Neocities kinda sucks, but it's still kinda good.

[Memory]

so for example if Neocities received a copyright takedown related to your site, they will just ignore it, whereas most other hosts will delete your site because they are worried about getting kicked off the infrastructure which they don't own.

Surely that's only really applicable for fraudulent copyright notices, because the local jurisdiction could still physically close down their data center or charge them with a crime if they wanted to.

[Nippo]

I am actually curious about WebDAV, can you tell me more about it? And what advantages does it have over just using the CLI?

I don't have much experience with the CLI. WebDAV is pretty user friendly as it just gives you the folder in file explorer (for windows you need another software to do this, I forgot the name of it at the moment). With Linux it's straight forward to set up.

The only complaint I have is that for some reason file transfer speeds are extremely slow. But at the very least it lets me move around things. I don't think it's worth the money if you aren't paying already. I only paid for custom domain name.

[Melooon]

The only complaint I have is that for some reason file transfer speeds are extremely slow.

Ooph, Neocities and speed don't mix - when I was uploading MoMG (which is 5GB of tiny images) - it took 15 mins to upload to my VPS, aparently like 48 hours via WebDav and about 3-5 hours using the CLI; but I had to write a special script that made the CLI upload each image one at a time because the bulk upload command could not handle 100k images... I guess that story is not very helpful for anyone, but it does highlight speed issues on NC

I agree though the benefit to WebDAV is that you can use a nice UI like CyberDuck or Transmit - and some editors will track your local file changes and publish them via WebDAV.

[princemaggots]

I am actually curious about WebDAV, can you tell me more about it? And what advantages does it have over just using the CLI?

WebDAV is a file transfer system for HTTPS, which allows you to upload files to / download files from your Neocities site. Unlike the CLI, you can actually download from it (which I don't typically do but is useful). It makes it easier (at least for me personally) to upload individual files / parts of the site since it'll show you folders, which is really helpful for me personally as someone who has a ton of WIPS. It'll also actually show you how your folders look on the site, which is nice. I use Cyberduck since that's what's recommended by Neocities and it's free, but there are other options.

Will say that using WebDAV for your site requires a supporter account, so if you have a free tier you can't use it (which is one of its only disadvantages, in my opinion). But if you have a supporter account, you just put https://neocities.org/webdav into the server field, and your username and password for those fields, like so (this is cyberduck, but other ones have the same concept).

[Icey!]

using WebDAV for your site requires a supporter account

oh

[almostcorporeal]

Reading around about a lot of the limitations placed on users by Neocities both in general and behind the supporter account paywall, as well as ofc the concern of if neocities dies all the sites do to some degree, was one of the biggest things that pushed me to look into self-hosting and learning about that early. I do agree that for discoverability, if that's something you desire, I can see the appeal behind something like neocities, but personally I like that neocities gives me a bit of a hand-held idea of how to start using HTML/CSS/JS to set up pages how I like while I spend time looking into self-hosting and figuring out finances/etc on that. I've always been more of a hands on kind of person so having somewhere I can mess around with site building while looking into self-hosting is really nice because I don't feel like I have to put my itch to be creative on hold while I branch out.

As for ichi.city, I use it to host my files for my neocities like mp3s since I can't afford a supporter account. I haven't met anyone so far who has used it for otherwise to my knowledge.

[Inkerlink]

Excuse me if I'm being ignorant but reading everyone's replies here about Neocities dying and their concerns with losing their site, doesn't Neocities allow you to download your entire site anyway? Don't most people keep their own local backup of their site? If so isn't it not too big of a deal if Neocities goes down? 

[sig]

Excuse me if I'm being ignorant but reading everyone's replies here about Neocities dying and their concerns with losing their site, doesn't Neocities allow you to download your entire site anyway? Don't most people keep their own local backup of their site? If so isn't it not too big of a deal if Neocities goes down? 

Technically yes, but that doesn't mean that all the sites will be accessible again. I think most Neocites users would not bother reuploading their page, purely from a statistical point of view (a lot of sites aren't actively maintained or people would simply not bothered to do so, I would say that even 30% reuploading their pages is a very generous figure). Even if the sites were reuploaded, the links to other Neocities pages would be broken so the entire Neocities 'ecosystem' would be lost, and it would be very hard for the sites to link back up again because you would not be able to see where they went unless they already have some form of contact (which too is a huge hassle, so a lot of people would yet again not bother).

Basically, all sites are 'safe' on the hard drives of the users but good luck getting them off there!  It would be kind of catastrophic for the scene if Neocities were to shut down, but on the other hand it also lowers the bar for people to create their own space on the web, even if it is not Truly 100% Their Own. I'm all for self-hosting but I'm sure that Neocities is a very valuable space for people to get their own thing going on before deciding to invest further. The bar being so much lower than self-hosting means that a lot of people who would otherwise never get their hands dirty get the chance to express themselves on the Internet, and we'll just have to deal with the fact that some day, the servers will give up. With the fluid state of the Internet, I think all we can do is just enjoy the good times while they last!

(also definitely archive the things you want to keep safe if you really want to be sure    )

[Melooon]

It would be kind of catastrophic for the scene if Neocities were to shut down

I think the web revival in its current form would more or less end if Neocities vanished - As much as communities like this one do their best to pull this community together, Neocities really is the center of gravity. If it vanished; you'd have different factions of Neocities users spinning off in their own directions; a few people would try and re-host Neocities sites, but those would never have that star like gravitational force. Even the MelonLand.net homepage and the Surf Club are hosted on there because that's where the people are!

[Inkerlink]

Even if the sites were reuploaded, the links to other Neocities pages would be broken so the entire Neocities 'ecosystem' would be lost, and it would be very hard for the sites to link back up again because you would not be able to see where they went unless they already have some form of contact (which too is a huge hassle, so a lot of people would yet again not bother).

Ah yeah, I didn't think of all the links that would break, that's a very good point. I guess re-linking would be a big pain whether there are backups or not. And it's the links that keep us together, really. 

I think the web revival in its current form would more or less end if Neocities vanished - As much as communities like this one do their best to pull this community together, Neocities really is the center of gravity. If it vanished; you'd have different factions of Neocities users spinning off in their own directions; a few people would try and re-host Neocities sites, but those would never have that star like gravitational force. Even the MelonLand.net homepage and the Surf Club are hosted on there because that's where the people are!

How about the notion of "You can't kill an idea"?
Maybe it's too optimistic and/or naiive of me to think this, but like the idea that the web revival 'idea' is strong enough that even if Neocities perished, people would go ahead and create another solution, even if it means years of time in-between. So as colossal a blow it would be to lose Neocities, do you really think it would snuff out the idea forever?

[Necrosia]

How about the notion of "You can't kill an idea"?
Maybe it's too optimistic and/or naiive of me to think this, but like the idea that the web revival 'idea' is strong enough that even if Neocities perished, people would go ahead and create another solution, even if it means years of time in-between. So as colossal a blow it would be to lose Neocities, do you really think it would snuff out the idea forever?

I don't think the old web would die if neocities exploded overnight but it certainly would suffer a huge toll, I saw this happening to the pixel dolling community when the most popular forum was closed. People did not stop making pixel dolls and there were tries to create new foruns but its never the same because people just got too scattered. There's a lot of organic grow that goes into these sort of online communities and that can't be created overnight with a new forum or a new free host, sometimes it just looses momentum.

An idea can't be killed, let alone forever, but it can have its ups and downs and sometimes never truly recover to the what it was back in the peak time.

[sig]

How about the notion of "You can't kill an idea"?
Maybe it's too optimistic and/or naiive of me to think this, but like the idea that the web revival 'idea' is strong enough that even if Neocities perished, people would go ahead and create another solution, even if it means years of time in-between. So as colossal a blow it would be to lose Neocities, do you really think it would snuff out the idea forever?

I definitely don't think it would stop the idea; however, I do think it would set us back a certain amount of years and it would take a while before this kind of mass would be reached again, most likely due to a replacement of Neocities picking up steam and the cycle starting anew.

[Memory]

I'm pessimistic and I'd say that many people in the web revival community treat it as a centralized social network on Neocities and tied to Neocities, and that the vast bulk of them would die off and move to other "alt" social media like SpaceHey if Neocities shut down.

Not to mention that most people don't have the skills or the will to learn how to set up their own webserver and host their website themselves; plus, minors cannot legally even rent a server or a domain.

[debleb]

neocities has definitely got its share of issues but atm i do still think it’s the best platform for people that just want an easy, simple, cheap way to make their own website. you don’t have to put ads on your site, everything can be done in the browser (even if its not ideal  ), the website browser lets you get people to actually see it easily, and the free version gives you more than enough to get a personal site going. plus, the owner seems to have common interests with the users, i’m not being lorded over by some out of touch billionaire. it kind of lets me trust there probably won’t be anything super disliked added.

it makes web design more accessible where otherwise it seems quite intimidating to a lot of people especially when modern websites can be so arcane seeming in their functions. which i think is really the big thing that makes neocities good. 
 

[Memory]

plus, the owner seems to have common interests with the users, i’m not being lorded over by some out of touch billionaire. it kind of lets me trust there probably won’t be anything super disliked added.

I mean, that's how nearly all big social networks grew to the size they are now: being shepherded by people who cared about it and people like it, until eventually they were either sold off or changed direction to add all of the bad things once people were hooked enough.

You could very well imagine Neocities going freemium to "cover server costs" at some point, with free sites getting a little ad banner at first, which gradually goes on to mean "premium features" like custom Javascript or unlimited upload size... you get the drift. This is plausible.

Neocities is cool, yes, but it's also a single point of failure that holds an entire subculture hostage at the moment. If it fails in some way, we're all gone; except for the few of us who self-host.