Okay, “make what you need” might be good for the IndieWeb’s future after all
I recently made the case that Make what you need might be all wrong for the IndieWeb’s future and then theAdhocracy and made some strong counterpoints. I’d like to explore those counterpoints.
Just solve the problem
Make what you need can be stressed as make what you need. Just solve the problem or requirement you have and nothing more.
don’t try to make an all-singing, all-dancing tool that aims to do everything for everyone: solve the problem you have.
That’s totally fair. A good thing that does the one task is better than an okay thing that does what you need and a bunch of stuff you could live without.
A little Darwinism in the code space is a good thing
Survival of the best solutions in a space is almost certainly good for all of us. Indeed, as theAdhocracy points out, even more competition and services would be a good thing.
The community is, after all, working towards that.
I honestly had not considered this point at all. Sure, we might get a bunch of square wheels, but we will also get rounder wheels and even some good suspension and tires.
I still have doubts about WebMention spam
I’ve never seen it, but have encountered people claiming that WebMention spam was the cause for them giving up on the idea. I still suspect this was due to a weak implementation that might not have taken the “confirm link” step. I can’t know that for sure, but it is still my guess.
Conclusion
The comments from theAdhocracy contained a lot of truth and were a kind and gentle correction to my not-fully-informed opinion.
Perhaps “Make what you need” is not such a bad idea after all.
What I do know for certain is that I was on the receiving end of a great rebuttal. Something that hurts the ego a little but causes growth, increased understanding, and exposure to new ideas. I have benefited from the new ideas I encountered today.
🔖 Bookmarked Seeing A Different Web (https://mtwb.blog/posts/2025/tech/seeing-a-different-web/)
Matt’s post talks about how the return to the "small web" or "IndieWeb" has allowed new surfers to recapture the original sense of community and direct interaction of the early days of the web, before social media and the five websites.
Added a preview feature!
https://mattl.github.io/simple-html-file-generator/ (expand it at the top)
Thanks @alabut for the suggestion
I updated my site to use the Libravatar CDN for avatars. If one isn't found, it will still fallback to Gravatar, so it should be seamless for commenters. I also updated the default icon to identicons, so people without avatars will get a nifty geometric image instead of the anonymous silhouette.
My privacy policy is updated with this information too.
I updated my site to use the Libravatar CDN for avatars. If one isn't found, it will still fallback to Gravatar, so it should be seamless for commenters. I also updated the default icon to identicons, so people without avatars will get a nifty geometric image instead of the anonymous silhouette.
My privacy policy is updated with this information too.
Today has officially been productive. I finally got around to displaying #webmentions on my blog posts.
Kev Quirk has gone back and forth between Micro.blog and Mastodon, now back on Micro.blog. It really can’t be overstated how great it is to move followers between platforms. One of the most important features of the fediverse.
I'm also selling a new product: These are premium three-inch **glow-in-the-dark** #IndieWeb stickers. $1 per sticker will go to the indieweb.org open collective donation page.
As always, I have a limited supply of these.
I saw the “IndieWeb is Punk” shirt earlier this summer and found a way make more unofficial #IndieWeb merch happen.
<details: https://www.nicksimson.com/posts/2025-indieweb-is-metal>
Today I'm throwing some of my thoughts into a conversation about blog comments that's been going around.
https://axxuy.xyz/blog/posts/2025/lazycomments/
#Blog #Blogging #Blogpost #IndieWeb #PersonalWebsite #PersonalBlog #Blaugust #Blaugust2025
This poll, all the people and the AI I asked voted differently. Also, the most important thing is what I like. So, I combined two sets by using a trick of separating the first and last character of an H1 title for extra fancy treatment (V2) and normal fancy treatment (V3) for the rest.
All the WebMention libraries and plugins I could find
I’m a huge fan of WebMention. You might have noticed how often I go on and on and on about it. WebMEntion is the future of interactive communication. Or, at least, I think so.
As I have sort of made a huge fuss about how rolling your own might not be a good idea, I have compiled all of the WebMention implementations that are ready to use.
First up, the WebMention protocol specs.
PHP
- WordPress – Plugin By Matthias Pfefferle
- Laravel – Webmentions client for getting mentions from webmention.io
- ProcessWire – Webmention Module
- Drupal – Linkback (unclear to me if functional)
- Drupal – Vinculum (unclear to me if functional)
- Elgg – Elgg WebMentions
- NucelusCMS – Webmention Nucleus Plugin (in search of new maintainer)
- Craft CMS – Craft Webmention Client Plugin (abandoned)
- Craft CMS – Webmention for Craft CMS
- Kirby – Kirby Webmentions Plugin
- Library – PEAR2 Services_Linkback
- Library – sending pings
- Library – phpish/webmention
- Library – webmentions-parser parse mentions from HTML
- Library – Webmention Endpoint Discovery
- Library – Apiary Webmention Support
- Library/Parser – link-rel-parser-php (can handle WebMention endpoint discovery so I am told)
- Library/Parser – phpish/link_header – can parse headers to find endpoints
- Code – Minimum viable webmention in PHP
Javascript
- webmention.app – github
- Gatsby – Gatsby Plugin Webmention
- Library – rendering mentions from webmention.io
- Node.js helper – An API of helper functions for consuming webmentions (inactive)
Rust
- Cargo – webmention
Go
- Library – for sending mentions
Ruby
- Gem – webmention-client-ruby
Python
- Library – public domain – webmention 0.0.4
- Code – Send a mention in 10 lines of code
- Library – webmention-tools
- Library – ronkyuu
- Lirary – WENT – went stands for webmention endpoint tools.
- Library/Tool – Pushl
Elixir
- Module – A Webmention module for Elixir.
Third party
Eleventy
- Guide – An In-Depth Tutorial of Webmentions + Eleventy (webmention.io)
Did I get them all?
I searched a number of places and examined a bunch of other people’s lists. So, at the very least, I think I must have found the lion’s share. If I missed a library, some code, or a plugin – especially if the language is not listed – please don’t hesitate to reply, comment, or webmention (the classy way) to let me know.
I will update with any I missed, or even release a new edition if this list changes that much.
Is there a WebMention plugin or library for your favourite content platform?
#Business #Outlooks
We are still the web · It’s the audience that makes the web again https://ilo.im/165ysw
_____
#Web #Audience #People #Community #Participation #Creativity #Blog #OpenWeb #IndieWeb #SmallWeb
🛜 An important syndication channel wasn't functioning properly. Probably because it was poorly designed... by me.
Read all about it:
https://hisvirusness.com/im-also-shocked-that-this-works
Webcomic #96 is out now:
https://greysky.neocities.org/?pg=96
Also my personal website is up now:
Mind you that there isn't much to talk about myself but maybe I'll add more later on.
Also sorry for the delay, a lot of things I had to do and my laptop wouldn't charge properly unless I use the other port (framework 13).
#cc #creativecommons #freeculture #krita #webcomic #indieweb
#IndieWeb folks - I am only just getting into webmentions, and I am wondering a bit about etiquette.
Are webmentions mainly for blog posts, or would you send a mention if you link out from a note or permanent page?
Are they for any time you link to another site at all, even if it's just in passing?
So I thought I'd ask all of you: when do you send webmentions?
I always thought it was odd that everything the #IndieWeb org and #IndieWebSocial guys seemed to advocate for had to do with making it easier for bots to identify you.
Then when they celebrated #Threads adopting rel=me links I knew what their game was.
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/meta-facebook-tech-copyright-privacy-whistleblower
Hi, fedi! I'm crawling out of my hermit hole to share my new app, TumblBee, with you all 🐝
https://lilacpixel.itch.io/tumblbee
TumblBee is a pay-what-you-want cross-platform app for exporting your original #Tumblr posts (and pages) to Markdown or HTML. Back up your content and browse it locally, or export to Markdown and drop your posts into your favorite static site generator. (There's even a guide to exporting for Obsidian, if that's your thing.)
If you decide to give it a try, I'd love to hear about it! Boosts are, as always, hugely appreciated 💕 
Thanks so much!
#software #tools #IndieDev #IndieWeb #SmallWeb #blogging #backup #markdown