discuss

From IndieWeb

Joy Division album cover style chart of 90 days of IRC activity Join #indieweb discussions via Discord, Slack, web chat, or IRC, (they are all bridged!) with focused channels for developers, WordPress, and meta topics!

All are welcome to participate in chat and meet other members of the IndieWeb community, discuss personal websites and IndieWeb projects, ask for help with technical issues, and more.

First time here? Want a quick reminder of which channel to use for what topics?

For technical information about how our chat and related services function, see discuss infrastructure.

Read Discussions

Discussions about the IndieWeb take place primarily in our chat channels which are archived:

Join Discussions

Join the discussions! The IndieWeb chat is bridged across chat services so that users can use their preferred chat platform and client!

Join via Discord

⚠️ ⚠️ Please avoid editing messages in Discord. Every edit causes the entire message to be resent to the chat and archived accordingly. Thank you!

Discord invitation link: https://discord.gg/UEp9p3yNYj. Join individual channels:

Join via Slack

Slack sign up link: https://chat.indieweb.org/slack. (Re)join the IndieWeb instance: https://indiewebcamp.slack.com/ or join individual channels:

Join via web chat

Tips:

  • When using the online chat, you can change your username by sending /nick <new username> into the chat.

Join via IRC

IRC:

Having trouble connecting? Refer to Libera’s Connection Guide

Add your icon

To have your icon or avatar show up on some of the platforms you'll need to add yourself to the list of chat-names (even if you're not using IRC). Due to some restrictions, avatars may not necessarily bridge across all platforms.

Chat Channels Purposes

Each of our chat channels has a specific purpose documented below.

Channel purpose mini-FAQ:

  • Not sure which channel to use?
  • Not sure if something belongs in #indieweb or #dev?
  • WordPress topic/example that seems more broadly IndieWeb related?

indieweb

#indieweb channel
Welcome to the indieweb! Feel free to introduce yourself and your personal site here! Great place to chat about what you want to do with your personal site, how to get on the indieweb, get started, how to post, what to post, indieweb events to join the community in-person, why indieweb (including applying principles directly to pragmatic personal site goals & improvements), what software / services are ready for users to use without dealing with coding or command lines.

Keep it user-centric please!

Not sure if you should ask a technical question here? Ask yourself:

  • Could someone who has never built a website understand what you’re about to say/ask?
    • If not, please ask in the indieweb-dev channel instead!
    • Everyone’s skill level and experience is different. Avoid words like “simple”, “just”, “obviously”, “easy” when explaining things. Such words may cause shame when people run into difficulty. Further reading is available in a blog post written by Chris Coyier on words to avoid in educational reading.
  • Is someone using jargon, code, or dev talk?

Politely request such conversations move to the indieweb-dev channel (see below). We encourage the whole community to help with this, to keep the main chat friendly for newcomers and folks that want to focus on using the indieweb! And it helps avoid encounters like:

For topics about the community, reasons/thinking behind (or evolving) the principles that are not otherwise directly tied to specific personal site improvements, please take those discussions to the indieweb-meta channel.

Lastly if you’re not sure where you should ask about a topic, you can ask that question in indieweb-meta.

dev

#indieweb-dev channel (#dev in Slack)
Development tools, services (like Bridgy), issues, APIs, creating anything besides content, and any kind of jargon. E.g. creating design, UX, implementation details, protocols (like HTTP, Webmention, Micropub, IndieAuth), formats (like HTML, CSS, microformats2, h-entry, h-card, h-event), frameworks, coding languages (like JS, PHP, Python, Ruby), server configuration (Apache, nginx, HTTPS), and other plumbing.

wordpress

#indieweb-wordpress channel (#wordpress in Slack)
WordPress-specific topics: Getting Started with WordPress, IndieWeb WordPress plugins, WordPress themes, general WordPress development. If a discussion becomes more generally applicable beyond WordPress, consider taking it to the #dev channel.

meta

#indieweb-meta channel (#meta in Slack)
Anything about the IndieWeb community, our principles, events both IndieWeb-focused and open/interesting to IndieWeb participants (coding, social web, personal data etc.), organizing & planning events, wikifying & wiki gardening, indieweb.org infrastructure like our MediaWiki & Meetable (https://events.indieweb.org) & chat channels/bridges/bots, and any issues or feature requests for any of the above.

events

#indieweb-events channel (#events in Slack)
For use during or before an event, to discuss logistics or socializing around an event, and for notifications about upcoming events.

stream

#indieweb-stream channel (#stream in Slack)
Loqi reports posts that mention IndieWeb keywords in this channel. Mastodon tag feeds for the keyword "#indieweb" from mastodon.social and indieweb.social are included. There are also a number of individual blogs followed with a filter for indieweb-related keywords. You can also read the combined feed of posts at https://stream.indieweb.org

random

#indieweb-random channel (#random in Slack)
Random is a channel for active members of the IndieWeb community to talk about other things and is not publicly logged. You may quote on-topic things from the random channel, e.g. in other channels, or to create or add to a relevant wiki page via Loqi, keeping such operational commands from adding noise to human conversations in other channels.

Slack and Discord have some number of lines of scrollback (like a cache) to provide context for recent messages, however both the #random and #cafe channels are not publicly logged.

cafe

#indieweb-cafe channel (#cafe in Slack)
The cafe channel is an off-the-record channel for active IndieWeb community members, with expectations of no quoting and no logging, similar to having a chat at a public cafe. Quoting or even summarizing statements in this channel to anywhere else (including other channels) may only occur after getting explicit permission from the author(s) of those statements.

Related Chat Channels

Related channels often used by the community:

microformats channel

#microformats (#microformats in Slack)
Ask about microformats in general, or the process of developing a new one or new features by researching, documenting examples, brainstorming, etc.

known channel

#indieweb-known (#known in Slack)
Similar to the wordpress channel, the Known channel is for Known-specific topics (plugins, evolution, troubleshooting etc.)

Slack Users

  1. Join the IndieWeb Slack Community!
  2. Join additional channels!
    • From the desktop: click the Channels heading in the sidebar to view the other channels. Click a channel, i.e. #dev, it will show you a preview of that channel with a Join Channel button.

Search

The chat rooms (except for #indieweb-cafe and #indieweb-random) can be searched at

People on IRC

Main article: chat-names

See our list of chat regulars sorted by nickname, with their website and usual timezone(s).

The channel has regular administrators, who are also wiki administrators. If you want to get their attention, just say "adminhelp".

FAQ

Why use Slack

Q: Why do you use Slack? Isn't that not "indie"?

A: Slack is one way to join the chat. The canonical chat logs are at https://chat.indieweb.org Slack provides several features that some people prefer over other chat clients, so bridging to Slack lets people join and communicate using their preferred chat client.

Why use Discord

Q: Why do you use Discord? Isn't that not "indie"?

A: Discord is one way to join the chat. The canonical chat logs are at https://chat.indieweb.org Discord provides several features that some people prefer over other chat clients, so bridging to Discord lets people join and communicate using their preferred chat client.

Why no Matrix

For a while people could join via Matrix. Matrix was supported until the bridge hosted by element.io was disabled per:

There is no known effort to restore Matrix support.

View other networks bridged to Matrix (and history of bridge shutdown) here:

What is the difference between the random and cafe channels?

The random channel is a newer channel for off-topic chat that improves the experience across platforms by allowing more backlog on Discord and Slack. It is still not logged publicly on https://chat.indieweb.org, however on-topic conversations in random may be quoted in other channels or on the wiki. By contrast, everything in the cafe channel is expected to be off the record.

"Random" is a more common channel name in chat communities, so this sets a clearer expectation. Some people may have thought of "indieweb-chat" as "THE indieweb chat".

When are channels active

When are channels most active?

Anecdotally the channels seem quite active: (may need updating)

  • 08:00-10:00 Pacific Time (-0800/-0700)
  • 16:00-18:00 UK Time (+0000/+0100)
  • 17:00-19:00 EU Time (+0100/+0200)

Why do some people have brackets

Brackets around a name mean that is a Slack user. If you see brackets around someone’s name like:

  • [mattl]

that means they are chatting using Slack.

Brackets with a "d" after a name mean that is a Discord user. If you see "[d]" after a name like:

  • capjamesg[d]

that means they are chatting using Discord.

See this chat log for examples of both:

How to reset a Slack handle

Slack users show up in IRC (and then bridged to Discord) with brackets around their name. When there is an IRC netsplit, this can result in the IRC bot for a Slack user to rejoin the channel with a 2 or 3 after their name, for example appearing in IRC as "[tantek]2". The bot tries occasionally to reset the nick automatically but it doesn't always work.

You can manually trigger a reset of the Slack user's IRC nick by sending a private message on IRC to the bot containing just "!nick". You should almost immediately get a reply from the bot confirming.

Differences between chat services

What are the differences among chat services for interacting with the IndieWeb chat?

Each of these four options is roughly equivalent from a text perspective, though each may have features, configurations, or other niceties that differentiate them somewhat from each other.

Depending on your chat client, Discord users will have a [d] following their names, or users from Slack appear with their username in brackets. Some usernames may have the word "app" after them to indicate their content is originating from another platform. For cross-platform notifications to work on the receiving platform, one may need to include the [d] on screen names from Discord.

Some platforms, like Slack, will unfurl URLs or provide a link-preview into the chat while others will allow wiki page names pre-pended with a slash to autolink to the exact wiki webpage (eg: "/principles" in some chat platforms will link to the principles wiki page). Slack emoji responses aren't bridged to other platforms, so giving a heart or thumbs up to someone's post won't be seen unless they're also on Slack. Slack threads are also platform specific, so any threaded messages will appear without context on other platforms.

Keywords

People frequently in chat might like to be aware that many chat clients provide the ability to allow their users to be given real-time notifications when either their username or other specified keywords are used in individual channels. (Check the documentation of your chat client(s) for details.) This can be useful if one wants to engage in conversations around particular topics in chat.

Many organizers and project developers will have turned on notifications for keywords related to projects they're actively working on or which they support. Other community members or volunteers may have notifications for particular topics/keywords on which they're an expert and are willing to provide pointers or support. Keep in mind and be respectful of the fact that almost everyone in chat is an unpaid volunteer and we're all on different work and personal schedules as well as in different timezones. Depending on how often people are in chat and whether or not they read all the logs, Loqi can be helpful for communicating across time and space.

Why do I have to wait 10 minutes on Discord

Q: Why do I have to 10 minutes before I can chat on Discord?

A: We have our Discord access to chat set to requiring being a member of that server for 10 minutes as the "High" setting of "Verification Level" to reduce the burden on the community for fighting spam.

This is one technique among many for blocking TONS of spam (which we’ve seen on other Discords).

The next lower setting for Verification Level, "Medium" / "Must also be registered on Discord for longer than 5 minutes" is insufficient to block the very common spambot practice of: create an account on a spammer Discord, wait 5 minutes, go spam all the open channels on the list of Discords you've been able to find. for crypto, onlycorn, whatever.

Unless we can find willing and dependable community volunteers (multiple, in order to cover 24/7 timezone adjusted, weekends, taking vacations) who can commit to (1) rapidly block spammers, and (2) rapid delete and clear spam from IRC/chat archives, and the various clients (at least Slack and Discord), then we can't bear to have only "Medium" verification level on Discord.

Using an IRC client

  1. If you're already an IRC user, setup your client with:
    • Server: irc.libera.chat
    • Port: 6697 (usually default)
  2. Join the channels above (by clicking on the chat links)

See the libera.chat connect guide if you’re having trouble connecting.

Email

There is no mailing list! 🎉

This is a deliberate decision. We encourage focusing on short discussions in chat and capturing incremental agreements/disagreements on the wiki. This also discourages long essays and repetition of arguments that can take place on email threads.

For more see:

Logs

If you prefer an email-like experience reading things in the past, see the current logs!

The source data of the logs served at chat.indieweb.org is available on GitHub.

Logs on Your iPhone Home Screen

To add the IRC logs to your iPhone home screen, visit the page below on your phone:

https://chat.indieweb.org/today?bookmark

Follow the link on that page. Then, from Safari, add that page to your home screen.

Suggestions

We have the most awesome IRC logs on the web. That doesn't mean they can't be even more awesome. Got an idea, suggestion, or issue to report about the logs? Create or comment on a GitHub issue:

Open source for the logs and web UI: https://github.com/indieweb/chat.indieweb.org

Why is there no channel for X

Historically the number of channels in the IndieWeb community chat has grown organically, after documented use-cases, time for discussion, and rough consensus on new names.

From time to time we do add new channels, generally when there is a consistent level of discussion and conversation that either makes it overwhelming or potentially unwelcoming to carry on discussions related to specific topics. This is balanced against the possibility that a new chat channel would be either so quiet or infrequently used that asking questions or attempting to have a conversation there wouldn't be conducive or would result in people repeating the same question in multiple channels.

There is usually an annual conversation about adding new channels at the organizers' meeting at the IndieWeb Summit, though other conversations do happen throughout the year or can be brought up in the #indieweb-meta channel.

Discord issues

The Discord bridge is using the go-discord-irc daemon; if you encounter issues with the bridging itself, please ping Peter Molnar or Aaron Parecki

There are some ongoing issues with the Discord bridge: messages from Discord to IRC may get lost in the wire. Please report any problems you experience.

Brainstorming

⚠️ See discuss/past for resolved and archived discussions

Avoid General Technology Rants

This is a proposed subsection for this page (maybe inside #FAQ?), with perhaps a forward link from the top of #Chat_Channels_Purposes, to help guide folks to avoiding (self-moderating) a mild chat anti-pattern that's popped up from time to time, and provide a convenient place to link folks rather than have to explain it every time.

The IndieWeb community chat has an overall positive and constructive culture, in particular on topics directly relating to the independent web and empowering each other, and we’d like to keep it that way.

Technology media (and social media in general) tend to be dominated by negative articles and posts.

This guideline is a request to avoid general technology-related rants in our on-topic channels. Typically we have seen this sort of thing about whatever technology topic is attracting the most hype, currently generative AI (e.g. LLMs) or BigTech in general, and previously topics like “metaverse”, cryptocurrency, and blockchain.

Lots about technology and its impact on society can be frustrating, and there’s obviously a lot of sympathy for that in the community because we are trying to make a better web, using our own websites as exemplars.

Instead of our on-topic channels, a better outlet for technology rants (if you feel compelled to share or vent or find others who feel similarly) about such topics is the #random channel, or even better write up a thoughtful critique on your own blog!

We have a very constructively focused community, so another approach is to reconsider any general technology rant in terms of questions like:

  • How does this affect my personal experience on the web, and how would I like it to be instead?
  • How can I use my personal site as an alternative (or solution!) to such technological problems?
  • What could I create to help solve such a technological problem?

If you discover other ways or reframing rants into constructive thoughts and words, please share!

Avoid Tech Rants Poll

Thoughts?


web making channel

There is a growing broad spectrum of participants in the dev channel, including lots more beginner web developers who really want to learn a bit more about HTML+CSS (many recent questions) and may be (or are?) intimidated by the sometimes very deep and complex dev plumbing conversations.

Should we create a new channel that is focused primarily on (entry-level?) web makers for the curious and tinkerers who may be comfortable editing and uploading static HTML+CSS files, and maybe even using GitHub static pages to publish them, but are not interested in deep discussions of specifications, protocols, plumbing, server configuration etc.? Idea by capjamesg, roughly reworded by Tantek Çelik.

Examples of other communities that appeal to HTML+CSS web designers/developers (may be useful sources for naming considerations)

web making naming

Ideas for names of such a channel?

  • #frontend
    • +1 Al Abut I’d vote for either “indieweb-frontend” or the more streamlined “frontend” compared to the options above.
    • -0 Tantek Çelik There are other resources (Slacks etc.) for generic frontend web discussions, and a global channel named "frontend" would imply that it is aiming for all of that, which either loses or dilutes the IndieWeb focus.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • ...
  • #indieweb-beginner
    • -1 capjamesg - This should be a channel to discuss your personal website and making it. "beginner" implies this channel isn't for people who are more advanced and have questions about HTML/CSS, etc (a category in which I certainly fall :D).
    • -1 Murray - I feel like this is what the #indieweb channel should strive to be, otherwise this feels like the first channel to go to if you're new.
    • -1 João Pesce - Not narrow enough. I think beginners should be able to participate on the indie web without being concerned about HTML/CSS, like using a platform + pre-built theme.
    • -1 Aaron Parecki - agreed with the above comments
    • -1 Tantek Çelik - it's not beginner, and we should always work to make main (#indieweb) beginner friendly
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • #indieweb-frontend
    • +0 Tantek Çelik I like this overall, and definitely like it better than a bunch of of the other longer/wordier options like "-html-css-js" or "-web-dev", certainly better than "-beginner". It’s ok but changed my mind to prefer "-maker".
      • Description should include HTML+ARIA+mf2+CSS+SVG at least, with JS for progressive enhancement perhaps
    • +1 Al Abut I particularly love the word “frontend”. It’s sort of implicitly newbie-friendly by focusing on the best entry path to making websites (plain html is such a refreshingly “back to basics” type of tech) yet it also leaves a lot of head room to grow from that foundation. In fact I think the word “frontend” is strong enough to stand on its own as a channel name, without a prefix that muddies the waters like “indieweb-“ or “dev-“.
    • +1 Joe Crawford I think the indieweb-prefix sets the stage that the things intended are with an indieweb focus, and I think "frontend" is encompassing enough to address more than "html" and "CSS" which after all are incredibly rich technologies which pull in images, video, scripting, mobile, accessibility, and all the rest.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • #indieweb-html-css-js
    • 0 capjamesg - NB: There are other topics that are not HTML/CSS/JS that someone may want to discuss (my DNS isn't working / my site isn't loading properly, choosing colour schemes for one's website, layout principles like spacing, etc.).
    • 0 Murray - Feels too technical of a name, but I do think the simplicity has merit. I also think anything CSS automatically covers things like spacing, layout, colour schemes, but agree that this may not be clear.
    • -1 João Pesce - Might discourage people to ask some topics that are not HTML/CSS/JS related, but should be discussed.
    • 0 Aaron Parecki - Seems too specific
    • -1 Tantek Çelik - similar criticisms, too long, could/should also include ARIA, mf2, SVG
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • #indieweb-maker
    • +1 capjamesg - Sounds approachable and empowering.
    • 0 Murray - I like it, but would expect it to be more about content creation/artistic outputs e.g. writing, filming, photography etc.
    • +1 João Pesce - Sounds fun and not too technical, but I tend to associate maker with maker culture (i.e. physical things). Maybe #web-maker? might also address Murray's concerns.
    • 0 Aaron Parecki - I think this is too associated with maker culture as mentioned above
    • +1 Tantek Çelik agree with James, this is approachable and inviting and I think some overlap with maker culture is ok. I also think "maker" is a more inclusive than "frontend" on both ends, for folks who may consider themselves makers but not necesarily a "frontend" (coder) and for folks that may split their making across frontend and a little backend (e.g. tweak their CMS or static site generator) and want to chat about the latter.
    • -1 Al Abut I love the intention of this but “maker” is one of those vague overarching words that strikes me the same way that “creator” does. I’m constantly having to decode it to depending on the context of the platform or user type. It can mean filmmaker, writer, full-time marketer of their own personal brand, etc. And none of those necessarily imply the newbie-friendliness or focus on frontend tech that I think can be so valuable.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • #indieweb-web-dev
    • +1 Murray - I like that this keeps things broad enough but also uses a term many people are familiar with. Doesn't require technical knowledge/terms. Bonus that it mirrors the existing #dev channel, but perhaps too closely. Could be #web-development
    • 0 João Pesce - Sounds a little bit too technical to me. "dev" feels like a job. Making personal web sites should feel more like painting to me.
    • -1 Aaron Parecki - This is just going to be confusing, since in IRC it would be "#indieweb-web-dev" vs "#indieweb-dev", and then in Slack/Discord it would be "#web-dev" vs "#dev" and that doesn't really tell me what the difference is
    • -1 Tantek Çelik also confusing, web-dev is vague and means different things to different people
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)

other new channels

Other new channel proposals, some as alternatives to each other or above proposals.

protocols split from dev

Alternate proposal: move all protocol chat to a new channel called #indieweb-protocols and use #indieweb-dev for developer chat.

protocols specific naming

  • #indieweb-protocols
    • capjamesg +1
    • [qubyte] in Slack: "Sounds like a good idea!"
    • Aaron Parecki +1
    • Paul Robert Lloyd +1
    • -1 Tantek Çelik too much community labor to actually get indieweb-dev folks to move to indieweb-protocols, as evidence by existing folks, some here on the page, themselves having difficulty moving from #indieweb to #indieweb-dev. More here: https://chat.indieweb.org/meta/2024-03-30#t1711813588098200. Also "protocols" is too narrow, it does not include all building blocks standards, we also have "formats", we have discovery algorithms, etc. This is poor framing and doesn't actually address a real problem / cluster of conversations that needs a separate channel. It's already hard enough for folks to know when they should use #indieweb-dev vs #microformats and that's an existing similar split.
    • -0.5 gRegor Morrill I've not found the discussions in dev overwhelming/distracting enough to split off personally. Also concerned about the extra cognitive load tantek mentioned "where does this go?"
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • ...

Questions:

  • How would we differentiate this from the current #indieweb-dev channel?
  • Should we split Category:jargon into beginner/advanced jargon to have Loqi nudge people to the appropriate channel?

server split from dev

Alternate proposal: move all server-related chat to a new channel called #indiweb-server and use #indieweb-dev for typical/default client-side developer chat.

server specific naming

  • #indieweb-server
    • -0 Tantek Çelik: I like this much better than "-protocols" because I think it gets more to the heart of what are differences of what people (not) want to talk about in -dev, however I would still prefer to try starting with -frontend first (see above) which be enough for -dev to default to server related talk. and it will be much easier to have new HTML+ARIA+mf2+CSS+SVG folks join a -frontend channel than it will be to nudge server conversations out of -dev and into -server (same burden as -protocol noted above)
      • I would also be OK with a different label like "-sysadmin", or anything that indicates that the topic is more centered on server-side or administrative topics, rather than the development of sites
      • Does this run the risk of becoming an admin tax channel? 😉
    • -0.5 gRegor Morrill I've not found the discussions in dev overwhelming/distracting enough to split off personally. Also concerned about the extra cognitive load tantek mentioned "where does this go?"
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)

Questions:

  • Does -server imply -sysadmin?


link sharing

Quite often folks drop links into various channels that are on-topic for that channel, yet with either no context / connection to their indieweb relevance or only a few words of context, in essence, leaving it up to the labor of everyone else in the channel to figure out "Why is this relevant here?" which can be a drain.

  • Exception: if a related link is mentioned in the context of adding it to a wiki page e.g. using the Loqi << chat command, then that provides direct context, the specific wiki page, for further discussion.

This can be good (sharing new things that are IndieWeb related!) and yet can also have the downside of interrupting an actual direct conversation between other channel participants, or maybe worse for some folks, be a distraction that takes them to a social media website or down some other rabbithole instead of the conversation in chat or working personal site projects.

While we have the "random" channel for sharing random links and random chatter, just as we have the "stream" channel for the stream of posts from folks in the community and mentions of IndieWeb topics on social media, it may be useful to encourage use of a separate channel for such low-effort link sharing.

I have seen at least one other Slack community use a "linkdump" channel for this sort of thing, to keep a higher signal of actual discussion in other channels, while providing an outlet for folks to drop related links without having to think too much about what to say about them.

This channel would be logged in our chat logs, similar to "stream", yet different from "stream" in that the links posted in this channel would be 100% human curated specifically for the channel, none of it from another context.

Advantages:

  • make it easier to figure out "which channel should I share this link in?" without have to figure out if it is dev-specific or more broadly indieweb-applicable
  • provide a human-curated informal reading list of sorts, that's broader / more casual than IndieNews (which implies elevation to being broadcast in the weekly Newsletter), i.e. this channel would be sharing links without spamming the Newsletter — of course someone else may decide to elevate any links shared here but that would be a separate explicit action
  • reduce non-sequitor noise in discussion channels
  • reduce interruptions of actual in-chat discussions
  • reduce distractions for folks that are easily distracted by links (and who could opt-out of this channel)

Community:

link sharing naming

Possible names and thoughts:

  • indieweb-links
    • +1 Tantek Çelik — proposer. communicates exactly what its for, what to expect if you’re in the channel, and what to share
    • 0 Aaron Parecki - I am not sold on the need for this channel, but this is my preferred name. A lighter weight option might be to encourage sharing these kinds of things in the current "stream" channel instead. I'm not sure what value there is in having a dedicated channel for links without context. It seems like it would be better to recommend sharing links with context in the relevant channel instead.
    • +1 Jim Winstead — I like this, brief and to the point.
    • 0 0x3b0b I am also not sold on the need for this channel, but this is the name I prefer if we have one, and I'd rather have a separate channel for manually dropped links than route them to -stream. But I'd also prefer a culture of at least a short phrase or so of context even in a dedicated channel - which doesn't remove all the reasons for proposing a separate channel, just the only one that actually bugs me personally as opposed to being something I can understand might bug other people.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • indieweb-linkdump
    • +0 Tantek Çelik — have seen this as prior art, could live with it, also clearly says what it is for (dumping links) and what to expect to see there. curious if this name resonates with anyone.
    • -1 Aaron Parecki - sounds like a dumping ground for low value things
    • -1 0x3b0b To me this almost implies that it would be for *bulk* link-dropping.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • alternative: auto-reject (bot or server setting) links without commentary, prod request for context
    • +1 Joe Crawford: (proposer) it seems plausible that a link absent any commentary (^https://[^ ]+$) is something IRC, Slack and Discord would be able to identify and reject and prod the poster to include comments as to why it was being posted. If I'm vastly underestimating the technical hurdle I will withdraw but "links absent commentary" seems finite enough to detect and reject programmatically
    • Anthony Ciccarello: As someone who very curious but sometimes overwhelmed by messages, I'd prefer to reinforce encouraging giving context when sharing links to adding another channel to check and encouraging link dumping.
    • +0 Tantek Çelik this could work for me
    • +1 0x3b0b I like this idea better than the separate channel, but I suspect it would have to be reactive, not proactive - that is, prompt the user after the post, not on the attempt to make it - and that it would therefore be more like the way Loqi nudges conversations toward -dev and tries to reinforce the culture. At the very least, I imagine anything else would likely require separate implementations per protocol. In turn, that might tend to encourage people connecting by means other than plain IRC to try to correct using edits instead of a follow-up message, which...well, isn't that bad, but looks messy cross-service.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • alternative: expand "stream" channel scope to include link-sharing. It's unclear there is sufficient value in a new channel rather than expanding the "stream" channel to justify the overhead, longer channel list, yet another channel to check costs of another channel.
    • +1 Aaron Parecki (proposer)
    • +1 Tantek Çelik this would work for me too
    • 0 Jim Winstead - this channel is already so noisy with bot traffic that I think human-curated links would just get lost (updated my vote that was -1 before: stream isn't as intolerably noisy on Discord if you turn off link previews, but I think I'd still prefer a links channel for human-curated links)
    • -1 0x3b0b I have just re-joined -stream to see whether I can make it fit my routine now, but when I was last there I found it unrewarding to try to pick out things I was really interested in reading from things I wasn't, unlike link-drops in the other channels. Seeing that something was posted by a human would help, but I am not ready to assume I'll want to frequent that channel.
    • +1/0/-1 Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
  • ... other naming suggestions welcome

History

This section is a stub. You can help the IndieWebCamp wiki by expanding it.

The IndieWeb discussion/chat channels have a long history that predates the website itself!

Some of this is on the timeline with specific dates, please help out by retrieving IRC/chat/discuss related things from the timeline and summarizing here:

  • ~2004-2005 #microformats channel created on Freenode IRC to discuss the practices of microformats before the microformats.org website was created. More information: https://microformats.org/wiki/irc
  • ~2010-2011 Tantek Çelik and Aaron Parecki start using #indiewebcamp on Freenode IRC to discuss planning an upcoming (the first) IndieWebCamp in 2011.
  • ... various channels added
  • 2014 #indiechat created for off-topic and off the record (not logged) chats
  • 2016 #indieweb main channel as part of rename to IndieWeb — renaming of the community itself from IndieWebCamp to just "IndieWeb" and respective changes in domain name, chat channels etc.
  • ... indieweb-dev, indieweb-meta, indieweb-known, indieweb-wordpress
  • #indieweb-chat created from prior #indiechat channel for consistency with other indieweb- channel names, despite no consensus on renaming options: rename_to_IndieWeb#conclusion_and_follow-up
  • ...
  • 2022? #indieweb-stream created
  • 2024 #indieweb-random, #indieweb-cafe and #indieweb-events created, and #indieweb-chat deleted from Slack/Discord and unbridged
  • ...

See Also

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