aoeu and Melon both have great answers that I resonate with. I'll throw a few other thoughts for your consideration as you move forward with your site building.

- Looking at other people's sites for inspiration can be very helpful -- not just for deciding what kind of a site you want to create, or how you might want your site to look...but as a quick way to really understand just how customizable every aspect of your page can potentially be, and what crazy things you can achieve with a tiny bit of code.

- As aoeu and Melon have said, it is helpful to know what you want to get out of your site -- even the smallest idea can provide a big roadmap. Some helpful questions I often ask myself: Is there a particular theme or topic you are aiming for, or a style of site you are passionate about building? Is there an audience you are targeting, or is this less of a priority for you? Is your site something you want to leave alone for long periods of time, or a site that you foresee yourself often updating or changing on a whim? I think this often affects how one ends up building or structuring their directories and pages.

- The beauty of a hand-coded website is that you really are in complete control of its contents. If you get tired of any part of it, it is very easy to simply remove it from your site... Heck, you even have the freedom to even blast your own site to the ground and start from scratch!

- Deeply generic/boring/obvious actual tip, but based on all the horror stories I've read of webmasters whose sites were blasted off the face of the earth; Save Backups Of Your Work (it's good practice of course, and Neocities makes it easy, but I also think it's fun to keep old copies of your work.)

- I might be more laid-back about this as a complete hobbyist, but a lot of my sites are built from a LOT of cobbled code... and sometimes the code is still a mess because hey, it works enough for now (even if "works" means it is literally hanging together with the code equivalent of duct tape). Going back to the first point, looking at how others approach certain problems can really open your mind up to crazy possibilities. IMO, if the code is enough to make your site work and it makes you happy, then you've done a good job. Over time you might become more interested in keeping cleaner and efficient code, and that is good too -- you can always go back and tinker, which goes back to the point about having a lot of creative control.

With all that said, I'm looking forward to hearing what you might hope to make out of your site : )

I admit I never got into web feeds; always (and kind of still) preferred to visit sites on my own time without being notified or aware of updates or changes. But I am definitely a bit more curious now, reading through a lot of the positive responses here, and it sounds like there are a great variety of options for getting started without it becoming overwhelming : o

These updated models are looking clean! They've really evolved from the first playable iteration; it's fun to see the changes from each version.

Lots of great responses on this thread!

This may come across as strong, but I currently find myself pretty repulsed at the idea of any personal expression of mine going "viral" or becoming commodified by others. But I think much of my angst is born of fear regarding the current climate of entitlement and consumerism on more "popular" web/social media/larger content platforms. As someone who did predominantly frequent artistic communities, I saw many artists I enjoyed or admired burn out time and time again in part to the pressure of the platform, entitled fanbases, bizarre algorithms, etc. Fortunately, this does not seem to be as prevalent in retro-web spaces, and I certainly hope it stays that way.

I think my sentiment on what makes a successful project is pretty aligned with some of the other responses here: I do want to know that my work has reached someone -- but not in metrics of likes, follows, and reposts. As a creative person, I genuinely do love my work, and I will always be my own biggest fan, so I want to be able to represent my work in a way that feels right, not in a way where others can put it into some sort of box/assign its worthiness via numbers -- much less for other people to see those numbers and decide whether it is worth looking at only if the value is high enough! That all said, I fully admit that I also struggle not to compare myself to others when it comes to a numbers race...so in the end, receiving a thoughtful message in my guestbook is currently the highest honor I feel I can get. It feels great, and very genuine!

Ultimately, for me, a successful personal website/project would be like...curating and maintaining a museum. I do not necessarily have to know the number of people who have visited, or hear the opinions of every single person who passes through... but I would be honored for anyone who resonates with what I have shared to want to share their honest and personal feelings about the exhibition. It is still important to me to be able to derive as much personal fulfillment as possible from my personal passions, rather than from outside approval -- it can be hard though, sometimes ;P

I am sure my thoughts on this will evolve even further with time, but those are my garbled thoughts for now (I won't really touch on "professional/commercial" projects though LOL. I think that is an entirely different territory I have not quite thought extensively about.)

I've never formally made a bucket list, so this took a bit of thinking. It's pretty simple so far, nothing too crazy I think (except for items regarding the Great Outdoors...actually my greatest adversary...) It's cool to see what y'all have on your list!

Outdoors Stuff (aka all the hard stuff first lol)
- Go camping
- Do some outdoor bouldering/rock climbing
- Go skiing
- Go surfing
- Go kayaking

Techy/Website Stuff
- Learn Blender
- Learn Unity
- Build a website that functions as a personal oasis, and is fun for people to explore
- Build a tiny explorable online world
- Create a tiny boppin' jukebox page
- Make some funny free downloadable computer programs

Musicky Stuff
- Learn the drums (@Cobra! "Perform in a concert as part of the band as a drummer" -- good taste!)
- Learn the accordion
- Write One Silly Song on the computer
- Mix some music, not too shabbily (I've done it before very badly, but it was fun and I'd like to give it a better shot again soon)
- Go to a music festival
- Start a vinyl collection

Misc Stuff
- Learn to speak & write Chinese
- Get a job in art
- Build a hard DDR pad
- Go to Comiket or similar
- Drive FAST on a racetrack
- Drive a big car that probably should not be going FAST on a racetrack
- Own a Town Car
- Drive a car full of friends (this was honestly one of my biggest dreams as a kid LOL, I will honor it by writing it down here)
- Drive a Town Car full of friends

Wow, I haven't seen one of these in ages...it's fantastic to see someone keeping the oekaki tradition alive! I completely missed the intial wave Back In The Day...I legitimately just thought "oekaki" was a word to describe people who used MS Paint to create art (whoops). It's nice to have an opportunity to finally try it out for real. On another note, I love the theme and the "logo" you've designed for the site. Although, that may just be another way of saying, I think you really have the old-school web aesthetic down to a T while also keeping it fresh

Was there any particular inspiration for getting this set up? Or just a fun web experiment?

I'm so impressed by the quality of the submissions already! What software do you use to create icons?

Thanks m15o, that means a lot! It's been much fun trying to make icons that feel a bit retro, even if it isn't really a requirement.

It is with a bit of sorrow that I admit I am Photoshop stooge; as much as I've experimented with other software, I value the speed of creation which it affords, partially because it's been my mainstay for...ogh...probably my whole art "career" XD

Cinni, HUGE congrats!! It really sucks to endure a lousy work environment -- here's to positive waves both in your new work and personal life

Dang! Y'all have a lot of sites under your belts
I was never savvy enough to publish any sites early on; I think I got my start coding and making (very crappy) graphics for a (very goofy) knockoff Neopets site...I think I did not end up publishing this one, because at that time I had thought current web hosting platforms were 'too janky' for my clearly 'high-cultured work'. I don't know who I was kidding. Wish I could find some images, but I'm pretty sure they all died with that computer. I really loved using tables for a lot of things then lmao.

My list is not very extensive, probably only really six proper sites under my belt, but here we are:

2000? - Neopets Knockoff Site (never published)
2010-present - Art Blog hosted on a blogging site (I'm still using this one, but I don't really...count it as a personal site I built, I did upend a bit of the theming code and tried to break as much as I could along the way with the intent of making the place cozier with limited success >: P)
2013-2016 - Portfolio Site I (abandoned pretty quickly, with very negligible maintenance over those three years (mostly just updating images) ._.)
2016-present - Portfolio Site II (reluctant upkeep on this one, I guess it's more of a "professional" account, I wouldn't really count it)
2019 - Personal Blog hosted on a blogging site with a theme I actually really liked making... (abandoned after...I think three months lol)
2021 - Explorable/Personal Site on NeoCities (currently most used/edited, I would like for this one to essentially be my main home on the web)
2021 - Game Dev Blog on NeoCities (currently in use, though updated on a whim)
2021 - Experimental Art Site on another web building/hosting site (slow work in progress, mostly an experiment trying other sites outside of NeoCities)*

Up until recently, I was pretty bad at maintaining sites, making and ditching portfolios, and setting up a non-social media blog site that I had a lot of hope for, but ever since I started using NeoCities and puttering around its communities, I've been a lot more happy to keep up with site maintenance. It's definitely a passion I'm rediscovering, and it's hard not to just...want to make a million sites now LOL.

*As much as I enjoy NeoCities, I have a very small nitpick with the fact that every update I make immediately bumps it onto the "latest updated" page...I feel like I make too many minute tweaks for that, and it personally doesn't feel right to me to have it broadcasted like that so readily (maybe it's a bit of a strange pressure, even though I think people are updating their pages enough that updates quickly get pushed down in the list). If this site builder ends up feeling okay (which right now, it's not looking so great compared to NeoCities), I'd like for it to specifically be more of an extra-curated gallery of artworks, and a chiller place to be modifying/experimenting with things constantly.

Also @cinni I FELT those images in my bones...truly art which represent the spirit of the times.

Threw together a few more icons based on some of the idea prompts

(Resources. I thought the idea of a tree full of books would be cute. It was...a lot harder to get this idea across than I expected LOL)
(Here it COMES...Sir Generic 3D Cube...)
(A n c i e n t)

New trailer looks great, and wow, I didn't realize just how gold the City of Gold level was supposed to actually be LOL. looking forward to playing that section in its proper glory.

This is a really cool way for folks to be creative while building a community. There's something reassuring and sweet about how just a few pixels can create so much depth to a digital space, and show off a user's personality. I love seeing how unique everyone's rooms are! Definitely gotta throw something together when I've got a chance

Thanks for sharing this, Key!

I've not done an actual study of user interaction (admittedly my sites feel too early in development for that), but it's something I want to keep eyes on down the line for sure

In one current site in progress, I want exploring and interactivity to be at the forefront of the user's mind: I want them to be able to move easily between all the main areas of exploration, and encourage them to visit or revisit areas as things get updated. So in that regard, it's important to me at least, for those areas/images users can interact or click to be very clear and obvious. But on the flip side, there are also parts of the site I want for people to have to "work" a bit to find "secrets", so some elements are less obviously clickable. I guess it's almost Neopets-like in that sense, where users were rewarded for being cheeky about clicking everywhere, or putting together puzzles/collecting codes to find hidden pages.

As for if we should care about how our design elements impacts the way users interact with the site...well, I'm pretty impartial and feel that it often depends on the intent of the website, and the creator's own preference... But personally speaking, I think there can be some great reward to making things a little sneakier or trickier for people to navigate, something that rewards curiosity and a little bit of friction. I think that when designing for personal sites and having fun, there is something really liberating about not having to design for professionalism. Sometimes you just get to be a chaotic architect. The only risk of this in my personal experience is, even I sometimes I lose track of where I try to hide things LOL (maybe that's a good thing, actually?)

As a last note, for Melonking.net, one of my favorite aspects is specifically the fact that some things are a little more hidden than others. I remember being surprised when clicking a random item on the home page actually took me somewhere. It's little surprises like that which make me feel like I'm really surfing the web, if that makes sense! That said, it's also pretty crazy how much a "rebrand" can affect the level of user interaction, 4x increased traffic is nothing to sneeze at. Ironically, I think "Melon's Universe" was one of the first links on the nav bar I clicked...I only remember this because I remember laughing really hard at the "Get A Hacker Name" generator.

Thanks Melon, Cinni! The idea is definitely still in its infancy stages (maybe a little as old as two weeks as of this post), but I'm definitely hoping to have more works in progress to share soon that can provide more concrete context.

@Melooon I appreciate the assessment for what could make or break the web game experience! I’ve been sitting on it for the last few days, but I’m moving towards the camp of hoping this can eventually go on one of my sites as a playable/explorable area. I am a little wary of getting the visuals of the environment looking just right, but...that will be a fun challenge for future me to figure out.
I also agree that I think things will be clearer once there are more defined pictures of the world, and how I imagine play to work – and when that time comes, I look forward to answering any questions or ideas I can at least say an aspect of Tomodachi Life I want to try replicate and expand upon is when you go to various different locations on the island, and see your Islanders puttering around…I always wanted a bit more interactivity in those parts (it did make for great photo opportunities, but even the camera controls/angles were so capricious). It’s all baby steps for now though…

@cinni I appreciate the vote of confidence; I feel like I have been just trudging through Unity hahaha (I complain about Blender a lot, but I miss it so much now that I’m focusing on Unity) I think the last game making platform I used was RPG Maker 2000, so it’s been a real shock just how powerful Unity really is...maybe even too much power for me, at my current stage of development haha. The amount of documentation available online has been incredible though, and it’s definitely making the learning a lot smoother

Throwing in my two cents, this theme has grown on me a lot since joining so I'd personally like to see it stick around a bit longer (allowing members to apply CSS could be an awesome workaround if folks want to customize their experience a bit more) -- however, I could see a forum-wide style refresh happening after a certain amount of time passes :omg:k: