The Small Web As A Safe Space For Sharing Experiences

[littlesecret]

As for what people say; well people say all sorts of things; really all that matters is the experience you make for yourself, the same goes for, safety online, (even on places like this forum where a lot of effort it put into it) its ultimately self constructed and only exists within the bounds of what you decide feels correct!

Reading this thread makes me wonder about your experience building Melondland. Its a lot of work to build an online community, trying to prevent oppression and exclusivity, maintaining certain ethics, etc. especially because like you said its self constructed, and it starts to take its own form based on the community.

I recently joined a social file exchange club, the usb club, started by a couple guys in new york. I plug in the usb i got from them and open an app they built, and every day im prompted to upload a file of my choice. After uploading, i can see what everyone else in the network has uploaded that day and save it to my usb. Every day is a new upload and a new set of stuff. The concept is awesome and I admire one of the guys who runs it a lot. However, im surprised at the kind of content i see being shared. Some days its a bunch of self promo from some bro, a video of some "trippy lights"  or just a  picture of something random, as if the app is like BeReal. Its not as much sharing material that people find interesting. Its not a complaint, its just a thing to notice. Its a small community and there are people who post things that i like, and people who post things that i dont like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just like any community. But yeah it makes me think about how communities will take their own form regardless of what the creator intends for it to be. As i write this i think that may be a sign of a healthy community or just something inevitable because. This way the community (along with the creator and their intentions) can mold and shift together. and if if the creator really cares about building community then i guess they know that this is part of it. Its not exclusive, its open to however you want to use it, and you can connect with the people that you like.

Melon - do you have anything that comes to mind about the creation or melonland or being a member of this/other communities?

[sejedensekh]

A certain hobby has gotten pretty popular online over the last decade or so that eventually I took it up and converted it into a career.

Worldbuilding, as in creating fantasy worlds, and by extension conlanging, which is the art of constructing plausible or artistic languages from scratch, led me,to study linguistics and pursue a degree there.

I'm doing basically the same thing lol. At first I shied away from making a conlang because I thought I didn't know enough about linguistics & that it'd be too hard, and now language is like my entire life lol. it's super fun!!

[cynderthekitsune]

yea, really the small indie web feels quite safer especially compared to social media, lol

especially on open social media, i've already been in... situations that felt really damaging, because there's genuine monsters out there.
and plus, i'm already so exhausted from being on social media, just waiting for my next artwork or post or anything really blow up into a controversial mess or something..

luckily here that hasn't happened, at least yet anyways :P
in general i've just had to be more careful about what i click on, but it's just a lot less weight on my shoulders here  

[boreal_cryptid]

it's been safer for me in many aspects, mostly in data control. i still think small web (and making personal websites instead of using social media) is safer. i'm a control freak.

but also... i had a Very Bad Experience, and i can say it traumatized me. 
i guess it was a mistake to trust leftist spaces. not that left is worse than right, it's just... our local leftists are safe for me, and we understand each other. but worldwide? sometimes there are people that dangerous for me and my mental health. for privacy too.

i have experience of stalking, invalidating, isolation. again, i think maybe in social media it's worse, but i never was bullied there. probably because internet is too big, and i was just a small part of it, one of many others.

small web is more intimate and close. and it makes me anxious. even tough i'm trying not to share too personal info, especially about mental health issues, and still... i'm so afraid people will stalk me again, or even doxx me. which very dangerous in my situation. even writing this post was a hard decision, but i decided to share after all.

small note though: i don't have problems in Ukrainian society, i don't want y'all to think it's bad in here. i'm talking about other people.

[Melooon]

Melon - do you have anything that comes to mind about the creation or melonland or being a member of this/other communities?

i guess it was a mistake to trust leftist spaces. not that left is worse than right, it's just... our local leftists are safe for me, and we understand each other. but worldwide? sometimes there are people that dangerous for me and my mental health. for privacy too

Extremes in any direction are always going to be awful So much suffering on earth comes from the fact that people forget how to be simply intuitive and fair, and they fall into traps of victimhood and dogma - and it happens just as often on the left and right sides of the spectrum.

What I've found is that there is no fixed set of answers or rules you can follow to create a good community (the rules we have here are really more like vague indicators), it just takes constant engagement and observation - you have to take everything as a case by case basis ~ sometimes you get it right and sometimes not, but being involved is the important thing!

[cynderthekitsune]

i guess maybe i'll remake my last message, cuz it feels a little different for me now.

especially if i go back into archives, online encylopedias, and avoid social media, it feels weirdly better for me with certain things.
like anime and adjacent - Vocaloid and Touhou are insufferable for me online and usually in the real world too, but seeing older shoujo, yuri, slice of life, doujin and etc - it feels a lot better in a weird way. i find it more comfortable, a hell of a lot more comfortable to be in than what i always get on social media. my own space is very PG and some bits PG-13 and potentially rarely low M rated, but barely counts as M in the first place?
and finding genres that i like too has been better, but obviously not perfect. it's just more comfortable for me in general - finding people more like me, not "blocking" and just getting a hoard of the same crap in an algorithm, etc just feels a lot better and safer for me.
though...

aside from that it's more like a minefeild, just a different type of minefield.
i don't doubt there's traumatic things here (especially other people here have mentioned) and in general there's always risks online, i just find on the indie web it's quieter and generally more customisable, and it's better for my privacy in terms of data.