events/2024-05-18-hwc-social-norms

From IndieWeb

Bonus Online Homebrew Website Club - Social Norms in the IndieWeb was an IndieWeb meetup on Zoom held on 2024-05-18. 

   IndieWeb Homebrew Club: 2024-05-18

Session: Social Norms in the IndieWeb

Participants

Notes

  • Introduction to the session
    • Some ideas for discussion:
      • High barrier for using IndieWeb technology -- few people use our technologies
      • Could we have more traction?
      • How do we want comments to work in the IndieWeb?
  • Al: People, not protocols. (A la "protocols, not platforms" in the Fediverse)
  • Paul's blog post referenced by Al: https://paulrobertlloyd.com/2024/136/a1/indieweb_principles/
  • Louis Mantia has some recent writing about the social norms on social media, e.g. the toxicity of likes and replies: https://lmnt.me/blog/content-moderation.html
  • Joe: In the indie web to give back to people on the web; people have been nice to me when getting started on the web. Wish: empower people. I see switching costs, pain, and friction. Make it easy for people to have a website. Time commitment. We need to rightsize expectations.
  • James idea (somewhat related): should we be blogging on cost of website(?)
  • Tracy: Not many people commented on my social posts. Perception that blogging is less interaction, but it is probably about the same.
    • James: it could be more now that we have Mastodon, etc.
  • Al: Different social media have their own social norms. How posts perform vary by platform.
    • I don't share memes, reposts, etc. I share my own things. "Write what you read" is Al's philosophy for posting on Instagram, for example.
    • different communities on different platforms -- different vibes and interests
  • Personal website give you control in to how you present yourself - you can choose you own vibe. Designer and writer will have a different website.
  • A site death can only be a motivation for having a personal site, if one actually experienced it
  • "discontinuity in how we talk about" the IndieWeb's appeal <-- need improvement of messaging
  • IndieWeb feels like it is about having a personal website that stores everything; an "everything archive"; if you don't want it to be that way, it doesn't have to be that way.
    • Al: My primary work is long-form, having that on my website is valuable. I don't want to own all my stuff.
    • Al: Some websites with everything on them are unreadable; context collapse in a website.
    • Joe: We don't have tools to see only your robots (or whatever you publish), for example.
    • It also might depend on your audience size and personal goals. There's a difference between just expressing yourself creatively to a small collection of friends vs wanting to sell books to 10k readers.
  • James is noticing a change over the last year with an increasing emphasis on people over technical things like webmentions, and in particular people that are new to the indieweb.
    • Al: I've also personally noticed a corresponding rise of "quitting Indieweb" posts from people sick of implementing the harder more technical bits.
  • Joe: We can disagree on things here -- like usage of Instagram -- but we all get along.
    • A lot more people quitting large corporate social media, rising interest in blogging/web.
    • James: I'm so glad we have a community like this!
  • Tracy: When first encountered the IndieWeb, it felt like there were things I needed to do. This is a natural instinct in communities, to an extent; how do you fit in. But the wiki is so big that we are reluctant to clean up things that don't reflect what we feel today.
  • Al: First impressions are so important. I got into Mastodon a year ago, got me interested in social media again (had been off social media for years), and Mastodon reconnected me to a person -- Joe -- who invited me to HWC. And there was an in-person IndieWebCamp in San Diego!
  • Joe: people don't join movements because they're convinced by a manifesto, they join them because of a feeling of being welcomed and finding kinship. We need to work on this
    • 12 step example: attract rather than promote (part of the steps). Be discoverable and supportive for those that do, but don't chase growth or going mainstream,
    • Malcolm X example: β€˜You want to know how to spread my teachings?’ he said, and he pointed to the glasses of water. β€˜Don’t condemn if you see a person has a dirty glass of water,’ he said, β€˜just show them the clean glass of water that you have. When they inspect it, you won’t have to say that yours is better.’” ( The Autobiography of Malcolm X 209)
  • There are a lot of people unhappy with social media; people not seeing the things significant to me.
  • James: we talk about Β« how do we get as many people as possible in the indieweb Β», but we've never actually confirmed that this is what we want. We talk like that a lot on the wiki, but is this actually what we want?
    • We don't have a centralized service for Β« all the protocols at once Β» because it's a lot of work. After what's happened at FB etc., we've realized that being a hosting provider sucks.
    • Joe: Acknowledging the overhead of owning or participating materially in an organization is important. In a bar, you need bouncers, in a school, you need teachers, you can't just go Β« hey welcome do your thing Β». You need organized principles and people who can put in that kind of effort. Question: how do you create a sustainable organization that does what the indieweb does and doesn't burn people out / lets people do their thing at their own pace? There's stuff that we can do organizationally. A nonprofit? Formalizing some stuff?
  • Joe: There are things we can do organizationally to build a growing, sustainable organization. We could look at how volunteer organizations are run.
  • Al: being pro Indieweb doesn't have to mean anti-corporate social media platforms. You can take advantage of larger silos (e.g. all of my extended family is on the other side of the planet and we stay on touch online) while also supporting grassroots and personal websites.
  • Sara: Are the IndieWeb norms for people on HWC / wiki, or a larger group?
    • Tracy: There are tiers of what the IndieWeb is. You could think of the community as event attendees, or anyone who participates in the wiki, or chat, or anyone with Webmentions installed. A lot of my thoughts about the IndieWeb are the biggest scale of people who have a personal website who want to use the internet that is not corporate.
    • Alex: I also thought that way, then read a blog post from a community member. We have rules on the wiki that are specific. The value of the IndieWeb is that it should support having a personal website, irrespective of what someone wants to communicate. It's not our job to decide what a valid personal website is.
    • Joe: A few blogs I have encountered -- blog posts -- where I had never heard of the person and they have a ton of interaction -- Webmentions -- from people with whom I have not heard.
    • https://www.ellyloel.com/ as one example of someone with lots of engagement via Webmentions. (They are mostly Mastodon replies / reposts / comments)
    • Al: We have great branding. "indie" is a great word. If I was an anthropology student, what defines the community is someone who has blogged about the "indie web" at least once. Then there is the retro web, etc. -- people who want to have really creative, nostalgic vibe websites.
    • Big difference between indieweb the word vs the community. The word is an idea that's transcendent and resonates with a much larger population, feels like it's part of the resurgence. The community is small and tight, with certain inherent positive expectations (e.g. be cool, don't be a jerk on someone else's website, make your own site, etc)
  • James: every time i have an idea someone's already done it… so everything needs to be only for fun? I think people are going to be more bored of technology, and we might want to stop assuming that people will always endlessly scroll stories on instagram the saem way they got tired of paying too much for phone subscriptions.
  • Al: making a website is the vinyl of online communication. Slower, handcrafted, more rewarding experience for both the creator and viewer.
  • James [aside]: I love I have been quoted "I think people are going to be more bored of technology". I'm proud of this :D
  • Joe: Scaling free platforms for personal websites is really hard. If you offer this, you have signed up for a lot of work. How controversial will the stuff get? Running anonprofit would be a better world! Β« Let's nationalize Facebook Β» is not as crazy as it sounds!
  • James: The indie web could be more ambitious. I am not asking anyone to do anything, but am sparking the thought that we are a community and could do things communally.
  • Joe: Could the IndieWeb ideate an organisational structure? It will be a challenge, but an interesting challenge. How do you turn an idea for something that should exist -- a search engine -- into a real thing?
  • Al: Asked Tantek about W3C and role in community vibe. Answer: nothing in a formal capacity.
  • Al: Following up with email after reading a blog post works for him with some people; it's still community, it's a social norm.
  • Can we learn from others' gateways into the IndieWeb?
    • Joe found out about the IndieWeb from gRegor, via using #indieweb. #indieweb sounds like Joe, without knowing the IndieWeb is a thing.
    • Alex: RSS feeds are a good entry point. It's a more convenient way to read a blog. I've been on social media since I was 12/13, and had likes/retweets, etc. from that age. Hard to get out of that loop. Having a blog was not satisfying in that way.
      • Joe: We would all like to be seen. I do sometimes feel disappointed that some things I share are not of interest. In terms of a balanced human psyche, I have to do it for me. The thing I do as a hobby is because it is for me.
      • Alex: Found out about the IndieWeb from Tracy. One day, Alex decided to start a new blog; found Sara, who was helpful. There are humans here who have interactions. I saw there was a whole ecosystem of people talking to each other. Prior to the IndieWeb, for me a blog was a way to showcase, rather than to build relationships. The idea of having a personal blog that was fun and not a glorified resume came a few years ago.
    • Tracy: Thinking about different levels of community in the blogosphere. There are different social norms in those communities.
      • It can be confusing to have a huge range of different types of posts on a website (callback to earlier).

James is taking a lot of notes and it's hard :D Please remove / change anything relevant

    • Al: I have struggled with "am I blogging for commercial reasons, or making a website for myself?" The tension doesn't necessarily go away.

Someone speaking in the last couple of month: Riley, a musician. Riley noted the struggle between having a personal site and a professional portfolio.

    • Extra read: https://manuelmoreale.com/too-little-and-too-much-self-promotion
    • Al: James struggled to find my blog. Assumed that people used an RSS reader to subscribe.
    • Joe: Saw a headline along the lines of "If a person has an OnlyFans, should they be able to be fired from their job?" In a very real sense: what we put out into the world exposes us to criticism / potential trouble. There is plenty of examples of this (in politics, gender, sexual orientation, and more). We all have multiple selves (I don't swear in front of my mum!) and it's not typical to have a one-stop-shop. As Al said, it can be too much, Β« I can't take in the whole of you, I need something more finite Β» and that's not unreasonable. It's hard to know a person as a whole, you're opening yourself up in a way that might be a risk.
    • James: I knew you had that page on your blog, Al. But I always feel like an old person using modern technology and I still can't figure out data and text etc., that's why I didn't get all of it. For Al's website: I've been struggling. In my feed reader, I follow a bunch of blogs, and sometimes they say 0 because the feed or the microformats are broken: hidden tech stuff and I never notice they're broken until I visit the website. So I tend to visit people's websites directly, IndieNews, Mastodon… because I can't trust my RSS reader completely. Every platform (Instagram, etc.) has its own vibe: I can use Mastodon for short-form and my blog for long-form. I recently made a Mastodon post of one line, that might become a blog post one day. The web should be about that and people should be able to make the conscious choice of Β« I don't want to show this Β». Social media makes us think Β« I need to show everything about me Β»
    • Al: that touches on a social norm too about openness. Just having a feed means 1) you don't make a website as a calling card and leave it up for 10 years, you curate it and add stuff to it and 2) you have an RSS feed. We say the Indieweb isn't just blogging… but in its current definition, it really is.
  • About blogging and identity
  • Al went through the social norms page on Wikipedia
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm
    • Referenced the three types of social norms:
      • Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ought to do).

Can't remember if Al already posted about it but depending on where you asked where to put your blog:

  • On Twitter: Β« go on Medium/Substack Β»
  • Our Slack: microblog for the indieweb features
  • Mastodon: people will ask more questions,
  • etc.

The social norms are just different between websites.

  • Al: James, you're one of the few people I follow who has an abbreviated RSS feed. I know why you do it, but I have a social norm that when I go to James' website, I know if it's a Taylor Swift special day, if you're into penguins, or if you're having coffee, with the design. And that can't be put in the RSS feed.
  • 404 Media enabled RSS as paid. Planet Money Plus and other NPR paid podcasts also give you a special RSS feed. This is usually a capability_url. (All Patreon premium podcasts too.)
  • Joe: A private feed that you're paying to access -- that's still of the spirit of the indie web.
    • Private posts are tricky on the IndieWeb.
  • James: [Argh I got distracted sorry] It's a huge amount of work and we probably can't start there. And when you have this posting technology, do you do everything privately? do you implement several audiences? I thought of making different groups… but then I thought Β« I personally get more value out of making this public or directly private than making it private access Β». Still on private feeds, Planet Money does this, they give you a private RSS URL.
  • Benji: There's a lot of technology that's being talked about and we talk about private posts. But why does it have to be all-in-one? If you want to set audiences, that's what you want. But in the way it relates to the indieweb: is it a point of the indieweb? It's a tricky thing to do, nobody has truly figured this out yet.
    • Tracy: In real life we'll say Β« This person is my friend so I told them X Β» and in the indieweb we don't necessarily have this.
    • Joe: Do we want to have private posts in the IndieWeb community remit? (open question)
    • Benji: Is email IndieWeb? We all have our different emails; whether we self-host, use Gmail, etc. Is that a thing that is handled by email and that is indieweb by design already?
    • Joe: the open email was a phenomenal opportunity that has been absolutely ruined. We don't have email that's free of spam. There is phishing. It's a tragedy that we did not solve this problem. Email was invented at a time of innocence (finite number of users); why would we need auth / constraints; we could make it as simple as possible. You have PGP keys that show it comes from a certain person, but Gmail doesn't recognize them.
    • Al: Email newsletter have exploded in the past 10-15 years… because RSS readers dies. Email became feed readers for normal people. Techies were having nerd battles on RSS vs. Atom, and normal people were dropping off completely. We talk about Twitter dying: Twitter is absolutely tiny to most people, it's a platform for journalists but doesn't have many users! Twitter dying and fragmenting into other things, Facebook can put all the ads it wants until the feed is unscrolleable: the people who tried to turn emails into RSS feed readers brought all their stuff with it, including selling all types of stuff, making super long emails…
    • Al: is one of the norms positivity? One of hte norms: people fleeing Twitter and people staying (Al stayed because of work reasons :( ). One of the things we've seen with people fleeing silos and settling into IndieWeb: positivity is one of our values, a shared interest we have. One thing I don't see is people shitting on another people, criticism is usually constructive. There are tiny shitstorms because someone said something vaguely negative, that wouldn't even be seen as negative elsewhere. Do you see that positivity as one of the social norms of the IndieWeb?
  • Benji: I sometimes feel on the outside. Chat / wiki feels like an organizers-only thing. The community is fragmented on a simple conversation on inclusivity; bringing everyone together.
    • Alex: have been feeling a bit weird about the chat for a while and actually left it a couple of weeks ago because it didn't always feel like a shared space. There's a lot of volume (which is good and bad) but the indieweb wiki chatbot speaks more than anyone else and soemtimes a big chunk of the conversations are actually bot commands (questions + editing wiki).
    • Tracy: also don't participate in chat because it doesn't feel super welcoming -- I find the norm of asking the bot to answer questions to feel a little weird
    • Joe: Read on particular scenario on COVID guideline discussion. Discussion was "relatively gentle". Shows how open we are: if you want to run an unmasked event, _okay_, but you have to let people know beforehand. We should be promoting best practices. XOXO Fest: indoors is masked, outdoors may not be. That's allowing for the fact that there is some squishiness around this topic.
    • XOXO Fest on COVID policy is a living document: https://xoxofest.com/guide/covid/
    • James: we can disagree on some opinions (liking Instagram) but when it comes to community management the conversation gets ickier, there is more friction. I have my own opinion, everyone has one. I didn't want to weigh in this conversation because I didn't want anyone to think I was telling them what should be done. If it's more work, then we should probably have a discussion on how to approach this topic. I said Β« we should be more welcoming to people Β» and some people put their foot down because they have experience about specific stuff. I think we need to understand maybe we don't want leaders who play such an active role saying IRC / the wiki is where you have to be as a status quo, and I also think you need more leaders. I would also like to see more diversity around how to build a community. It requires more people being in these shoes. How do we build a support structure? We've existed for 10 years. What lessons can we get from it? What do the next 10 years look like and what can we do better?
    • Al: text-based communication has such a different feel and room for conflict and misrepresentation, vs zoom and in-person groups that have more room for nuance.
    • Joe: When you talk about governance structure, James, we need a gut check on Β« do we have enough / too few events? we would like to do outreach to get more types of people Β», confirm these goals and then make a plan to do those things. We don't have a vision, everythign is ad hoc: people who would like to explore and ideate (product manager type role like Al!) and build consensus across a lot of different people who are donating their time, not simply shutting them down. I think it would be good for the community to formalize something… but Β« I want to be part of a governement Β» doesn't sound exciting.
  • Tracy: I'm thinking again about what we said about the homepage, like Β« own your data / your identity is the source of your interactions online Β». I kinda disagree with both statements and hearing this discussion I feel like there aren't strong feelings about those. The indieweb has shifted in the goals, and who's participating, but the people who are making the bigger decisions are still tied to the original roots. But I don't know how to bring up revisiting these foundational concepts because I don't think your whole identity should be on a single website and I don't think owning your data is that important.
    • Joe: change requires either lots of mutual cooperation or [!??!?]. It's a conversation about how you'll do it in a civil ways. Take the conversation that exists and try to find a better way to do it: that's not a trivial effort. I'm hearing a lot of desire to mold and shape.
    • Al: I want to explore this more and I don't want to color other people's answers.
    • Sara:
    • Alex: You need moderators and a code of conduct. Everything else should be as free as possible. The second you have governance, there are people who get exhausted. Building resilience and redundancy is important; when one person stops getting involved, the entire thing breaks down. It is a balance between people doing 90% of the work and people who want something different and don't want to carry the whole organisation on their shoulders.
    • Joe: This is a living organisation. What are all the things that we do as indieweb.org? The people who are more responsible for maintaining / keeping spam out / making sure servers run and stay up. Those people have power because we gave it to them and they are responsible parties for making sure spills are cleaned up.
    • How do we distribute that load?
    • There are so many blogs, there is so much documentation… If you start a job, what's the three ring binders taht I need to understand my role? We don't have that in terms of governance, because we don't have a need for it. I've committed a whole bunch of time, sure, but I need instructions and codifying what the role is. And what happens when you do that is, they're going to think Β« ok that's my job and that's all of it Β». There's some website taht the community is going to run and it's going to be dynamic, you need to sit down and think Β« hey, is this still relevant? Β». It's possible that some day we stop doing Discord: we'll need to revisit policies and procedures.
  • James: there's such a thing as too much documentation (said the technical writer!!!) Communities thrive when people who want to participate naturally become leaders, not when there is some top-down rule of Β« this person should be a leader Β». I think the lack of documentation around this process makes it impossible for anyone to start. gRegor's post has been a great illustration of this. And, I've already said that, I'd like to see some diversity too.
  • Al: An incubator (ie. a company that makes other companies). Recruitment is done through the network (who you're doing the program with) and seeing cool stuff and thinking Β« oh I could do that too Β». Either you get into Y Combinator (best of the best) or into the long tail of local small initiatives. That's the split I see when Benji says Β« there's chat/wiki for organizers and then there's the long tail of homebrew clubs and people who have their personal blogs. Every week we talk about how to get more people, and it takes me back to: I came in through the social angle, through people, and chat/wiki do not feel like somewhere I want to be. Don't try to change the organization, there is a value to that side (Β« every ship is going to have one captain Β»), but there's the long tail. We're having more zooms, more type of zooms. We could have Β« are you curious about the indieweb? Β» sessions. We need to expand the human side instead of changing the big ship of the wiki. It's always going to be a wall of text, it's never going to change. Nobody's going to swap out a cuter explanation with the current wiki page. There's a whole background between these human things. Expand the good parts that we see as more supportive, human, and newbie-friendly.
  • Joe: There's something in harnessing the interest in making shifts to make the indieweb more newbie-friendly, because we think people are going to get a lot of value from getting to see a new internet. How do we harness that idea, how do we harness this group in a way that makes sense? The startup incubator model may fall down because ultimately, a large chunk of what startups do is grab money. And the human part looks more like our situation, Β« I want to be connected with human beings who understand where I am and talk me through what we can do. Β» One thing we can do is 12 steps: group conscience, a meeting that happens on a regular basis, as part of the meeting you'll have group consience, a gut check on how the meetings are currently going and what conflicts are coming up. What meetings do we need that might be different, that might be more attractive/inviting, that will offer new models? People don't deserve to be beheaded (sorry French participants to the call), it's not a model we want to see. Democracy is hard :)
  • Al: but do you see my point about Β« don't worry about fiat / credibility Β»? Embrace and extend (without extinguishing): build something alongside the chat and wiki. Zooms and in-person meetings are synchronous. They're easier to create but it's not necessarily easy to be synchronous, it's not good for introverts… one thing that's harder to create but more efficient is async video. We have a bias towards being text-centric, and that's an issue. We have a newer member in the community who's learning to code as she goes along, and she was encouraged to do this by YouTube videos. It's harder to produce but it's more human while still being async. One tip is to stream something and take all kinds of chats and answers, then make a highlights reel and put it online. If it's on me to propose it, I need to lead by example, and I'm ok at making videos, but I'm new in the community and who wants to hear from me?
    • James: it makes me feel sad to see that some people feel they can't bring anything because they're new to the program. On GitHub I'll spend more time with someone reviewing their code and welcoming them and making sure they add value when they've joined the project a day ago: it comes back to social norms. In open source we agree that there are trusted contributors. In the IndieWeb everyone should be a trusted contributor / member from day 1, which doesn't happen because of barriers. Everyone should be able to participate. We should share who we are and keep in mind that good ideas come from everywhere. When you're new, you have stuff to say. I'm terrible at video and never thought about it, but this could be a road to empowerment and to a new kind of expression. The community isn't doing a good enough job of making everyone feel like they can bring a lot from the start.
  • Alex: Notetaking = living my best life. (I am, after all, a professional *content creator*.)
  • Joe: The desire to include a link to the Molly White interview that went out this week and mentioned IndieWeb by name, if not the wiki but terminology like POSSE. We wanted to embed the video [in the newsletter?]. There is a desire to be more engaging -- short-form video, as much as I despise working with video, is useful. I have gotten into many things because I watched a YouTube video about it. I would prefer to read a blog post, but a YouTube video that is well produced and short is very valid. One of my favourite things is CSS Battle, and I found out about it from YouTube, even though CSS Battle is a web-ish thing that is nerdy -- why didn't I see it on Twitter / Mastodon, etc. It doesn't compute that that's how I learned about it. Video is engaging.
    • What videos do we need? Is there a one-stop shop for things great about the internet, like Molly's mention of controlling what you see, you can save all links to your website which is more useful to her. The value proposition of controlling your own website -- I shouldn't have to make that sale, but I kind of do. But people don't know it's possible to have a website that's useful to you.
  • Sara: I'm not interested in the IndieWeb as an organisation. I am here because of the people. I think the personal website can be a good element to online communication. Re: gRegor's post, I read it and Tracy's one, but I didn't see what happened in chat.
  • Al: Re: Benji seeing chat and wiki as an organiser's space. My favourite channel is the IndieWeb #stream channel. It's like a feed reader of indieweb news across the web and mastodon.
  • Joe: We have talked a lot about possible things in terms of organisation. One thing you mentioned was distinguishing blogosphere / indieweb community -- people who have webmentions and talk to each other -- versus Archive of Our Own and other communities. Maybe there's a way to dovetail / contrast with other organisations.
  • Sara: AO3 is not an ad-hoc community. Our conversation was all about having a human-touch. Invite people to meetings, invite to chat. Interested in what happened with the IndieWeb Carnival. Most participants are people who are not in the IndieWeb community. I didn't expect that. This is an ad-hoc thing that's emerged. The only thing you have is a page where people volunteer and post the next one. And you have 10+ entries from each one. That's the space I'm interested in. What are people missing out on that they don't get on social media? That's what I'm interested in.
  • Joe: Carnival is distinct from what we have been talking about. We have been talking about an organisation. Carnival is a series of moments. Even if I don't participate, I look at some posts and the summaries -- I always get something out of it. It's a great sign that participation is from people who aren't on any of the venues that we're talking about. It shows the thirst -- hunger -- for this type of connection. Re: the Carnival: I want to have moments of human sharing, without necessarily becoming long-term friends.
  • James: there's capital I Indieweb and lowercase indieweb, he identifies with both. People can be in multiple different circles. Like TED talks vs TikTok trends, something led by example with a long form creation vs grassroots long tail participation. One thing that orgs struggle with is what's a community initiative and what's a personal initiative that grew on its own. And the personal ones are the most fun things! If we followed rules on personal websites, we wouldn't be here!
    • Benji: in terms of the web and what we wouldn't or would like to see, I understand POSSEing as posting on my site and it being posted everywhere. But what is the social norm in the sense of comments on that? If I post a photo of myself and someone comments on instagram, ok. But what happens if I want to comment on someone else's Insta photo? Isn't it weird if I want to post my comment on my blog? Does the person maybe not want to make this public?
    • Joe: be humane and respect people. But also, their content is open online, you're within your right to do this, but you should be open to people's opinions and feelings too.
    • Al: I was wondering if you do one or the other.
    • Joe: I backfill Mastodon conversations as comments on my post.
  • Al: what are more things like carnivale or "send a friend a webmention" day that we can instigate? Events that encourage participation beyond the usual chats or zooms.
    • Blogging challenges? (why did you start your website, write about someone who inspired you when you were young, etc.)
    • Photography challenges? (Al: yes! I was going to suggest this)πŸ‘ see micro.blog photography challenge
    • 1:1 sessions with friends to help them on the web?
    • Competitions?
    • Β« Build your personal website today Β» mini-events in several cities (and languages) - yes! I love this!
    • Group podcast? :D
    • Streamed nights? (calls like this one, but public)
      • get together to watch a movie online, brings the community aspect
    • Sports stuff but what.
    • at the last HWC Pacific Reilly had an idea about doing a USB-style carnival -- add a piece of art to a USB drive and mail it to the next person -- and then turn all the content into an "issue" of an online magazine
    • Group making sessions? (Make a zine from personal website homepages? That sort of creative thing.)
    • Make up your own word day (and blog about its definition!)
    • Art review challenge: write about a painting of personal significance to you.
    • HTML web page challenge -- monthly challenge with new themes.
    • Citizen journalism day; go interview someone at an event. E.g. Al took photos for a citizen science event recently and wants to follow up with interviewing the lead organizers and scientists. My photos got spotted on IG and the org asked to use them here: https://rewildmissionbay.org/2024/01/30/exploring-natures-force-a-recap-of-wandering-the-king-tides-event/
    • Β« Your passion Β» session once in a while, like Β« hey tell us about this niche interest that you have and assume we know absolutely nothing about it Β»
  • Stuff around interantional days (there are SO MANY themed interantional days) https://www.un.org/en/observances/list-days-weeks
    • Like International Coffee Day :D (coffee brings me joy!)
    • Also, international tea day is on Tuesday hehehe
  • See also: https://challenges.micro.blog/
  • Co-creativly storytelling
  • Monthly book club where we are all discussing either the same book or the books on the specific topic / theme
  • Al: The Verge. Publications are wondering about hte same things as The Verge. The Verge expected bad social media algorithms so they invested a lot on their homepage as a hub. They used to do a lot of product reviews, they always made an article paired with a video so you can choose your favorite format: it always went together.
  • Co-written posts / collabs of all kinds
  • I see a lot of Substack "communities" host kind of "chime in threads" of discussing life stuff like how they deal with gardening or housework etc, sometimes storytelling, sometimes advice - yes, I like going on my blog and just asking a question and hoping for fun / helpful / interesting replies and i wish we had more of a habit of just asking random questions <--yes! "crowdsourcing" ideas (and recommendations)
  • Sara: maybe a monthly book club, or co-creative storytelling. It's not just writing about the same thing, it's also discussing the same thing together.
  • Al: yes! Why are people on the indieweb? What gets them excited?
  • James: there's a whole page on micro.blog for ongoing challenges: https://challenges.micro.blog/
    • This can lead the way to show people that you don't have be on social media websites in order to have that fun collaborative creative spark of challenges.
  • Al: I'd love to learn more about the local areas that my blogger buddies are at. E.g here is my local bike shop that organizes and documents routes around my area: https://www.aabikes.net/articles/routes-pg192.htm
  • Al: creative collaborative scifi on Gemini: https://cosmic.voyage/
  • Al: Remix culture on the web.
  • Joe: Tumblr's structure and tools enables incredible collaborative writing and might be the best example of how reblogging enables remixing and creation
  • Add notes here :) ...
  • https://www.tumblr.com/bookofthegear - tumblr storytelling where readers choose from three options of what happens next in the story


note from alex: should we have a project of going through the indieweb wiki page by page and do some cleanups, updates, etc. James idea: Mozilla's new Executive Director has similar interests to the IndieWeb. Maybe there's something more formal we could do? (I have no idea what this should be.)

Topics for the next time:

  • How to post the very short posts (I can not make them go to Instagram)
  • How to show something the appriciation for something, even when there is nothing to contribute to the conversation

Note from Alex: this was my first video call for indieweb stuff and i'm really glad, everyone was nice and had lots to say, loved it :) I'll try attending more when my calendar and energy levels allow!

Additional Readings

Please note that all contributions to this pad and other IndieWebCamp documents are considered to be released under the public domain according to CC0.


Homebrew Website Club
Events are listed on events.indieweb.org as of 2020-01
2024 01-03 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-10 🏰🎑 β€’ 01-13 🌌 β€’ 01-17 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-24 🎑 β€’ 01-31 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-07 🎑 β€’ 02-14 🏰🎑🌎 β€’ 02-21 🎑 β€’ 02-28 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-13 🏰🎑🌎 β€’ 03-20 🎑 β€’ 03-27 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-03 🎑 β€’ 04-08 πŸ“œ β€’ 04-10 🏰🎑🌎 β€’ 04-17 🎑 β€’ 04-24 🌎 β€’ 04-27 🌌 β€’ 05-01 🎑 β€’ 05-08 🏰🎑🌎 β€’ 05-09 🌐 β€’ 05-15 🎑 β€’ 05-22 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-23 🌐 β€’ 05-27 πŸ“œ β€’ 05-29 🎑 β€’ 06-05 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-12 🏰🎑 β€’ 06-19 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-05 β€’ 06-26
2023 01-04 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-11🌎 β€’ 01-18 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-25 🌎 β€’ 02-01 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-08 🌎 β€’ 02-15 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-22 🌎 β€’ 03-01 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-08 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-15 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-22 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-29 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-05 🎑 β€’ 04-12 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-15 🌌 β€’ 04-19 🎑 β€’ 04-26 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-03 🎑 β€’ 05-10 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-17 🎑 β€’ 05-20 🌌 β€’ 05-24 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-31 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-07 🎑 β€’ 06-14 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-21 🎑 β€’ 06-28 🎑🌎 β€’ 07-01 🌌 β€’ 07-05 🎑 β€’ 07-12 🎑🌎 β€’ 07-19 🎑 β€’ 07-26 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-02 🎑 β€’ 08-09 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-16 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-23 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-26 🌌 β€’ 09-06 🎑🌎 β€’ 09-13 🎑🌎 β€’ 09-20 🎑 β€’ 09-27 🎑🌎 β€’ 10-04 🎑 β€’ 10-11 🎑🌎 β€’ 10-18 🎑 β€’ 10-25 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-01 🎑 β€’ 11-08 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-15 🎑🏰 β€’ 11-22 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-29 🎑 β€’ 12-06 🎑🌎 β€’ 12-13 🏰🎑 β€’ 12-20 🎑🌎
2022 01-05 🌎 β€’ 01-12 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-19 🌎 β€’ 01-26 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-02 🌎 β€’ 02-09 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-16 🌎 β€’ 02-23 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-02 🌎 β€’ 03-09 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-16 🌎 β€’ 03-23 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-30 🌎 β€’ 04-06 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-13 🌎 β€’ 04-20 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-27 🌎 β€’ 05-04 🧭 β€’ 05-11 🌎 β€’ 05-15 🌐 β€’ 05-18 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-25 🌎 β€’ 06-01 🧭 β€’ 06-08 🌎 β€’ 06-15 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-18 🌌 β€’ 06-22 🌎 β€’ 06-29 🎑🌎 β€’ 07-06 🌎 β€’ 07-13 🌎 β€’ 07-20 🌎 β€’ 07-27 🌎 β€’ 08-03 🌎 β€’ 08-10 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-17 🌎 β€’ 08-24 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-31 🌎 β€’ 09-07 🎑🌎 β€’ 09-14 🌎 β€’ 09-21 🎑🌎 β€’ 09-28 🌎 β€’ 10-02 🌌 β€’ 10-05 🎑🌎 β€’ 10-12 🌎 β€’ 10-19 🎑🌎 β€’ 10-26 🌎 β€’ 11-02 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-09 🌎 β€’ 11-16 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-23 🌎 β€’ 11-30 🎑🌎 β€’ 12-07 🌎 β€’ 12-14 🎑🌎 β€’ 12-21 🎑🌎 β€’ 12-28 🌎
2021 01-06 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-13 🌎 β€’ 01-20 🎑🌎 β€’ 01-27 🌎 β€’ 02-03 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-10 🌎 β€’ 02-17 🎑🌎 β€’ 02-24 🌎 β€’ 03-03 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-10 🌎 β€’ 03-17 🎑🌎 β€’ 03-24 🌎 β€’ 03-31 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-07 🌎 β€’ 04-14 🎑🌎 β€’ 04-21 🌎 β€’ 04-28 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-05 🌎 β€’ 05-12 🎑🌎 β€’ 05-19 🌎 β€’ 05-26 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-02 🌎 β€’ 06-09 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-16 🌎 β€’ 06-23 🎑🌎 β€’ 06-30 🌎 β€’ 07-07 🎑🌎 β€’ 07-14 🌎 β€’ 07-21 🎑🌎 β€’ 07-28 🌎 β€’ 08-04 🌎 β€’ 08-11 🌎 β€’ 08-18 🎑🌎 β€’ 08-25 🌎 β€’ 09-01 🌎 β€’ 09-15 🎑🌎 β€’ 09-22 🌎 β€’ 09-29 🎑🌎 β€’ 10-06 🌎 β€’ 10-13 🎑🌎 β€’ 10-20 🌎 β€’ 10-27 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-03 🌎 β€’ 11-10 🎑🌎 β€’ 11-17 🌎 β€’ 11-24 🌎 β€’ 12-01 🌎 β€’ 12-08 🎑🌎 β€’ 12-15 🌎 β€’ 12-22 🌎 β€’ 12-29 🌎
2020 2020-01 β€’ 2020-02 β€’ 2020-03 β€’ 2020-04 β€’ 2020-05 β€’ 2020-06 β€’ 06-17 🌴 β€’ 2020-07 β€’ … β€’ 08-05🌴 β€’ 08-12🌴 β€’ 08-19🌴 β€’ 08-26🌴 β€’ 09-02🌴 β€’ 09-09🌴 β€’ 09-16🌴 β€’ 09-23🌴 β€’ 09-30🌴 β€’ 10-07🌴 β€’ 10-14🌴 β€’ 10-21🌎 β€’ 10-28🌎 β€’ … β€’ 11-04 🌎 β€’ 11-11 🌎 β€’ 11-18 🌎 β€’ 11-25 🌎 β€’ 12-02 🌎 β€’ 12-09 🌎 β€’ 12-16 🌎 β€’ 12-23 🌎 β€’ 12-30 🌎
2019 12-22 β€’ 12-11 β€’ 12-04 β€’ 11-27 β€’ 11-21 β€’ 11-16 β€’ 11-13 β€’ 11-06&07 β€’ 10-30&31 β€’ 10-16&19 β€’ 10-02 β€’ 09-26 β€’ 09-18&19 β€’ 09-11&12 β€’ 09-04&05 β€’ 09-02 β€’ 08-28 β€’ 08-21 β€’ 08-19 β€’ 08-15 β€’ 08-07&08 β€’ 08-05 β€’ 08-01 β€’ 07-24&25 β€’ 07-22 β€’ 07-18 β€’ 07-10&11&13 β€’ 07-03&04 β€’ 06-26&27 β€’ 06-24 β€’ 06-20 β€’ 06-12&13 β€’ 06-10 β€’ 06-09 β€’ 06-06 β€’ 05-29&30 β€’ 05-27 β€’ 05-23 β€’ 05-15 β€’ 05-09 β€’ 05-01&02 β€’ 04-29 β€’ 04-25 β€’ 04-17&18 β€’ 04-15 β€’ 04-11 β€’ 04-03&04 β€’ 04-01 β€’ 03-28 β€’ 03-20&21 β€’ 03-06 β€’ 02-27 β€’ 02-20 β€’ 02-06 β€’ 01-23 β€’ 01-09
2018 12-26 β€’ 12-12&11 β€’ 11-28&27 β€’ 11-14&11-13 β€’ 10-31 β€’ 10-17&16 β€’ 10-10&09 β€’ 10-03 β€’ 09-19&18 β€’ 09-05 β€’ 08-22 β€’ 08-08 β€’ 08-01 β€’ 07-25 β€’ 07-11 β€’ 07-04 β€’ 06-27 β€’ 06-13 β€’ 05-30&29 β€’ 05-23 β€’ 05-16&15 β€’ 05-02&01 β€’ 04-18 β€’ 04-11 β€’ 04-10 β€’ 04-04 β€’ 03-27 β€’ 03-21 β€’ 03-14 β€’ 03-07 β€’ 02-21&20 β€’ 02-14 β€’ 02-07&06 β€’ 01-24&23 β€’ 01-11&10&09
2017 12-27 β€’ 12-14&13&12 β€’ 11-30&29 β€’ 11-22 β€’ 11-16&15 β€’ 11-01 β€’ 10-19&18 β€’ 10-05&04 β€’ 09-21&20 β€’ 09-13 β€’ 09-07&06 β€’ 08-23 β€’ 08-15 β€’ 08-09&08 β€’ 08-02 β€’ 07-26&25 β€’ 07-12&11 β€’ 06-28 β€’ 06-20 β€’ 06-14 β€’ 06-07&06 β€’ 05-31 β€’ 05-17 β€’ 05-10 β€’ 05-03 β€’ 04-26 β€’ 04-19 β€’ 04-12 β€’ 04-05 β€’ 03-22 β€’ 03-08 β€’ 03-02&01 β€’ 02-22 β€’ 02-14 β€’ 02-08 β€’ 01-25 β€’ 01-11
2016 12-28 β€’ 12-21 β€’ 12-14 β€’ 12-07 β€’ 11-30 β€’ 11-23 β€’ 11-16 β€’ 11-09 β€’ 11-02 β€’ 10-26 β€’ 10-19 β€’ 10-05 β€’ 09-21 β€’ 09-14 β€’ 09-07 β€’ 08-24 β€’ 08-17 β€’ 08-10 β€’ 07-27 β€’ 07-13 β€’ 07-06 β€’ 06-29 β€’ 06-15 β€’ 06-08 β€’ 06-01 β€’ 05-25 β€’ 05-18 β€’ 05-11 β€’ 05-04 β€’ 04-27 β€’ 04-20 β€’ 04-12 β€’ 04-06 β€’ 03-23 β€’ 03-09 β€’ 02-24 β€’ 02-10&09 β€’ 02-02 β€’ 01-27 β€’ 01-13
2015 12-30 β€’ 12-16 β€’ 12-08 β€’ 12-02&01 β€’ 11-24 β€’ 11-18&17 β€’ 11-10 β€’ 11-04&03 β€’ 10-21&20 β€’ 10-13 β€’ 10-07&06 β€’ 09-24&23 β€’ 09-17 β€’ 09-10&09 β€’ 09-03 β€’ 08-27&26 β€’ 08-20 β€’ 08-13&12 β€’ 07-29 β€’ 07-15 β€’ 07-01 β€’ 06-17 β€’ 06-03 β€’ 05-20 β€’ 05-06 β€’ 04-22 β€’ 04-08 β€’ 03-25 β€’ 03-11 β€’ 02-25 β€’ 02-11 β€’ 02-07-ko β€’ 01-28 β€’ 01-14
2014 12-17 β€’ 12-03 β€’ 11-19 β€’ 11-05 β€’ 10-22 β€’ 10-08 β€’ 10-05-par β€’ 09-24 β€’ 09-10 β€’ 08-27 β€’ 08-13 β€’ 07-30 β€’ 07-16 β€’ 07-02 β€’ 06-18 β€’ 06-04 β€’ 05-21 β€’ 05-07 β€’ 04-23 β€’ 04-09 β€’ 03-26 β€’ 03-19 β€’ 03-12 β€’ 02-26 β€’ 02-12 β€’ 01-29 β€’ 01-15
2013 12-18 β€’ 12-04 β€’ 11-20
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