What inspired you to create a personal website?

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[Nightdrift]

Whether you have been making personal sites for many years, or have recently come into webmaster-ing, I think there is something very deliberate about the act of hand coding a personal site on the world wide web. Platforms like Neocities help a lot with lowering the barrier of entry while also providing a light framework of community, but even then the process can feel like setting your tiny raft adrift into a vast sea of possibilities. It is a very different kind of jump compared to signing up for a platform that has established templates and expectations.

The call to creating a personal site may be brought on by many things: nostalgia, a desire to have a little home of your own on the net, a place to catalogue your deepest interests, perhaps as a challenge -- etc, etc, the list goes on and on.

So I ask to anyone who wants to share, a few questions. Answer whichever ones you please, and feel free to pose any questions of your own if you've got any related thoughts!

  What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?
  What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?
  Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

[Obspogon]

I somehow found Neocities and I joined. Only followed other people's websites at first, but eventually, I took the plunge.

[cinni]

ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ great topic!! my short-story is, i wanted to make a website for my virtual gallery project on wix, got frustrated that i couldnt use iframes like i remember from my neopets days, then decided i wanted to learn html again and found neocities lol. i've never looked back... ╰(*´︶`*)╯

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

after finding neocities, i wanted to make cinni.net because i felt the internet was missing something, i missed the community aspect of pixel trading and web rings, and finding personal websites that were lovingly hand-crafted. when i was a kid in the early 00's, i was so obsessed with these pixel sites like yume studio or scribbleland (seriously, go experience all the different layouts on the wayback machine, theyre all so goooood.) i loved looking at pixel dolls and adoptables, surfing the internet to find new ones, and designing website layouts on paper haha. then i realized how fragile the internet is, and how undocumented the culture of the early 'net is. i really wanted to preserve these sites and bring back aspects of them like pixel trading, providing web goodies, linking to other sites, and encouraging creativity and others to make their own website. :-3

ALSO, a big part of it was feeling jaded with social media and wanting to carve out a space on the internet for myself. i felt like i had to put up a persona on instagram since so many ppl i know IRL followed me (like old bosses, professors). i felt like i couldnt share anything unless it was 'perfect'. that self-imposed pressure just made me never post... but with my own personal website, i get the satisfaction of learning a new skill, making my own space how i want it with zero pressure to ~succeed~ or whatever haha. i can share my anime figure collection on my site, who cares

  What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

learning html/css as a hobby is a process, lol.. though i think my biggest issue rn is handling all my files, since i didn't plan for expanding my site so much. i do everything manually in neocities so the thought of re-structuring everything is..eep.

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

i've had my site for a good three years now, so i imagine 5 years (i hope) it will still be up, maybe a different layout, more content, who knows! i like to think of a personal site as a record of my life, so even if i don't maintain it i'd like for it to be up as long as possible. (*￣▽￣)b

[m15o]

I always love reading your questions Nightdrift! I'll give it a try.

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?
The first page I created online was around year 2000-ish. At the time it blew my mind that I was able to create something that anyone could see. As a kid the first thing I wanted to create was a page on Pokemon, my passion back then. I loved being able to share what I liked, and meet people that shared the same interest. I still do today. I love that personal website can reflect who we are and what we love.

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?
So many, over the years... But the latest one is being able to draw 88x31 buttons I like!

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?
I'm hoping to see a lot more "Projects" in the section that has the same name, and a lot more buttons of people I've connected with. Since we're 5 years in the future, I'm thinking a part of the website will be in full 3d, and perhaps include 3d portals to other websites.

[Cobra!]

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

Well, basically seeing wacky personal sites on Geocities back in the day, and Neocities sites now, and I wanted to take part.

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

Getting it all to work, pretty much, constant trial and error with window sizes and such

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

Hard to say, I think with how long it took to make my current site the way it is, and how difficult it was, I think I'm going to call it complete.

However, I might end up adding more languages to it by 5 years time. I plan to learn Nynorn, Japanese and Korean in the future.

[Memory]

Question 1: Inspiration

So I was watching this video titled "Shmorby's Guide To The Internet!" and in that video, there was this domain titled shmorby.com So I typed it and redirected to shmorby.neocities.org Curious me decided to shorten it to neocities.org I looked around on the sites tab which showed a list of sites including this one. However, I didn't think about making an account but just bookmarked it because I didn't know how to code in HTML. Weeks later, I made an account because I thought to myself "I know how to program in other languages (like Lua) so it should be easy to learn with my skills." Another inspiration came from Kugee's site called razorback95.com which had the quote "Make websites, not accounts." With the inspiration from all of these sites, I was heavily inspired to make my own site.

Question 2: Challenges

Since I am starting out with writing my first HTML pages, I don't really know how to keep my code clean even if I try my best to do so. The second challenge is cost, I didn't know how expensive making a site can be until I made my account. Well, I kinda did know about Wix's prices which were pretty pricy plus the additional cost of keeping up with rebuying the same domain over and over.

Question 3: The future

Honestly don't know, But my best bet is that in a few years I could probably afford to manage my own site with my own money and (Hopefully) could use my coding skills to work on projects that I want to make.

[di]

My site is still a baby, so maybe this will be an interesting time capsule for myself... or maybe just a forgotten shout into the endless abyss of the internet

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

Recently, I decided I'm done with social media, done feeling like a pawn in "Meta"'s game. At just the right time, I stumbled onto Neocities. I wish I remembered how.

Surfing through unique and personal websites, all made with love, reminded me of what's good about the internet. Then I saw a bunch of graphics saying "You should make your own site too," and I read some manifestos, and I was like, why not?

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

When I was younger I put a lot of love & effort into making my own little tumblr site. I remember feeling like it was my very own home on the web. On tumblr I would lightly edit templates that other users shared, and add scripts here and there. However, Neocities feels very different as you have to supply all the content by yourself! I am still using a template provided by somebody else, but I've had to get my hands a lot more dirty with HTML. Which is awesome because I'm learning. But at the same time, my limited skills can't keep up with all my ideas and I feel like I don't get enough done even after working so hard

It takes a lot more time, but maybe it feels more rewarding because of it.

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

Well, I definitely want certain pages to be put up by then. I also think it would be cool to share my writing and get more engaged with a wider community by taking part in events or something like that. Hopefully, I'll have some unique contributions that people will come to my site for.

[quote author

i like to think of a personal site as a record of my life, so even if i don't maintain it i'd like for it to be up as long as possible. (*￣▽￣)b

I like this way of looking at it, I'll try to look at my site this way so I don't feel guilty if I get too busy to maintain it in the future

[Melooon]

Another high quality question, thank you for asking!

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

I wish I could remember WHY I was thinking about sites, but I remember one day thinking about all the free web hosts that used to exist and how they were kinda crappy. I wanted to know if any still existed so I was searching free web hosts and found neocities, after looking at a few sites I was like. I CAN DO THIS! It was mainly an excuse to post old projects and junk I had that didn't really fit anywhere else in my life.

I think LGR (Youtuber), Hackers (1995 movie), Keep on Movin (the song by Five) and Mr Rogers Neighborhood (when it streamed on Twitch) and stuff I made when I was 12; were all some of the big influences in my life when I was first making it.

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

So my site is now over 5 years old and a lot has happened in my life since then. The biggest challenge has been maintaining it and keeping its spirit alive, while allowing it to change and grow as Iv changed and grown. Many people do total redesigns when they feel they have outgrown a site, I never wanted to do that, I wanted the site to grow with me.

Weird as it might sound, I find the community can be hard! I avoided it for most of my sites history and this year has been an experiment. I think sometimes my site speaks for me better than I do, words have never been my friend

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

SO, there have been a few times when I felt my site was ":grin:omg:ne" I had nothing new to add to it, sure I could add new features and pages, but I could no longer expand on the vision of what it was, adding new pages would not really make it better. I kinda feel that way at the moment, and that's ok! Every now and then I do discover a new dimension to move into, but also just adding pages for cool stuff is fine.
I always wanted to make my site into a kind of theme park, a virtual disneyland

+++

In response to some others, thanks for sharing your histories, its interesting to read!

@Nightdrift, I agree about lowering the barrier of entry, I also think neocities ligitmizes these sites, lots of people are doing it so you dont feel like a weirdo making sites on your own :omg:k:
@cinni, yeah getting away from professionalism was a HUGE draw to personal sites
@m15o, Uggghhh 88x31 buttons!
@Cobra, Nynorn!
@Icelogist, Wix is a good point, Id like to see a list of site builders as easy as Wix that are good and free.
@di Agreed! Not feeding big companies is a great feeling

[Memory]

Wix is a good point, Id like to see a list of site builders as easy as Wix that are good and free.

Well yes, Wix is a pretty easy and powerful tool for site creators if you don't wanna learn HTML, but it's kinda limiting for people who wanna make something unique like your site. They are kinda left in the dark, this is a problem with a lot of site builders, that's kinda like giving an artist a bunch of templates, paper, colors, pictures, scissors, and tape but no paintbrushes, pencils, pens, or even a marker. However there is a good thing with limitations, limitations force webmasters to think outside the box when making websites.