2022/Düsseldorf/setupindie
How to set up an Indie Web Page was a session at IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf 2022.
Archived from https://etherpad.indieweb.org/setupindie
IndieWebCamp 2022 Düsseldorf
Session: How to set up an Indie Web Page
When: 2022-04-30 11:45 CEST
Participants
Joschi Kuphal- Template:sarajaksa.eu
Sebastiaan Andeweg- Deborah
- Richard
- Zinzy (remote)
- Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
Notes
We started the session with the reasons, why we like the Indie Web. The reasons were the ability to say things, that we want to share, the ability to have the design we want, the ability to own the data, the ability to control our experience, the ability to experience the web in the direction we want, not the direction that the clients wants us to be.
We then talked about the basic components of the website. The website needs to things - the first is the domain, and the second in the web hotel.
Each computer on the internet has the address, that can be accessed it at. But this address is in the form of numbers and dots. Since most people do not like to be writing the numbers and dots, we use something call DNS, which means, that we can now use the word dot a couple of letters instead of these numbers and dots, and they get translated automatically. The domains are the one thing, that needs to be paid for.
The web hotel is the computer, where the website is saved.
There are multiple ways to set the web hotel. We discussed three below:
1. WordPress
The first idea we discussed was the wordpress hosting. The pluses were, that it is simple to set it up in the couple of minutes - based on the experience from the wordpress workshops. But none of the people in the session like the Wordpress as the platform, since it is a dependency. But it is possibility to leave this dependence behind, as long as one uses the their own domain, and not the .wordpress.com. But the wordpress charges a lot for custom domain now. It was on the end still considered the best option for somebody that want to get on the internet as quick as possible.
2. GitHub static site
Git is not an easy thing to explain to the beginners, based on people's present experience. But it is not really necessary to understand git to use GitHub as website without understanding git, as long as one stays away from the branches and therefore merge conflicts. But it is still a dependency and there was some worries, that there is still a lot of implicit knowledge needed to use this option.
3. HTML with the FTP
The last option presented was the HTML over the FTP. Just find a local company offering hosting, and then put the HTML on the server and serve them. There is no dependencies and no security problems.
There was then a question about, how much of a technological knowledge and programming is needed for this. We were not a good group to decide this, since everything not requiring the IDE (dedicating coding environment) is not considering coding for some.
Then was a question about the design of Indie Web pages and if there is a template, which made some of the people realize, that Indie Web is not really understood. So Indie Web page was explained as something, that is:
- own their own domain
- serves content
- as the personal page (as opposed to corporate)
Anything else is optional. As long as this is true, this is already an Indie Web page. Some of the comments were dedicated about the dissatisfaction about the Indie Mark, generations and similar concepts, because they are understood as linear progression.
The last part was talking about the domain registration. It was considered too easy for some of them, and the session to set the people without domain with one was set.