IndieWeb Questions
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IndieWeb Questions are commonly asked basic questions about the who, what, why, when, and where of the IndieWeb and the surrounding community and philosophies.
Often it may be difficult for new people to the community to know where to start--hopefully this page will give a quick, basic overview along with some good links to provide jumping-off points for learning more.
Who
The IndieWeb community is comprised of a diverse and inclusive group of welcoming people who all agree to a code of conduct.
While some people may use IndieWeb principles for business use cases and some corporations may build and offer IndieWeb friendly products and services, the core of the community is created both by and for people.
What
The IndieWeb is about owning your domain and using it as your primary identity online where you publish on your own site (and optionally syndicate elsewhere) to own your data.
- You can have more than one such personal domain.
- You could use your own domain for purely a professional identity facet, preferring to keep anything personal off the internet/web. That's totally fine.
Why
There are many reasons why you should use the IndieWeb, from controlling your experience on the web (instead of corporate algorithms) to deciding how, where, and when to post your content and where it goes.
How
The IndieWeb community creates and advances itself based on a handful of useful guiding principles.
Searching the wiki to find documentation and examples of what and how others have built and designed their sites can be a great way to get the things you want to have working on your own site. Asking questions or for help in the online chat is definitely encouraged.
Once you've built something on your site, write about it (on your own site preferably) and document/link your examples on the wiki to help out others.
See Also:
When
People in the IndieWeb community are actively participating almost every hour of the day around the world in a variety of places and spaces.
There are a number of specific in-person and other related Events including IndieWebCamps and regular Homebrew Website Club meetups. (See below.)
You can begin right now by joining us in the chat.
Where
Naturally we're all actively participating in the IndieWeb from our own personal websites!
However, for ease-of-use and communication while we build and improve them, the community gathers together around two primary centralized resources:
- the IndieWeb wiki, which you're reading now;
- our online chat, which can be accessed by a variety of methods so you can choose your favorite including: online, via Slack (sign up here), IRC, Matrix, and Discord
- Chat is centered around a small number of specific discussions, but if you're not sure which one is best feel free to ask in any one of them and someone will help you find the best place to ask your questions, find help, or improve your personal website.
- Why not email? We don't utilize email as a primary means of communication for many reasons.
In addition to the online components of the community there are two ongoing in-person sets of events where the IndieWeb community regularly meets in-person:
- IndieWebCamp is a 2-day creator camp and ongoing community (e.g. on chat) focused on growing the independent web or "indieweb" for short.
- Homebrew Website Club is a growing world-wide network of meetups for everyone who wants to take back their web experience from social media silos, and own their online identities & content, or just want support with blogging!
Frequently Asked Questions
There really are so many questions one could ask and even the most experienced people in the area are coming up with new ones every day. If you can't find the answer to your own questions by means of search on the wiki, then definitely visit the online chat and ask today.
We're always happy to help people get started and find their way.
Articles
How do you define the IndieWeb?
- 2018-06-15
Chris Aldrich Defining the IndieWeb - 2020-01-01 User:Apiratelifefor.me IndieWeb Plugins and WordPress 101
Sessions
- Explaining the IndieWeb at IWC Austin 2020