I still use search, maps, and to a much lesser extent, Gmail. I used Google Drive but I won’t be sad about losing that since I have a local (Nextcloud) alternative. #google #indieweb
@pixeline @sophie @nickautomatic @btconf @tantek.com hear, hear!
I have started linking #btconf folks on my website, as promised:
https://fredrocha.net/like-minded/#btconf-sites
I also laid out some thoughts on what happens once you roll your own website into the wild:
https://fredrocha.net/2023/04/21/build-your-own-website-and-they-will-not-come/
If we dream together, it's doable.
Creating your own website, own your data and display the things you’re into under your domain. When online, be a creator, not a consumer.
I’m all in for this mantra, but this realization stops short of a painful, cold truth; your content is probably going to be ignored. It sucks to keep sharing your content and having no one contribute and add their own opinions / takes to yours. I know because I’ve been doing this for a decade now, ah!
I posed this problem to Sophie Koonin at the closing get-together at Beyond Tellerrand conference in Düsseldorf, and she was kind enough to share some of her ideas on this. She mentioned POSSEing your content (ie, posting it on your own website and then sharing it on all the platforms), mentioned webrings and personalsit.es, but also agreed none of this will guarantee that a continued, healthy conversation will keep happening at your own personal website. Your amazingly quirky content and your exciting ideas are prone to be forever ignored by the wider web.
I’ll link to yours if you link to mine
Lots of the attendees at #BTConf are interested, on top of interesting. Lots of them have personal websites, and are kind enough to link to each other’s websites, given the chance and the right push. So I decided to stir the exchanges a bit, and posted a request for URLs:
(https://mastodon.social/@john_fisherman/110224246899618915)
And with this, personal sites started pinging. And I started listing them on this page. Send me your personal URL (RSS feed included, if you have it), my touch points are here. Or by simply commenting on this post.
Proposal for a man-machine powered protocol
Tantek was kind enough to hop on the previous Mastodon post and lay out some indie web approaches and technologies that can help discoverability of your content. But this ultimately is a human problem as well, recommendations need to come with social validation lest they effectively be taken into account. Ie, I am much more likely to read / follow / comment someone’s content if I have met this person or if someone recommended them to me. People belonging to a MAFIA will float up much quicker than a new kid on the block trying to get noticed. This happens across industries, because all industries are operated and run by humans.
We need an approach that not only relies on Web Mentions, ActivityPub, POSSIE, etc, but also stems from veterans and well-known (linked) people on the web linking newcomers, or simply someone who hasn’t been able to establish an online presence yet. I am not sure how this would work in practice — this is a call for discussion — but already have a name for it: AIFAM. It’s MAFIA mirrored, meaning it should work as an anti-MAFIA, a selfless and democratizing sharing of influence online. It’s pronounced “Hey, Fam! 👋”.
Discuss!
https://fredrocha.net/2023/04/21/build-your-own-website-and-they-will-not-come/
For this weeks #FollowFriday I want to suggest:
Follow hashtags here on Mastodon!
Eg: #webmention or #IndieWeb
A great way to find new people and great posts.
Also: Remember to add hashtags and to use camel case / pascal case when doing so!
Now, this is super interesting. Last night, I asked how people display #Webmentions on their (#IndieWeb) sites. I already got a few really good answers, including e.g. the sites of @sia, @nhoizey, and @andy. 🙏
But now, I want more. 😁 And I’ll write a summary (with details), of course.
Have you seen a Webmention implementation with great UX or anything that looks like a great best practice? LMK below!
👇
Tantek Çelik blogs about yesterday’s The Verge article on ActivityPub, underscoring some of the IndieWeb principles that are covered. There’s really a lot in there and I’m glad to see the article getting so much attention. Thanks @pierce@mas.to!
ActivityPub is the next big thing in social networks - The Verge
After nearly two decades of fighting for this vision of the internet, the people who believed in federation feel like they’re finally going to win. The change they imagine still requires a lot of user education — and a lot of work to make this stuff work for users. But the fundamental shift, from platforms to protocols, appears to have momentum in a way it never has before.
I am really impatient for #SocialMedia to become more like email and for all walled gardens to just connect with one another already.
😐
I was very happy to see that he also clearly communicated several #IndieWeb principles¹, practices, goals, and reasons why². Like this quote:
“But the advice you’ll hear from most people in this space is this: own your own domain. Don’t be john@/mastodon.social or anna@/facebook.com. Have a space that is yours, that belongs to you, a username and identity that can’t disappear just because a company goes out of business or sells to a megalomaniac.”
and this:
“It’s [your own domain is] your YouTube channel name and your TikTok username and your Instagram handle and your phone number and your Twitter @, all in one name.”
Great interviews with @stevetex@mozilla.social, @mike@flipboard.social, @dustycloud.org (@cwebber@octodon.social), @evanp.me (@evan@cosocial.ca), @anildash.com (@anildash@me.dm), @coachtony@me.dm, and @manton.org.
As Manton said in the article:
“If you solve identity with domain names, it makes things easier because it fits the way the web has been for 20 years,”
Pierce also noted:
“you might soon be able to turn your personal website into your entire social identity online”
Already can.
I replied to Pierce’s post³ about his article noting this⁴, from #federating directly from my website for the past ~6 months⁵, to over a decade of using it as my social identity with the POSSE method⁶ with various #socialMedia silos.
It’s important enough that I’ll repeat part of Pierce’s quote at the top:
“own your own domain. Don’t be john@/mastodon.social or anna@/facebook.com. Have a space that is yours”
He gets it. Don’t be someone at someone else’s server.
Big Chad or Little Chad’s garages⁷ are social media stepping stones towards owning your own domain and IndieWeb presence.
We’re here when you’re ready to take that next step: https://chat.indieweb.org/
This is day 38 of #100DaysOfIndieWeb. #100Days
← Day 37: https://tantek.com/2023/109/t2/years-ago-first-federated-indieweb-thread
→ 🔮
¹ https://indieweb.org/principles
² https://indieweb.org/why
³ https://mas.to/@pierce/110231624819547202
⁴ https://tantek.com/2023/110/t1/
⁵ https://tantek.com/2022/301/t1/twittermigration-bridgyfed-mastodon-indieweb
⁶ https://indieweb.org/POSSE
⁷ https://tantek.com/2023/001/t1/own-your-notes
Especially your #IndieWeb encouragements to:
“own your own domain”
“Have a space that is yours, that belongs to you, a username and identity that can’t disappear just because a company goes out of business or sells to a megalomaniac.”
As you pointed out, the “WordPress plug-in for ActivityPub” enables this today for people who use WordPress for their site.
One minor correction. You said:
“… you might soon be able to turn your personal website into your entire social identity online”
Always have been.
About six months ago I setup my personal website https://tantek.com/ as my #fediverse address @tantek.com¹. No need for a separate Mastodon account on someone else’s instance.²
This transmission is coming to you³ … from my personal website.
For 13+ years I’ve been using my site as my social identity⁴, using POSSE (before we called it that) to syndicate & distribute my posts to Twitter*, eventually to Facebook*, Flickr, GitHub, and now #federating directly with #ActivityPub supporting servers & services.
*Until they (Facebook, Twitter) dropped or disabled API access, and I haven't posted there since.
As you said:
“It’s [your own domain is] your YouTube channel name and your TikTok username and your Instagram handle and your phone number and your Twitter @, all in one name”
https://tantek.com/contact is my “phone number”, it’s the 💬 on the top left on my home page.
The web is already “the underlying infrastructure of the social web”.
"your own domain" can already be “your identity for everything”.
Lots more on this at https://indieweb.org/
¹ https://tantek.com/2022/301/t1/twittermigration-bridgyfed-mastodon-indieweb
² https://tantek.com/2023/001/t1/own-your-notes
³ https://youtu.be/ScJvQhWL7Lg?t=24
⁴ https://tantek.com/2010/001/t1/declaring-independence-building-it
I was very happy to see that he also clearly communicated several #IndieWeb principles¹, practices, goals, and reasons why². Like this quote:
“But the advice you’ll hear from most people in this space is this: own your own domain. Don’t be john@/mastodon.social or anna@/facebook.com. Have a space that is yours, that belongs to you, a username and identity that can’t disappear just because a company goes out of business or sells to a megalomaniac.”
and this:
“It’s [your own domain is] your YouTube channel name and your TikTok username and your Instagram handle and your phone number and your Twitter @, all in one name.”
Great interviews with @stevetex@mozilla.social, @mike@flipboard.social, @dustycloud.org (@cwebber@octodon.social), @evanp.me (@evan@cosocial.ca), @anildash.com (@anildash@me.dm), @coachtony@me.dm, and @manton.org (@manton@manton.org).
As Manton said in the article:
“If you solve identity with domain names, it makes things easier because it fits the way the web has been for 20 years,”
Pierce also noted:
“you might soon be able to turn your personal website into your entire social identity online”
Already can.
I replied to Pierce’s post³ about his article noting this⁴, from #federating directly from my website for the past ~6 months⁵, to over a decade of using it as my social identity with the POSSE method⁶ with various #socialMedia silos.
It’s important enough that I’ll repeat part of Pierce’s quote at the top:
“own your own domain. Don’t be john@/mastodon.social or anna@/facebook.com. Have a space that is yours”
He gets it. Don’t be someone at someone else’s server.
Big Chad or Little Chad’s garages⁷ are social media stepping stones towards owning your own domain and IndieWeb presence.
We’re here when you’re ready to take that next step: https://chat.indieweb.org/
This is day 38 of #100DaysOfIndieWeb. #100Days
← Day 37: https://tantek.com/2023/109/t2/years-ago-first-federated-indieweb-thread
→ 🔮
¹ https://indieweb.org/principles
² https://indieweb.org/why
³ https://mas.to/@pierce/110231624819547202
⁴ https://tantek.com/2023/110/t1/
⁵ https://tantek.com/2022/301/t1/twittermigration-bridgyfed-mastodon-indieweb
⁶ https://indieweb.org/POSSE
⁷ https://tantek.com/2023/001/t1/own-your-notes
“Convenience is one of those things you pay interest on. And when the price is as valuable as our attention, it’s rarely worth the cost”
Another #blog post up and some more thoughts about the digital world, the attention economy and the tools we use (and how they use us in return)
On a side note, it’s quite exciting to see this little blog of mine starting to actually take shape now.
The Verge has a long article by David Pierce today about ActivityPub. The quote from me about domain names doesn’t come across quite how I intended it… Yes, domain names are hard, but we need to make them much easier to deal with because they’re actually great.
new blog post! 🧑💻
this one is a little til on running python, via cron, in a docker container, on a raspberry pi (and all the associated headaches)
https://andrewconl.in/til/running-python-in-cron-in-docker/
#selfhost #webdev #indieweb #blog #docker #python #raspberrypi
This might be the most important blog post I ever wrote. It's been a while since I wanted to publish some sort of personal manifesto on my site.
After I stopped promoting myself as if I were a brand, I needed to put my foot down and declare what I stand for, on the only place that's not going away: my personal website.
So, here it is. A personal manifesto, where I touch on these topics:
#MentalHealth
#Sustainability
#Technology
#SmallWeb
#IndieWeb
#SocialMedia
2013-04-19 @eschnou.com posted a brief note on his personal site with #atMentions of a few domains (putting an '@' sign immediately before a domain name to indicate an explicit cross-web @-mention), which itself was also a first²
"Testing #indieweb federation with @waterpigs.co.uk, @aaronparecki.com and @indiewebcamp.com !"
When @aaronpk.com was notified and replied from his site within minutes³, it became the first peer-to-peer federated IndieWeb comment thread, at the time using h-entry and Pingback. I blogged about it a few days later⁴.
Earlier this year I blogged more observations of all the user interactions that happened on that day and shortly thereafter to make this all work: https://tantek.com/2023/014/t4/domain-first-federated-atmention
Unfortunately Laurent Eschnou’s original post is no longer up, and we only have the Internet Archive copy. However most of the IndieWeb reply posts are still up including Barnaby’s: https://waterpigs.co.uk/notes/1334/
The oldest still working federated post and comment thread was second overall, unsurprisingly from @aaronparecki.com⁵, a whole 40 days after Laurent’s first.
This is day 37 of #100DaysOfIndieWeb. #100Days #OpenWeb #federation #fediverse
← Day 36: https://tantek.com/2023/100/t1/auto-linked-hashtags-federated
→ 🔮
Glossary
federation
https://indieweb.org/federation
h-entry
https://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry
Pingback
https://indieweb.org/Pingback
reply post
https://indieweb.org/reply
References
¹ https://web.archive.org/web/20130427010301/http://eschnou.com/entry/testing-indieweb-federation-with-waterpigscouk-aaronpareckicom-and--62-24908.html
² https://tantek.com/2023/014/t4/domain-first-federated-atmention
³ https://aaronparecki.com/2013/04/19/3/indieweb
⁴ https://tantek.com/2013/113/b1/first-federated-indieweb-comment-thread
⁵ https://aaronparecki.com/2013/05/21/4/xkcd
My personal URL is https://tantek.com/ and my #fediverse @ is @tantek.com. My Atom feed file is auto-discoverable by feed readers from my home page.
Feeding (so to speak) two discovery birds with one stonefruit¹.
Your personal website can be your fediverse address², each providing seamless discovery for the other.
As web developers we should be building & developing our personal sites to exemplify the latest & greatest of such practices, including using Mastodon/ActivityPub as yet another distribution mechanism (ala POSSE) for your existing personal websites rather than a separate profile/stream.
Discussed this with @nebu@mastodon.social and @kadirtopal@mastodon.social just after the last talk @beyondtellerrand.com (@btconf@mastodon.social @btconf) yesterday, fitting conference closing thoughts complementing the heartfelt opening talk by @localghost.dev (https://sophie.omg.lol/ @sophie@social.lol)³.
Glossary
ActivityPub
https://indieweb.org/ActivityPub
feed file
https://indieweb.org/feed_file
POSSE
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
References
¹ https://tantek.com/2020/147/t2/replace-violent-metaphors
² https://tantek.com/2022/301/t1/twittermigration-bridgyfed-mastodon-indieweb
³ https://tantek.com/2023/107/t1/beyond-tellerand-talk-love-personal-website
2013-04-19 @eschnou.com posted a brief note on his personal site with #atMentions of a few domains (putting an '@' sign immediately before a domain name to indicate an explicit cross-web @-mention), which itself was also a first²
"Testing #indieweb federation with @waterpigs.co.uk, @aaronparecki.com and @indiewebcamp.com !"
When @aaronpk.com was notified and replied from his site within minutes³, it became the first peer-to-peer federated IndieWeb comment thread, at the time using h-entry and Pingback. I blogged about it a few days later⁴.
Earlier this year I blogged more observations of all the user interactions that happened on that day and shortly thereafter to make this all work: https://tantek.com/2023/014/t4/domain-first-federated-atmention
Unfortunately Laurent Eschnou’s original post is no longer up, and we only have the Internet Archive copy. However most of the IndieWeb reply posts are still up including Barnaby’s: https://waterpigs.co.uk/notes/1334/
The oldest still working federated post and comment thread was second overall, unsurprisingly from @aaronparecki.com⁵, a whole 40 days after Laurent’s first.
This is day 37 of #100DaysOfIndieWeb. #100Days #OpenWeb #federation #fediverse
← Day 36: https://tantek.com/2023/100/t1/auto-linked-hashtags-federated
→ 🔮
Glossary
federation
https://indieweb.org/federation
h-entry
https://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry
Pingback
https://indieweb.org/Pingback
reply post
https://indieweb.org/reply
References
¹ https://web.archive.org/web/20130427010301/http://eschnou.com/entry/testing-indieweb-federation-with-waterpigscouk-aaronpareckicom-and--62-24908.html
² https://tantek.com/2023/014/t4/domain-first-federated-atmention
³ https://aaronparecki.com/2013/04/19/3/indieweb
⁴ https://tantek.com/2013/113/b1/first-federated-indieweb-comment-thread
⁵ https://aaronparecki.com/2013/05/21/4/xkcd