how

From IndieWeb


how (or how to or how do I) is the second question after first asking why; why should I IndieWeb, or why should I adopt, use, do, or create any particular IndieWeb feature or building block, once clear, leads to how can I IndieWeb, or how can I adopt, use, do, or create a particular IndieWeb thing.

Useful questions

What problem are you trying to solve?

First think though exactly what problem you're actually trying to solve.

What is ______?

A reminder to search for examples of prior art before jumping in with both feet to solve an ill-defined or non-existent problem; also don't reinvent the wheel if you don't need to. See also What is XYZ?

Add Yourself

Don't forget to add your example/implementation to the wiki, so that others can see and learn from what you've done. It's also not a bad general life aphorism either...

Own Site First

If you're going to do something, implement it on your own site first.

Frame things in a positive light

Similar to the aphorism that you'll get more flies with honey, it helps to think about your work and creative brainstorming in a positive framing instead of a negative one. It's easier to create/build with positivity than negativity, which tends to tear things down.

How to Join the IndieWeb Wiki

Joining the IndieWeb Wiki and prioritizing what you want to work on can be helpful for creating focus for what you want to work on.

Brainstorming

Adversarial Interoperability

Worth extracting some specific and broad "how" approaches from:

  • 2019-06-07 boinboing: Adversarial interoperability: reviving an elegant weapon from a more civilized age to slay today's monopolies has many tips / proven techniques for how to convert folks from using silos to using indieweb approaches, e.g.

    Once Facebook could give new users the ability to stay in touch with MySpace friends, then every message those Facebook users sent back to MySpace—with a footer advertising Facebook's superiority—became a recruiting tool for more Facebook users. MySpace served Facebook as a reservoir of conveniently organized potential users that could be easily reached with a compelling pitch about why they should switch.

    Now replace "Facebook" with "the IndieWeb" and "MySpace" with "Facebook", e.g.:

    Once [the IndieWeb] could give new users the ability to stay in touch with [Facebook] friends, then every message those [IndieWeb] users sent back to [Facebook]—with a footer advertising [the IndieWeb]'s superiority—became a recruiting tool for more [IndieWeb] users. [Facebook will serve the IndieWeb] as a reservoir of conveniently organized potential users that could be easily reached with a compelling pitch about why they should switch.

    [content replaced or inserted]. Redo with replacing [Facebook] with [Twitter] etc., and every other silo.

See Also