How to Handle Linking to the Web Revival Movement?

[OneMillionFurries]

Sorry if the title is confusing. Hopefully I can make some sense in this post.

I'm looking to make a website dedicated to giving people a quick 101 on getting away from social media and into a more indie/old web/web revival/whatever space, along with providing resources and links to places where they can learn more and explore the web. I know that there are a good handful of websites like that already, but the particular goal with this one is to have the link to it printed in zines and flyers and the such so that regular every day people can find it. I want to include links to website templates like sadgrl's, or here as an example of an active forum.

The problem with that being I'm honestly worried that, with the web revival space being quite queer, assholes will latch onto that fact and use this website as a launching off point to find people to harass? This might be an irrational fear tbh. I don't think that many people will visit this website in the first place. The goal with it is sort of just "If I can get a single person to make a website thanks to this, I will be happy" sort of deal y'know?

Anyways I would love y'all's opinions on all this. Part of me is worried that the website itself is a stupid idea to begin with? It's an idea I've had for a while just because I'm so passionate about this kind of stuff.

[DiffydaDude]

Mmmm yeah im kinda worried about that, maybe be careful where you put that link. 
With how hostile some parts of the internet are, I'd rather just keep these sites to ourselves.
I feel like its better as a thing that you dont show people, but something that people decide to do themselves

[OneMillionFurries]

Mmmm yeah im kinda worried about that, maybe be careful where you put that link. 
With how hostile some parts of the internet are, I'd rather just keep these sites to ourselves.
I feel like its better as a thing that you dont show people, but something that people decide to do themselves

Yeah I completely get that. That's my dilemma.
Because on one hand there's the risk of all this happening. My worse nightmare comes true and people get harassed.
On the other hand though, how will people know that this is all an option if we don't show them? I didn't know that personal websites were even a thing until a few years ago when I came across a Tumblr post linking to some. It was exactly what I needed, but how was I supposed to decide that if I didn't know it existed? This is all an extremely niche thing that doesn't get spread around on social media much.

I believe that there are far more good people in the world than there are bad. The majority of people that come to the indie space because of this website will be good people.

[starbreaker]

The problem with that being I'm honestly worried that, with the web revival space being quite queer, assholes will latch onto that fact and use this website as a launching off point to find people to harass? This might be an irrational fear tbh. I don't think that many people will visit this website in the first place. The goal with it is sort of just "If I can get a single person to make a website thanks to this, I will be happy" sort of deal y'know?

I think the trolls you're worried about thrive on corporate social media because they don't have to make any effort to find victims. They're on social media for the same reason most other people are on social media: it's easy and accessible for people who aren't as computer-literate as they might think they are.

Social media is also a target-rich environment. If people have their own websites and aren't congregating on platforms like Twitter, Discord, Threads, or even Mastodon, it's harder to find them, and harassing them becomes something that must be done one person at a time instead of en masse.

Most importantly, if I was a troll who wanted to bully somebody, I want people to see me do it. And I want them to see me get away with it. Social media makes that possible. But if I were to go to somebody's website and they don't have a comment form for their blog or a guestbook, how am I going to harass them? By email? Nobody's gonna know but them, me, and the NSA. And once they blackhole my address, I've got to get another. Might not be easy if I'm not using a provider like Fastmail that lets me create aliases, or if I don't know how to spoof my email address.

[Fish]

I think if you want to avoid brigading just share the link with friends or small groups. Sadly though, if you want the web revival movement to become massive I think you will have to accept having to deal with some pretty nasty people. In that case the best thing we can all do is to just form a culture were being an asshole online is seen as weird or as most folks online would say "cringe". I mean places like Kiwifarms are already seen by everyone as a group of sad online trolls who do nothing but harass others.

I think the trolls you're worried about thrive on corporate social media because they don't have to make any effort to find victims. They're on social media for the same reason most other people are on social media: it's easy and accessible for people who aren't as computer-literate as they might think they are.

Also this ^^^

The way social media is designed is just perfect for trolls. At most ig a group of really dedicated people could form like a hate webring, but thats still so isolated who's it really going to affect? They thrive off attention and need the clicks and engagement that social media gives.

[OneMillionFurries]

I think the trolls you're worried about thrive on corporate social media because they don't have to make any effort to find victims. They're on social media for the same reason most other people are on social media: it's easy and accessible for people who aren't as computer-literate as they might think they are.

Social media is also a target-rich environment. If people have their own websites and aren't congregating on platforms like Twitter, Discord, Threads, or even Mastodon, it's harder to find them, and harassing them becomes something that must be done one person at a time instead of en masse.

Most importantly, if I was a troll who wanted to bully somebody, I want people to see me do it. And I want them to see me get away with it. Social media makes that possible. But if I were to go to somebody's website and they don't have a comment form for their blog or a guestbook, how am I going to harass them? By email? Nobody's gonna know but them, me, and the NSA. And once they blackhole my address, I've got to get another. Might not be easy if I'm not using a provider like Fastmail that lets me create aliases, or if I don't know how to spoof my email address.

Yeah that's another thing! It's just significantly harder to mass-harass people on here. Someone leaves a shitty comment on your guestbook? Ok. Delete the comment. Someone joins the Melonland forum to post horrible spam? Ban them. Someone sends a shitty email? Delete and block. It's significantly harder to get away with that shit here than it is on social media.

This was originally part of my original reply but I deleted it just in case it was too controversial, but what you're saying is kind of in line with it: And even in the case that some asshole makes a hateful website... we don't gotta engage in it. A whole problem we have is that social media puts shit people don't wanna see in front of them. If some asshole spends their time making a website shitting on queer people that no one is gonna see, that's time that's not being spent spewing hateful shit on Twitter that gets pushed onto peoples feeds because of their blue checkmark.

I think if you want to avoid brigading just share the link with friends or small groups. Sadly though, if you want the web revival movement to become massive I think you will have to accept having to deal with some pretty nasty people. In that case the best thing we can all do is to just form a culture were being an asshole online is seen as weird or as most folks online would say "cringe". I mean places like Kiwifarms are already seen by everyone as a group of sad online trolls who do nothing but harass others.

As much as I'd dream of the web revival movement becoming massive, I just know that that isn't gonna happen. And I know that one website definitely isn't gonna make it so. Again my whole goal is "If one random person makes a website thanks to this, then I'll be happy" lol.

And yeah I think that'd be the best case scenario. If, God forbid and/or willing (however you wanna look at it), the web revival scene somehow  becomes massive and assholes join... as I said above, we don't gotta engage with them. That's the beauty of it all. They can go off into their sad little hateful forums and websites and we can be here. Ignoring them and calling them cringe.

[starbreaker]

Yeah that's another thing! It's just significantly harder to mass-harass people on here. Someone leaves a shitty comment on your guestbook? Ok. Delete the comment. Someone joins the Melonland forum to post horrible spam? Ban them. Someone sends a shitty email? Delete and block. It's significantly harder to get away with that shit here than it is on social media.

This was originally part of my original reply but I deleted it just in case it was too controversial, but what you're saying is kind of in line with it: And even in the case that some asshole makes a hateful website... we don't gotta engage in it. A whole problem we have is that social media puts shit people don't wanna see in front of them. If some asshole spends their time making a website shitting on queer people that no one is gonna see, that's time that's not being spent spewing hateful shit on Twitter that gets pushed onto peoples feeds because of their blue checkmark.

Excactly, and this is stuff I was saying about five years ago:

Back in the day, everybody knew where Nazis and white supremacists and fascists tended to congregate online. Remember Stormfront? As long as the goose-steppers stuck to Stormfront and related sites, nobody really gave a shit what they did online because it was contained.

If you ran a forum and one of your guests was posting fashy or tankie propaganda, there was nothing wrong with kicking them off because they could go somewhere else. You either moderated your platform, or your platform became subject to informal containment policies as word spread that your platform was infested with neo-Nazis, white supremacists, or the sort of self-righteous leftists who grew up reading Harry Potter and can’t accept that an author they loved turned out to be an asshole.

As you observed, the algorithms that push shit into your feeds on corporate social media make it easy for trolls to find potential victims. They don't need to hunt people down, the algorithm will bring people to their attention because it's tuned to drive engagement and rage = engagement. Angry people post more, and people who post more see more ads.

[j]

i like to vaguely reference the web revival and let others do the heavy lifting. in my head, if you're interested enough in what i'm talking about and interested enough in improving your relationship with being online, then you're likely to go and find things yourself anyways; i'm just catalyzing the process by giving you a couple of search terms so you get started sooner. the same is true when linking URLs, especially ones on different protocols:

"oh, you don't like Twitter? there's a cool gemini protocol social media that goes by 'Station' you could probably find if you use the portal on mozz.us"

[OneMillionFurries]

Excactly, and this is stuff I was saying about five years ago:

Great minds think alike ;)

i like to vaguely reference the web revival and let others do the heavy lifting. in my head, if you're interested enough in what i'm talking about and interested enough in improving your relationship with being online, then you're likely to go and find things yourself anyways; i'm just catalyzing the process by giving you a couple of search terms so you get started sooner. the same is true when linking URLs, especially ones on different protocols:

"oh, you don't like Twitter? there's a cool gemini protocol social media that goes by 'Station' you could probably find if you use the portal on mozz.us"

True! I was thinking of doing a similar thing on the "how to surf the internet" page. Give people a link to search.marginalia and tell them to look something up that they're interested in (books, movies, recipes, whatever) and then show them how to find other sites by clicking buttons, going through web rings, finding link lists, etc etc.

[Yaya]

I hear you all--It's such a safe space and I think it would be heartbreaking if it was ever "discovered". I find it super funny to use that word since it's a really easy space to find we're just pretty self-selecting.

I have a page on my site about the practices I use to surf the web, and I'm planning on making one explaining how to healthily slowly leave social media and find alternatives (without losing your social circle, etc..), but haven't done that yet.

I think the way I get about this is by encouraging friends in real life to explore alternatives (like we're doing right now) online. We have long conversations in which we discuss the state of the internet, social media, etc...and I'm happy to point them in the "Web Revival" direction since I know they're queer friendly, etc...it's a tough question though. When a space (either irl or online) gets infiltrated it can get super nasty.

[OneMillionFurries]

I hear you all--It's such a safe space and I think it would be heartbreaking if it was ever "discovered". I find it super funny to use that word since it's a really easy space to find we're just pretty self-selecting.

I have a page on my site about the practices I use to surf the web, and I'm planning on making one explaining how to healthily slowly leave social media and find alternatives (without losing your social circle, etc..), but haven't done that yet.

I think the way I get about this is by encouraging friends in real life to explore alternatives (like we're doing right now) online. We have long conversations in which we discuss the state of the internet, social media, etc...and I'm happy to point them in the "Web Revival" direction since I know they're queer friendly, etc...it's a tough question though. When a space (either irl or online) gets infiltrated it can get super nasty.

Like the thing is that part of me does want it to be discovered, y'know? That's kinda why I'm making the site. To help people discover it and learn that there's an alternative.

Trust me, I've talked all my friends' ears off on how they should all make websites and such too haha. One of them even did! But the point of this website is to be a link that I can include in print zines that I make that any old stranger could find and read. It would feel weird to link directly to the Melonland wiki or Sadgrl's website without permission in those zines, so I wanna create a site that I could link to with all the information at the ready.

[OneMillionFurries]

By the way: I'd be looking for an editor to help me clean up the site's content that I wrote after I'm done. I'm really not that good of a writer and know that there's probably a million and one grammar mistakes and just... general ways the writing can be improved that I just don't have the skill for. If anyone would be interested in helping me with that, feel free to PM me!

[starbreaker]

I hear you all--It's such a safe space and I think it would be heartbreaking if it was ever "discovered". I find it super funny to use that word since it's a really easy space to find we're just pretty self-selecting.

This might be a privilege issue on my end, but I'm not sure how much harm trolls could do to me via my personal website even if the personal web were re-discovered by the general public.

For example, I'm not sure that the [auto redacted] crowd has any harassment tactics that would work on me, short of showing up at my house en masse. They could do that, since property ownership is a matter of public record, but at that point I could photograph them, film them, and put both online to expose them as they've "exposed" me.

I mean, what are they going to do? Identify me as the author of my novels? Hell, the US government knows I wrote that stuff; I registered my novels with the US Copyright Office just so I'd have certificates to frame and hang on my wall.

Your situation might be different, but if you're operating personal websites under pseudonyms, these wastes of ammo would still have to find your websites first. And then they'd have to find ways to connect your websites to your IRL identities. They're more likely to try to come after me first, since I use my "real name" online. Even if they could frighten me, it won't do them any good. Scaring me just makes me angrier.

[starbreaker]

By the way: I'd be looking for an editor to help me clean up the site's content that I wrote after I'm done. I'm really not that good of a writer and know that there's probably a million and one grammar mistakes and just... general ways the writing can be improved that I just don't have the skill for. If anyone would be interested in helping me with that, feel free to PM me!

I have a couple of suggestions based on your homepage:

• Before creating a web page, write the text in an editor like Notepad and save it. Write one sentence per line. (It's a trick I learned from Derek Sivers.) Then run it through a spell checker. It won't catch everything, but it should catch common mistakes like misspelling "tendencies". Once you're done, you can build your web page around your edited text.
  
• You're using "V" as a down arrow. Try using "↓" instead. HTML has all sorts of entities like that that browsers will render into characters and symbols. Toptal has a decent reference as does Wikipedia.
  

By the way, your homepage works fine in mobile because it's got a very simple layout. If you want to make your other pages more mobile-friendly, you might want to learn how to use CSS Grid and use a CSS media query to only activate grid layout when your visitors are using a device with a high-accuracy poining device like a mouse or a trackpad.

[OneMillionFurries]

Before creating a web page, write the text in an editor like Notepad and save it. Write one sentence per line. (It's a trick I learned from Derek Sivers.) Then run it through a spell checker. It won't catch everything, but it should catch common mistakes like misspelling "tendencies". Once you're done, you can build your web page around your edited text.

Oh yeah no I'm definitely writing all this in a document first. I've noticed quite a few spelling mistakes throughout my main site, but decided to keep them in anyways. This site however will have a much more polished presentation than that. The "one sentence per line" thing is REALLY helpful advice though! Thank you!

You're using "V" as a down arrow. Try using "↓" instead. HTML has all sorts of entities like that that browsers will render into characters and symbols. Toptal has a decent reference as does Wikipedia.

Probably another thing I'll keep as-is for my main site because I like it, but very good to know for this other site I wanna make! Thanks again ^^

By the way, your homepage works fine in mobile because it's got a very simple layout. If you want to make your other pages more mobile-friendly, you might want to learn how to use CSS Grid and use a CSS media query to only activate grid layout when your visitors are using a device with a high-accuracy poining device like a mouse or a trackpad.

Funnily enough the layout I used for my site (Sadgrl's) already had a mobile version built in, but I purposely took it out because I wanted my site to appear the same on both desktop and mobile. I somehow did something to it one time that made it extra messed up on mobile that I've been meaning to fix for a while. But also I've been wanting to do a complete rewrite of my website sometime so I'm hoping anything I do there will fix it :) Idk, I'll probably still try to fix the current version sometime.