up to me now what I do with that information. Do I display it as a comment? Do I store it to the database? Whatever I want to do. </p>\n\n<p>And you don\u2019t even have to have your own webmention end-point. There\u2019s webmentions as a service that you can subscribe to. Webmention.io is one of those; it\u2019s literally like an answering service for pings. You can check in at the end of the day and say, \u201cAny pings for me today?\u201d Like a telephone answering service but for webmentions. </p>\n\n<p>And then there\u2019s this really wonderful service, a piece of open source software called <a href=\"https://brid.gy/\">Bridgy</a>, which acts as a bridge. Places like Twitter and Flickr and Facebook, they do not send webmentions every time someone leaves a reply, but Bridgy\u2014once you\u2019ve authenticated with the <code>rel=me</code> values\u2014Bridgy monitors your social media accounts and when somebody replies, it\u2019ll take that and translate it into a webmention and send it to your webmention end-point. Now, any time somebody makes a response on one of the copies of your post, you get that on your own website, which is pretty neat.</p>\n\n<p>It\u2019s up to you what you do with those webmentions. I just display them in a fairly boring manner, the replies appear as comments and I just say how many shares there were, how many likes, but this is a mix of things coming from Twitter, from Flickr, from Facebook, from anywhere where I\u2019ve posted copies. But you could make them look nicer too. Drew McLellan has got this kind of face-pile of the user accounts of the people who are responding out there on Twitter or on Flickr or on Facebook and he displays them in a nice way. </p>\n\n<p>Drew, along with Rachel Andrew, is one of the people behind Perch CMS; a nice little CMS where a lot of this technology is already built in. It has support for webmention and all these kind of things, and there\u2019s a lot of CMSs have done this where you don\u2019t have to invent this stuff from scratch. If you like what you see and you think, \u201cOh, I want to have a webmention end-point, I want to have a micropub end-point\u201d, chances are it already exists for the CMS you\u2019re using. If you\u2019re using something like WordPress or Perch or Jekyll or Kirby: a lot of these CMSs already have plug-ins available for you to use.</p>\n\n<h3>Building Blocks</h3>\n\n<p>Those are a few technologies that we can use to try and bridge that gap, to try and still get the control of owning your own content on your own website and still have the convenience of those third party services that we get to use their interfaces, that we get to have those conversations, the social effects that come with having a large network. Relatively simple building blocks: <code>rel=me</code>, micropub and webmention.</p>\n\n<p>But they\u2019re not the real building blocks of the indie web; they\u2019re just technologies. Don\u2019t get too caught up with the technologies. I think the real building blocks of the indie web can be found here in <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/principles\">the principles of the indie web</a>.</p>\n\n<p>There\u2019s a great page of design principles about why are we even doing this. There are principles like own your own data; focus on the user experience first; make tools for yourself and then see how you can scale them and share them with other people. But the most important design principle, I think, that\u2019s on that list comes at the very end and it\u2019s this: that we should \ud83c\udf89 have fun (and the emoji is definitely part of the design principle).</p>\n\n<p>Your website is your playground; it\u2019s a place for you to experiment. You hear about some new technologies, you want to play with them? You might not get the chance at work but you can try out that CSS grid and the service worker or the latest JavaScript APIs you want to play with. Use your website as a playground to do that. </p>\n\n<p>I also think we should remember the original motto of the World Wide Web, which was: let\u2019s share what we know. And over the next few days, you\u2019re going to hear a lot of amazing, inspiring ideas from amazing, inspiring people and I hope that you would be motivated to maybe share your thoughts. You could share what you know on Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s website. You could share what you know on Ev Williams\u2019s website. You could share what you know on Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey\u2019s website. But I hope you\u2019ll share what you know on your own website.</p>\n\n<p>Thank you.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://indieweb.org/\"><img src=\"https://adactio.com/images/articles/takingbacktheweb/indiewebcamp.jpg\" alt=\"A group of smiling people, gathered together at an Indie Web Camp.\" title=\"\" /></a></p>"
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Episode 5: Indieweb Summit and More

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    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-13T21:27:59-04:00",
    "url": "https://david.shanske.com/2018/05/13/an-indieweb-podcast-episode-5-indieweb-summit-and-more/",
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    "name": "Episode 5: Indieweb Summit and More",
    "content": {
        "text": "With the Indieweb Summit coming up, we should discuss what the Summit is like, community and how to participate, etc.\n\u00a0\nLinks\nDo I know anyone interested in building #indieweb tech or federated services? I\u2019m having trouble conceptualizing some things without having people to bounce ideas off of. https://twitter.com/davidlaietta/status/995485455675162626 That\u2019s what this is all about! I have always been an outsider to that community and want to find good ways to enter and get involved, but I am also trying to find ways to make ActivityPub based projects more accessible to the average web user.\nIndieWeb Summit https://2018.indieweb.org/",
        "html": "With the Indieweb Summit coming up, we should discuss what the Summit is like, community and how to participate, etc.\n<p>\u00a0</p>\n<p>Links</p>\n<ul><li>Do I know anyone interested in building<a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/indieweb?src=hash\"> #indieweb</a> tech or federated services? I\u2019m having trouble conceptualizing some things without having people to bounce ideas off of. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/davidlaietta/status/995485455675162626\">https://twitter.com/davidlaietta/status/995485455675162626</a> That\u2019s what this is all about! I have always been an outsider to that community and want to find good ways to enter and get involved, but I am also trying to find ways to make ActivityPub based projects more accessible to the average web user.</li>\n</ul><ul><li>IndieWeb Summit <a href=\"https://2018.indieweb.org/\">https://2018.indieweb.org/</a>\n</li>\n</ul>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "David Shanske",
        "url": "https://david.shanske.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/secure.gravatar.com/ee1cea4a5d6465ac3bd8e56fc0bbfdacd25be40ef0968e6b2b2e8016103cb826.png"
    },
    "_id": "322687",
    "_source": "5",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-13T20:59:14-04:00",
    "url": "https://david.shanske.com/2018/05/13/1927/",
    "syndication": [
        "https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-dsgvo-4/#post-10276422"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-dsgvo-4/"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "I am very well aware of it, as a contributor, though I don\u2019t live in the EU. And the author/creator of the plugin lives in the EU. The latest version adds some information on this into the plugin to try and make it clearer, but we continue to try to improve. Will try to clarify\u2026This is a bit of a long explanation, but I feel that others may ask this question and want to try to help with the answer.\nDisclaimer: Some of this is my interpretation and opinion. Anything technical is a fact as I understand it.\nA webmention consists of two properties. A source URL and a target URL. So, when I link to a page on another site, a webmention is sent to that page if it supports it, telling it that I linked to it. The webmention plugin on the target side then generates and displays a link showing that site name(which it extracts from the title of the page) linked to that posts. Even under GDPR, linking to another site is not a personal data violation. Therefore, that is fine.\nNow, there is a debate as to whether storing the IP address of the webmention is storing data. Webmention doesn\u2019t actually need to do it\u2026but WordPress does it for new comments by default. WordPress itself is looking into anonymizing that data to avoid the issue, and even though I myself don\u2019t agree with that interpretation of the GDPR for personal use, as it doesn\u2019t add anything to the presentation, I was going to, when the new functions are added, ensure they are applied to webmentions, which is a type of comment.\nIf you are concerned about data collection, the second plugin, Semantic Linkbacks, which is separate, is not required. But, I think the experience of Semantic Linkbacks is worth installing. Semantic Linkbacks reads the URL of the page that sends you the webmention for more information.\nSo that means it goes and looks at your page for your site name and author name, and instead of the generic page title, it tries to format your webmention as a better comment. It finds the name of the author of the page, the site name, title, etc.\nBut, webmentions require affirmative action. You have to link to me. Someone has to send one. If you didn\u2019t want that outcome, why install the plugin that has this feature? So, if you have a privacy policy, you probably should outline that you receive webmentions and what you do with them\u2026namely, display them.\nSo, the data that Semantic Linkbacks extracts does include information if your site is marked up to support it. So, if your author image is marked up as such, it will note this so it can display it. The image on your site is one you yourself chose to represent you. Same with the other information. It is basically trying to represent the link you made to the site accurately.\nAny site that receives webmentions should respect any request to remove their display or purge the information. But webmention itself allows for this. If you send another webmention, it will update. So, if you take down the page, send another webmention and it will purge the comment. There\u2019s even a form built into the Webmention plugin for that.\nUnder GDPR t0 my understanding, you have a right to see what data a site has on you and get a copy of it\u2026we have that covered because the data is a copy of the page you yourself created. You have the right to correct incorrect data\u2026there\u2019s the update webmention functionality.\nAnd if we didn\u2019t, WordPress is building in tools for data export, deletion, and anomymization\u2026regrettably though, they use email address as a way to extract comment and user data\u2026something the plugin doesn\u2019t collect.\nI won\u2019t speak for Matthias Pfefferle, who authored the plugin and has been kind enough to put up with my submissions to it, but he\u2019s given me the impression that he takes this very seriously. And even though I don\u2019t agree with the way people seem to be applying GDPR concerns to this, I respect their concerns enough to try to address them through plugin enhancements that will allow better controls over this.\nAs another side note, the WordPress Core team, who is scrambling to add GDPR tools to WordPress itself, didn\u2019t consider Pingbacks and Trackbacks, built into WordPress, to be something to address\u00a0 as a GDPR concern to my knowledge. Webmention functions the same way as those two in terms of what it does, although it is a newer specification.",
        "html": "I am very well aware of it, as a contributor, though I don\u2019t live in the EU. And the author/creator of the plugin lives in the EU. The latest version adds some information on this into the plugin to try and make it clearer, but we continue to try to improve. Will try to clarify\u2026This is a bit of a long explanation, but I feel that others may ask this question and want to try to help with the answer.\n<p>Disclaimer: Some of this is my interpretation and opinion. Anything technical is a fact as I understand it.</p>\n<p>A webmention consists of two properties. A source URL and a target URL. So, when I link to a page on another site, a webmention is sent to that page if it supports it, telling it that I linked to it. The webmention plugin on the target side then generates and displays a link showing that site name(which it extracts from the title of the page) linked to that posts. Even under GDPR, linking to another site is not a personal data violation. Therefore, that is fine.</p>\n<p>Now, there is a debate as to whether storing the IP address of the webmention is storing data. Webmention doesn\u2019t actually need to do it\u2026but WordPress does it for new comments by default. WordPress itself is looking into anonymizing that data to avoid the issue, and even though I myself don\u2019t agree with that interpretation of the GDPR for personal use, as it doesn\u2019t add anything to the presentation, I was going to, when the new functions are added, ensure they are applied to webmentions, which is a type of comment.</p>\n<p>If you are concerned about data collection, the second plugin, Semantic Linkbacks, which is separate, is not required. But, I think the experience of Semantic Linkbacks is worth installing. Semantic Linkbacks reads the URL of the page that sends you the webmention for more information.</p>\n<p>So that means it goes and looks at your page for your site name and author name, and instead of the generic page title, it tries to format your webmention as a better comment. It finds the name of the author of the page, the site name, title, etc.</p>\n<p>But, webmentions require affirmative action. You have to link to me. Someone has to send one. If you didn\u2019t want that outcome, why install the plugin that has this feature? So, if you have a privacy policy, you probably should outline that you receive webmentions and what you do with them\u2026namely, display them.</p>\n<p>So, the data that Semantic Linkbacks extracts does include information if your site is marked up to support it. So, if your author image is marked up as such, it will note this so it can display it. The image on your site is one you yourself chose to represent you. Same with the other information. It is basically trying to represent the link you made to the site accurately.</p>\n<p>Any site that receives webmentions should respect any request to remove their display or purge the information. But webmention itself allows for this. If you send another webmention, it will update. So, if you take down the page, send another webmention and it will purge the comment. There\u2019s even a form built into the Webmention plugin for that.</p>\n<p>Under GDPR t0 my understanding, you have a right to see what data a site has on you and get a copy of it\u2026we have that covered because the data is a copy of the page you yourself created. You have the right to correct incorrect data\u2026there\u2019s the update webmention functionality.</p>\n<p>And if we didn\u2019t, WordPress is building in tools for data export, deletion, and anomymization\u2026regrettably though, they use email address as a way to extract comment and user data\u2026something the plugin doesn\u2019t collect.</p>\n<p>I won\u2019t speak for Matthias Pfefferle, who authored the plugin and has been kind enough to put up with my submissions to it, but he\u2019s given me the impression that he takes this very seriously. And even though I don\u2019t agree with the way people seem to be applying GDPR concerns to this, I respect their concerns enough to try to address them through plugin enhancements that will allow better controls over this.</p>\n<p>As another side note, the WordPress Core team, who is scrambling to add GDPR tools to WordPress itself, didn\u2019t consider Pingbacks and Trackbacks, built into WordPress, to be something to address\u00a0 as a GDPR concern to my knowledge. Webmention functions the same way as those two in terms of what it does, although it is a newer specification.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "David Shanske",
        "url": "https://david.shanske.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/secure.gravatar.com/ee1cea4a5d6465ac3bd8e56fc0bbfdacd25be40ef0968e6b2b2e8016103cb826.png"
    },
    "refs": {
        "https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-dsgvo-4/": {
            "type": "entry",
            "url": "https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-dsgvo-4/",
            "name": "Topic: GDPR (DSGVO)",
            "author": {
                "type": "card",
                "name": "ueberseemaedchen",
                "url": false,
                "photo": null
            }
        }
    },
    "_id": "322688",
    "_source": "5",
    "_is_read": true
}

Webmention Deletes

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/webmention-deletes/",
    "published": "2018-05-14T01:20:28+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "Replied to <a href=\"https://david.shanske.com/2018/05/13/1927/\">Untitled | David Shanske</a> by <a href=\"https://david.shanske.com/\"><img src=\"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/681eba02e72ba1d894097034a8110e61?s=125&amp;d=default&amp;r=g\" alt=\"David Shanske\" />David Shanske</a><em> (David Shanske)</em>\n<blockquote>Any site that receives webmentions should respect any request to remove their display or purge the information. But webmention itself allows for this. If you send another webmention, it will update. So, if you take down the page, send another webmention and it will purge the comment. There\u2019s even a form built into the Webmention plugin for that.</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.</a></p>\nDavid, the GDPR is why I have a web application firewall blocking all web traffic originating in the EU. I am researching ways to either remove all commenting except for Webmentions or using another comment system, like Isso, that give the commenter control.\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-dsgvo-4/\">ueberseemaedchen</a> ,I spent some time this weekend testing Webmention deletes and I\u2019m excited at how well it works.</p>\n<p>And I agree with what David wrote here:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  But, webmentions require affirmative action. You have to link to me. Someone has to send one. If you didn\u2019t want that outcome, why install the plugin that has this feature?\n</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/webmention-deletes/\">Webmention Deletes</a> by <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Kh\u00fcrt Williams</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net</a>.</p>",
        "text": "Replied to Untitled | David Shanske by David Shanske (David Shanske)\nAny site that receives webmentions should respect any request to remove their display or purge the information. But webmention itself allows for this. If you send another webmention, it will update. So, if you take down the page, send another webmention and it will purge the comment. There\u2019s even a form built into the Webmention plugin for that.\n\nIsland in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.\nDavid, the GDPR is why I have a web application firewall blocking all web traffic originating in the EU. I am researching ways to either remove all commenting except for Webmentions or using another comment system, like Isso, that give the commenter control.\nueberseemaedchen ,I spent some time this weekend testing Webmention deletes and I\u2019m excited at how well it works.\nAnd I agree with what David wrote here:\n\n  But, webmentions require affirmative action. You have to link to me. Someone has to send one. If you didn\u2019t want that outcome, why install the plugin that has this feature?\n\n\nThe post Webmention Deletes by Kh\u00fcrt Williams appeared first on Island in the Net."
    },
    "name": "Webmention Deletes",
    "_id": "322026",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}

Digital Assistants and Blogging

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/digital-assistants-and-blogging/",
    "published": "2018-05-13T22:12:52+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "Liked <a href=\"https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-future-of-content-destroys-the-middleman/\">The Future of Content Destroys the Middleman</a> by Daniel Miessler <em>(Daniel Miessler)</em>\n<blockquote><p>I think the content creation ecosystem\u2014especially around blogging\u2014will be ultimately disrupted by the rise of three interlocking componets: </p>\n\n<ol><li>Digital Assistants</li>\n<li>APIs</li>\n<li>Customized interfaces</li>\n</ol></blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.</a></p>\nDaniels\u2019s post has my mind stuck with several inchoate thoughts. I\u2019m pinging <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/%E2%80%9Chttps://boffosocko.com/%E2%80%9D\">Chris Aldrich</a> (and testing Webmention) because I think he may find this interesting.\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/digital-assistants-and-blogging/\">Digital Assistants and Blogging</a> by <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Kh\u00fcrt Williams</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net</a>.</p>",
        "text": "Liked The Future of Content Destroys the Middleman by Daniel Miessler (Daniel Miessler)\nI think the content creation ecosystem\u2014especially around blogging\u2014will be ultimately disrupted by the rise of three interlocking componets: \n\nDigital Assistants\nAPIs\nCustomized interfaces\n\n\nIsland in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.\nDaniels\u2019s post has my mind stuck with several inchoate thoughts. I\u2019m pinging Chris Aldrich (and testing Webmention) because I think he may find this interesting.\nThe post Digital Assistants and Blogging by Kh\u00fcrt Williams appeared first on Island in the Net."
    },
    "name": "Digital Assistants and Blogging",
    "_id": "321700",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}

This Week in the IndieWeb Audio Edition • May 5th - 11th, 2018

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-13T14:26:52-04:00",
    "url": "https://martymcgui.re/2018/05/13/142652/",
    "category": [
        "podcast",
        "IndieWeb",
        "this-week-indieweb-podcast"
    ],
    "audio": [
        "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/media.martymcgui.re/1c3ddc3b94b6f8edfd9b9f94b1bb800b41a55696d908eff329a318d8fcd3e16f.mp3"
    ],
    "syndication": [
        "https://huffduffer.com/schmarty/476934",
        "https://twitter.com/schmarty/status/995732628262342666",
        "https://www.facebook.com/marty.mcguire.54/posts/10212030081449314"
    ],
    "name": "This Week in the IndieWeb Audio Edition \u2022 May 5th - 11th, 2018",
    "content": {
        "text": "Show/Hide Transcript  \n            \n            GIFs and emojis, WordPress Friends, and just what are Webmentions, anyway? It\u2019s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for May 5th - 11th, 2018.\n\nYou can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/.\n\nMusic from Aaron Parecki\u2019s 100DaysOfMusic project: Day 85 - Suit, Day 48 - Glitch, Day 49 - Floating, Day 9, and Day 11\n\nThanks to everyone in the IndieWeb chat for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you\u2019d like to see for this audio edition!",
        "html": "Show/Hide Transcript  \n            \n            <p>GIFs and emojis, WordPress Friends, and just what are Webmentions, anyway? It\u2019s the audio edition for <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/this-week/2018-05-11.html\">This Week in the IndieWeb for May 5th - 11th, 2018</a>.</p>\n\n<p>You can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: <a href=\"https://martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/\">martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Music from <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/\">Aaron Parecki</a>\u2019s <a href=\"https://100.aaronparecki.com/\">100DaysOfMusic project</a>: <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/2017/03/15/14/day85\">Day 85 - Suit</a>, <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/2017/02/06/7/day48\">Day 48 - Glitch</a>, <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/2017/02/07/4/day49\">Day 49 - Floating</a>, <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/2016/12/29/21/day-9\">Day 9</a>, and <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/2016/12/31/15/\">Day 11</a></p>\n\n<p>Thanks to everyone in the <a href=\"https://chat.indieweb.org/\">IndieWeb chat</a> for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you\u2019d like to see for this audio edition!</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Marty McGuire",
        "url": "https://martymcgui.re/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/martymcgui.re/4f9fac2b9e3ae62998c557418143efe288bca8170a119921a9c6bfeb0a1263a2.jpg"
    },
    "_id": "321311",
    "_source": "175",
    "_is_read": true
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2018-05-13T04:18:43+00:00",
    "url": "http://stream.boffosocko.com/2018/davidlaietta-for-wordpress-related-activity-in-the-area-of-indieweb",
    "category": [
        "IndieWeb",
        "WordPress"
    ],
    "syndication": [
        "https://twitter.com/ChrisAldrich/status/995518750421118976"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://twitter.com/davidlaietta/status/995502587616034822",
        "http://stream.boffosocko.com/2018/davidlaietta-if-you-dont-mind-new-friends-im-happy-to"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "@davidlaietta For WordPress related activity in the area of #IndieWeb, among many others you should generally know are @dshanske (aka GWG), @pfefferle, and @schnarfed (aka snarfed).\n\n\nIn addition to a lot of IndieWeb specific pieces @pfefferle has also done some work on ActivityStreams (https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitystream-extension/) while @schnarfed has some great work with https://fed.brid.gy/ and https://indieweb.org/bridge#ActivityPub\n\n\nI've written a lot of intro related pieces which may help you get started: http://boffosocko.com/research/indieweb/. In particular, the second two in the \"Introductory Articles\" section may be the most useful higher level overviews for you. The wiki has a large number of pages devoted to a WordPress worldview starting here: https://indieweb.org/WordPress.\n\n\nAlong with a plethora of others (who I've always found very warm and welcoming) we're all often hanging out in the IndieWeb chat rooms (there's a specific #WordPress related one as well): https://indieweb.org/discuss. If you want to hop on a conference call, I'm happy to walk you through some of the basics and point you in the direction of areas you're most interested in checking out.\n\n\nIf you're free at the end of June, the IndieWeb Summit is a great place to start as well: https://2018.indieweb.org/. Many of us are planning on attending. If you can't make it in person, we should be livestreaming a lot of it for remote attendees as well.",
        "html": "@davidlaietta For WordPress related activity in the area of <a href=\"http://stream.boffosocko.com/tag/IndieWeb\" class=\"p-category\">#IndieWeb</a>, among many others you should generally know are @dshanske (aka GWG), @pfefferle, and @schnarfed (aka snarfed).<br /><br />\nIn addition to a lot of IndieWeb specific pieces @pfefferle has also done some work on ActivityStreams (<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitystream-extension/\">https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitystream-extension/</a>) while @schnarfed has some great work with <a href=\"https://fed.brid.gy/\">https://fed.brid.gy/</a> and <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/bridge#ActivityPub\">https://indieweb.org/bridge#ActivityPub</a><br /><br />\nI've written a lot of intro related pieces which may help you get started: <a href=\"http://boffosocko.com/research/indieweb/\">http://boffosocko.com/research/indieweb/</a>. In particular, the second two in the \"Introductory Articles\" section may be the most useful higher level overviews for you. The wiki has a large number of pages devoted to a WordPress worldview starting here: <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/WordPress\">https://indieweb.org/WordPress</a>.<br /><br />\nAlong with a plethora of others (who I've always found very warm and welcoming) we're all often hanging out in the IndieWeb chat rooms (there's a specific <a href=\"http://stream.boffosocko.com/tag/WordPress\" class=\"p-category\">#WordPress</a> related one as well): <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/discuss\">https://indieweb.org/discuss</a>. If you want to hop on a conference call, I'm happy to walk you through some of the basics and point you in the direction of areas you're most interested in checking out.<br /><br />\nIf you're free at the end of June, the IndieWeb Summit is a great place to start as well: <a href=\"https://2018.indieweb.org/\">https://2018.indieweb.org/</a>. Many of us are planning on attending. If you can't make it in person, we should be livestreaming a lot of it for remote attendees as well.<br /><br /><br /><br />"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Chris Aldrich",
        "url": "http://stream.boffosocko.com/profile/chrisaldrich",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/stream.boffosocko.com/d0ba9f65fcbf0cef3bdbcccc0b6a1f42b1310f7ab2e07208c7a396166cde26b1.jpg"
    },
    "_id": "319998",
    "_source": "192",
    "_is_read": true
}

IndieWeb How To

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/indieweb-how-to/",
    "published": "2018-05-12T22:56:42+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "Bookmarked <a href=\"https://readwriterespond.com/2018/01/hidden-code/\">Hidden in the Code</a> by Aaron <em>(Read Write Respond)</em>\n<blockquote>This is a collection of code that I often turn to when working with WordPress\nEvery time that I feel comfortable with my level of knowledge associated with WordPress, there is a problem that leads me to discover a particular attribute that I don\u2019t know how I lived without. This time it is the code...</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.</a></p>\nI am bookmarking this useful and easy to follow IndieWeb resource.\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/indieweb-how-to/\">IndieWeb How To</a> by <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Kh\u00fcrt Williams</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://islandinthenet.com/\">Island in the Net</a>.</p>",
        "text": "Bookmarked Hidden in the Code by Aaron (Read Write Respond)\nThis is a collection of code that I often turn to when working with WordPress\nEvery time that I feel comfortable with my level of knowledge associated with WordPress, there is a problem that leads me to discover a particular attribute that I don\u2019t know how I lived without. This time it is the code...\n\nIsland in the Net - A personal website by Kh\u00fcrt Williams, with imagery, and inchoate ramblings on coffee, beer, and geekery.\nI am bookmarking this useful and easy to follow IndieWeb resource.\nThe post IndieWeb How To by Kh\u00fcrt Williams appeared first on Island in the Net."
    },
    "name": "IndieWeb How To",
    "_id": "319942",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}

This is a Webmention Post

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/this-is-a-webmention-post/",
    "published": "2018-05-12T19:08:55+00:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "Replied to <a href=\"https://khurt.com/this-is-a-post/\">This is a post</a> by Kh\u00fcrt Williams<em> (khurt.com)</em>\n<blockquote>Webmentions will appear below this post.</blockquote>\n\nThis text will appear as a comment below a post on <a href=\"https://khurt.com/this-is-a-post/\">this</a> website.",
        "text": "Replied to This is a post by Kh\u00fcrt Williams (khurt.com)\nWebmentions will appear below this post.\n\nThis text will appear as a comment below a post on this website."
    },
    "name": "This is a Webmention Post",
    "_id": "318631",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}