What do you like to explore on other people's sites?

[ValyceNegative]

Hoping the topic title is clear enough, I was struggling to find a good one xP anyway, the idea came to mind while looking at the mobile webring thread. Indieweb denizens pass a lot of time on their own sites but also surf other sites a lot! When you stumble upon a site and decide to look around for a while, how much of it do you read? Do you jist look at the homepage's layout then jump to the next one? Do you stop at the About Me section? Do you look for the graphics/gallery only? Do you read the entire Blog section, or just the latest entries? Are there sections that you generally avoid or stuff that you actively seek when looking at a new site?

I like reading blogs, but most of all guides and tutorials, so those kinds of posts tend to attract my attention more than life updates or media reviews. I also like link hoards. If I see a site with a huge linkout section I end up spending a looot of time there xD

[inulex]

i like reading about mes, art galleries, and shrines for media im familiar with! or any other page that catches my eye. i kinda flip though everything on sites though.

[Horsey Chobunso]

I find myself clicking on any page about interests that are either similar to mine or something so far removed from my experiences that I become curious. I think I have learned more about well loved niche subjects from my time browsing in the indie net than I ever have before. I'm also one to focus on gallery or writing pages, but eventually I'll try to hit every page of any given website. At the very least, a website full of topics I don't care for can still have really interesting designs and give me inspiration for my own site later on.

[honeyontoast]

Shrines are cool, I'm not the best at making them but the effort some people put into theirs is fascinating, even shrines on topics I've no interest in personally become exciting to read when you know it was made with passion.

I also really enjoy photograph galleries, since I maintain one too. Seeing all the different ways people take pictures, with different cameras - Some sites I find are film only, others use 90s and 00s digital cameras, others only take pictures of a certain subject etc.

[Seance]

I like digging into sites that have animation effects I haven't seen before - especially when it's something clever, like a script to swap out one image for another on hover, or CSS-only animation.

I tend to click around into multiple pages to see what goodies I can find - I like when sites have hidden features when you click around and explore, too!

[sphinx]

One thing I always gravitate to is photos that the person took themselves. Especially ones that aren't edited much or are totally raw. It doesn't matter what the context is. It could be someone's shelf of collectables, or photos from a vacation or pictures of pets. I like those little glimpses into someone else's world. Anyone can pull tons of graphics off the internet but something about photos they took themselves (or scans of real tangible art or writing they made for that matter) it just adds this extra layer of authenticity.

[theartofgaming]

 I love looking a people's OC galleries or their art galleries! Some people even have their stories up on their sites which is always a treat as well. That said though, I will always gravitate to people making dev logs. It's more common amongst game devs but I love hearing about people's process for all the art they're making.

[rnottelovesowls]

i like reading other blogs (mostly because i just like reading, period), admiring the look of the site, and if there's a page for music or photos, i'll be sure to check it out. music, especially, because you'll never know if they still make music now, or did at one point and stopped. and you'll never know what kind of music you'll be hearing, whether it's electronic, bedroom pop, rock, or soundcloud rap. that is the true magic of music discoverability

[cyberdreamz]

I usually check the about me and the graphics pages first - i like looking through various stamps/blinkies/buttons/etc that the person has saved (and saving some of them myself). I also like going through people's blogs, I like reading about what other people are up to :]
Oh, and of course I make sure to stop by the art gallery if the website has one!

[poesu]

First, I check out the about me page if there's one; I'm not looking for anything in particular, just what kind of person the webmaster is and what kind of info they share (and maybe snatch an idea or two for my own about me!). Then I poke around art/photo galleries; I may just skim through them if I don't vibe with the style, or examine them more thoroughly and give the webmaster a follow on Neocities or subscribe to their web feed. I check out the blog as well and read some titles to see if anything interests me; if it does, I try to read all entries and maybe reach out by email if something especially resonated with me. As was already said in this thread, I too hoard buttons/blinkies/stamps; it's always a joy to find some new ones I can collect. The most important page on every site is a links/resources page! So many goodies on those, I get lost in the opened tabs pretty easily. It's most valuable to me if the links have descriptions and are directed to something specific like a guide or a blog post.

I don't usually visit shrine pages. Idk, just not my cuppa tea.

[milo]

I think my favorite parts of people's sites are any shrines or dedicated pages like that. I like seeing what other people are into and have discovered cool things I wouldn't have otherwise. I do also enjoy About Me sections or blogs... it's fascinating taking a peep into these strangers' lives as they share them and I especially enjoy blog posts about days spent doing mundane activites or day trips.

[Cyan]

it's fascinating taking a peep into these strangers' lives as they share them and I especially enjoy blog posts about days spent doing mundane activites or day trips.

^ yes to all that, personal blogs were one of the reasons I fell in love with the Internet to begin with. People are interesting, and I love seeing how regular folks have it in distant parts of the world I'll probably never visit.

[KeyJayHD]

To be honest, up till recently I've taken a special interest in the IndieWeb, mainly because of what's been going on with all the other platforms and such, and it was just great seeing so much love and care from a community of people taking back their own web space again like when I was growing up. But honestly, I haven't really found the IT factor to make exploring these spaces a habit just yet. Honestly I think it's a kind of sickness brought on by social media that I'm still trying to get over; a bit of pattern reprogramming I guess. The crux is that social brought an aspect of people that you know into the mix, where here it's truly the wild west. It's exciting, but admittedly can be a hassle to find something you actually want to sit down with.

If I had to think back though on when I was heavy into a lot of forums and what drove me, I'd say it was hearing other works from other musicians and maybe expressing my own two cents from time to time on their work. While I have joined a few music based webrings, I'm still (again) trying to establish the habit of coming back. I haven't even really taken the time to really browse them either; life and all that + bad habits. It's not that I'm not interested, but fighting the convenience of a learned experience spanning years is not something super easy to break out of.

Some other things that make me stay I see, interesting web design. While I get the nostalgia feel that a lot of these sites aim for (not really into the "put everything everywhere" style of things because throwback; sorry glitter hip-hop Tweety gifs behind XP decor isn't going to do it for me), my taste I think gravitates more to later structured designs (not necessarily material or corporate minimalism, but just the later non table like, full width design concepts). That said, a site is really special to me when I can just stop for a second even with old design methods with an obscene amount of bandwidth chomping ornamentation and still think yeah, I wouldn't normally ever think to do this, but just....wow, this is a visual splendor that makes me smile for all the...wrong (right?) reasons.

I guess the TL;DR, whatever hooks me without making my eyes and ears bleed (too much) lol. That could be design, art, your initial personality, or maybe from just your name.

Cheers for the question  🍻   

[Gakipper]

I think that what I like to explore the best are pages that give me a taste of someone's vibe ? Generally the home and link pages are my starting point :} Then if I vibe, I dig in deeper. I love to explore cookbooks or page where people share pictures they found and loved. I like to try and find less "common", more unique pages when they exist !

[ilikepie]

I adore shrines so much; even if it's not something I know too much about, I want to see what has caught the heart of somebody so much that they created and designed a web page just for it alone! It's amazing stuff to look at, really, I read everything on a shrine, and I enjoy taking inspirations. I always read an about page if there is one of course, and honestly... I just want to look at everything and anything.

Everybody has created their own website for a specific reason, whether it be an art gallery, digital archive, or just... wanting to have a personal catch-all website where they can exist, and I want to explore all that they have. I love this specific part of the web

One thing I always gravitate to is photos that the person took themselves. Especially ones that aren't edited much or are totally raw. It doesn't matter what the context is. It could be someone's shelf of collectables, or photos from a vacation or pictures of pets. I like those little glimpses into someone else's world. Anyone can pull tons of graphics off the internet but something about photos they took themselves (or scans of real tangible art or writing they made for that matter) it just adds this extra layer of authenticity.

I agree with this as well! Even if there's places like Flickr where you can upload this stuff, uploading your own photography to a personal website is something I always enjoy seeing, scans of physical artworks (including writing) too.