Where is the sky of a website?

[DiffydaDude]

Very Literal Things ahead
Websites dont have skies. A sky is just the place where light gets warped and turns different colors like blue or orange, and also where clouds happen. Websites dont have a sky because 1. you're looking at a 2D depiction of something straight on so you cant look up, and 2. websites cant support an atmosphere cuz they arent round. If you're website shows a sky, thats just artistic and not an actual sky. And also this question bugs me because why does a website even need a sky? And how can there even be one when its impossible? Why dont books have skies then?

[Kallistero]

Different pages are oriented differently! 

Sometimes, the sky is above the page, shining down on it like an atrium. Other times, the sky is technically below the page, glowing upward while the void reaches out into the infinity above. Still other times, you hold the content of the page in front of you, against the backdrop of the landscape of the world, or against the backdrop of just the sky. Some pages sit on the ground, and the sky is behind you while you look down on them!

Some lay inset into the ground, or inset into the sky! Some are on walls like a picture frame, or in the ceilings of caves, or floating freely in the water of the sea. It's true to the environment in which they're built, where you could say that it's free directionless space, or perhaps you could say that there's no space at all.    Who knows? 

[ajazz]

conceptually i've always kind of thought the "sky" (in the sense of "the space connecting the known and unknown worlds," which is kind of how i think about the actual sky) is at the bottom of the site. a lot of sites that are really engaging are front-loaded with excitement, and the density actually thins out as you reach the bottom with more whitespace. especially on sites with embedded ambient music, i tend to feel like the sky is closer to the footer than the header.

[b-lly]

maybe I took the word "webpage" too literally, but webpages are like a piece of paper held in front of you, so a website is sort of like a book, and the Internet is a giant space library.

some webpages have an atmosphere around the paper (the sky), like this forum. some don't and are just page, like Wikipedia. no ground in sight!

the browser is a window in this universe (again very literal), but it can't show the space between websites.

HTML, CSS, JS etc. are like physics laws. this metaphor is getting out of hand...

I like everyone's view, I never thought to see it as top-down :)

[DiffydaDude]

Different pages are oriented differently! 

Sometimes, the sky is above the page, shining down on it like an atrium. Other times, the sky is technically below the page, glowing upward while the void reaches out into the infinity above. Still other times, you hold the content of the page in front of you, against the backdrop of the landscape of the world, or against the backdrop of just the sky. Some pages sit on the ground, and the sky is behind you while you look down on them!

Some lay inset into the ground, or inset into the sky! Some are on walls like a picture frame, or in the ceilings of caves, or floating freely in the water of the sea. It's true to the environment in which they're built, where you could say that it's free directionless space, or perhaps you could say that there's no space at all.    Who knows? 

I already made a point abt that when i said that the "sky" of a website can be artistic but it still doesnt mean its an actual sky. The closest thing to a website having a sky would be the light from a computer monitor, and thats kind of a stretch. Maybe i just have a hard time understanding this idea because to me, the idea of a website having a sky is totally pointless and doesnt go anywhere for me.

[Semper]

I'm coming in interpreting this thread as a thought exercise in conceptualizing the boundaries of a personal website, situating it in a physical place and contrary to how I have seen some people approach the current corporate internet as a sort of void (ie: Screaming into the void). If the sky is meant to represent the boundary of my website then it cannot be any thing I have coded on my website, and it is instead the edge where my site touches someone else's site. My website's sky is the outlinks I put on it, either through blog posts or through my /links page. This is where you leave my site's orbit, but not its influence. My site could very well be another star in someone else's outlink page (sky).

There is of course the aesthetic concept of the background being the sky of a website, and I have seen this being the case with how many people use star or cloud backgrounds on their personal sites. I even do this with my gradients, which act as simulations of an eternal twilight. I wanted to give mention of the aesthetics, since the Web Revival is in large part an art movement. The presence of the "background" as an element makes apparent how much websites have been art objects, even if they in the corporate web they have been rebranded as tools for commerce.

But yeah, I would say that the "sky"/boundary of my website is defined by the outlinks.

[Emmy02]

I think the sky of a website is the header or the background, depending on what visuals you website has, like if the header is a huge graphic, that's the sky, and if they have no header or very small elements, than the background is the sky.

For most of my pages, I lack a header, so the skies of my website are the backgrounds.

[Aarix]

I'm in the same boat as Emmy02... for me, the background is the sky :) the elements upon it are like clouds, or perhaps buildings or mountains silhouetted against it. I think this makes the most sense to me because the sky is always the furthest-away thing that you can see in real life. Every part of a landscape is closer to you than the sky. Does this mean I think of websites as landscapes...? Maybe!

[Skykristal]

Same like what Emmy says. I associate the sky with the header, or background if none exists. Kinda depends on the layout and design of the website. Usually everything above me, or close to the upper end of the screen border.

I've also seen a few websites that have a sky or space theme, where for example clouds or stars are built in in different parts of the website. Once I saw some sort of middle banner with sunset and everything, and there my focus and the sky was exactly there. Same when this type of design should be in the footer rather than the top. If there's a sky theme, the sky is there were you see sky. :D

[Melooon]

The closest thing to a website having a sky would be the light from a computer monitor,

My website's sky is the outlinks I put on it

I really like these sentiments!

Sometimes when I see blue text like other posters use here it feels like a sky! Particularly on the forums dark theme, the text is like a thin film of personhood layered over the emptiness of space. A lot of people have described web design elements as being the sky in this thread, but I don't think anyone has suggested that the webmaster might be the sky yet

[candycanearter07]

the text is like a thin film of personhood layered over the emptiness of space

I've never heard this before, but I absolutely love that idea. Like, even in the most no css or google sites website, you can still see those words hanging in the void..