Beginner’s Guide To The Indie Web
beginner’s guide to the indie web
“i miss the old internet” “we’ll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever again” “i’m tired of social media but there’s nowhere to go”
HOLD ON!
personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someone’s personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! here’s how:
use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)
need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.
there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if that’s your sort of thing!
stack overflow is every programmer’s hub for asking questions and getting help, so if you’re struggling with getting something to look how you want or can’t fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no one’s asked the same question before.
websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.
want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google won’t show you!
you can also use directory sites like yesterweb’s link section to find websites in all sorts of places.
if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)
if you are making your own site:
get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heart’s content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you can’t do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.
don’t overwhelm yourself! if you’ve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesn’t look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! you’re learning a skill that most people don’t have or care to have, and that’s pretty cool.
keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and don’t just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.
you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website you’re currently viewing. it’ll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. don’t use this to steal other people’s code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, don’t steal.
don’t hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource you’re taking from says it’s okay! it’s common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone else’s site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, you’re taking up someone else’s bandwidth.
if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your website’s content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, don’t sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.
visit other people’s sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.
if you are browsing sites:
if the page you’re viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say “love your site” in their guestbook.
that being said, if there’s something on a website you don’t like, simply move on to something else and don’t leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. it’s not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.
take your time! indie web doesn’t prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. you’ll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read what’s in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someone’s art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.
explore! by clicking links on a website, it’s easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.
seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someone’s site about a topic you’ve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.
i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3
More Posts from Commonpage and Others
Dark Academia Books for Students of Politics and International Relations:
I mean, heck, I am no expert but my need to see this niche ass post is a lot so here goes.
The Prince: Machiavelli- do I NEED to explain this one. Its a seminal text in politics and political philosophy and when you listen to the ideas described in it they can sound a little crazy but once you read it you realise they are still crazy but grounded in something very real. Also its short as heck and an easy read.
Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace- Hans J Morgenthau. I had to pick this one up for my coursework last semester and I thought it would be a snooze fest but no. I was drawn in and I haven’t finished it since but I do plan to get back to it at my leisure.
The End of History and the Last Man: Francis Fukuyama- YES, I fundamentally disagree with Fukuyama on so many points. YES, it is still one of my favourite books of all time. it is a very riveting discussion of political philosophy, history and international relations. If you are interested in any of those topics, pick it up. You won’t regret it.
How Democracy Ends: David Runciman- captivatingly written, great arguments, and a very unique voice. Super relevant in today’s international political atmosphere and if you are interested in studying the rise of right wing authoritarian governments across the globe, this is a great place to start.
Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan- another one that I just feel like i don’t need to explain. Again haven’t read it fully yet, but its quite chill inducing and the basis for most of the contemporary discussion on state, liberalism, authoritarianism, rights and so forth.
These were just my recommendations, and I by no means claim that they cover the entire gamut of the field. In fact, I would consider myself a noob still where texts relating to politics or IR are concerned, so feel free to give your recommendations and opinions as well!
neocities/indie webmastery resources
since a lot of people are getting into indie web stuff nowadays, I figured I'd post my collection of webmastery resources I've accumulated here!
full list under the cut, you can also view the list and other resources on my resource page (which contains resources for other things too, not just webmastery or programming). This post will probably be updated when I find more stuff too
Font selector code HTML - the HTML portion of code I made to implement a working font selector on my website
Font selector code JavaScript - the JavaScript portion of code I made to implement a working font selector on my website
freeCodeCamp - free coding courses and certifications
The Odin Project - full stack web development curriculum, open source
Developer Roadmaps - community-made roadmaps for self-taught developers
GTmetrix - shows how fast your site loads and gives recommendations on how to improve load times
Cappuccicons - free icons, alternative to Font Awesome
XP.css - CSS framework mimicking the look of Windows XP operating systems
Indieseek.xyz - an indie web directory
Archetype - experiment with font and spacing options and see a live preview of what they'd look like on a webpage
Porkbun - cheap domain and web hosting provider with free WHOIS privacy (not having your private information publicly available and linked to your domain name which normally happens when you buy a domain unless you pay a fee) included with every domain
Whatruns - free browser extension for Firefox that tells you what a website uses to run
Inclusive Components - a blog about designing inclusive and accessible web interfaces, with example code
WAVE Web Accessibility Tool - scans a webpage and identifies potential accessibility improvements
ACA 80x15 web badge maker - make a web badge
Sadgrl's 88x31 button maker - make a button for your website
A Field Guide to Web Accessibility - an informative guide about web accessibility
Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List - huge list of tools that assist in helping create accessible websites
SCM Music Player - customizable music player for your website
Resources - Bechnokid's resources, tutorials, and code snippets, including making an RSS feed reader for status.cafe and implementing Freezeframe JS (so animated GIFs don't play by default until hovered over or until the user clicks a button, important for accessibility)
Mobile Friendly via CSS - a tutorial by Dannarchy on making your website mobile-friendly
Website Carbon - calculates your website's carbon footprint, recommend pairing this with GTmetrix for specific recommendations as optimizing how fast your website loads will generally reduce its carbon footprint
Native Neocities Hit-Counter - a tutorial by Dannarchy on making a native Neocities hit-counter for your website
Cbox - free chatbox for your website
You Don't Need JavaScript - a collection of ways to do things typically done with JavaScript, without JavaScript
Creating your own website - a guide by 32-Bit Cafe
Zonelets - a simple, free blogging engine
Melonking's intro to the web revival - a series of blog posts on building a website for beginners
Code snippets - useful HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets from Kalechips
Other people's collections of webmastery resources (not all of these are just webmastery):
sadgrl.online
Yesterlinks
Tinytools directory
32-Bit Cafe's massive resource list
awhe's cool links
30 seconds of code (free code snippets)
Milan's ultimate resource list (not just programming)
doqmeat's links
the garden of madeline's web resources page
Okay, I think that's all the links for now! If you have any questions on this stuff feel free to send me an ask btw, I'm happy to help :D
Transition Words For Your Essays
Transition Signals:
Transitions are words and phrases that connect ideas and show how they are related.
To repeat and ideas just stated:
In other words,
That is,
To repeat,
Again,
To illustrate an idea:
For example,
For instance,
In particular,
To illustrate,
In this manner,
Thus,
To announce a contrast, a change in direction:
Yet,
However,
Still,
Nevertheless,
On the other hand,
In contrast,
Instead of,
On the contrary,
Conversely,
Notwithstanding,
In spite of this,
Time:
At once,
In the interim,
At length,
Immediately,
At last,
Meanwhile,
In the meantime,
Presently,
At the same time,
Shortly,
In the end,
Temporarily,
Thereafter,
To restate an idea more precisely:
To be exact,
To be specific,
To be precise,
More specifically,
More precisely,
To mark a new idea as an addition to what has been said:
Similarly,
Also,
Too,
Besides,
Furthermore,
Further,
Moreover,
In addition,
To show cause and effect:
As a result,
For this reason,
Thereafter,
Hence,
Consequently,
Accordingly,
Conclusion:
In short,
To conclude,
In brief,
On the whole,
In summary,
To sum up,
online library so far:
margaret atwood
the brontës (the complete works is a MASSIVE file fyi)
anne carson
hélène cixous
bell hooks
clarice lispector
audre lorde
virginia woolf
compilations
feminist theory
academic writing (both books and articles)
everything here is in pdf format so you should be able to download and read it on any device. it’s slow going because i have a lot of epubs that i have to convert before uploading and the folders i’ve listed here are neither complete nor comprehensive, but it’s a start!
a list of cool websites, with the topic gradually changed:
Library of Short Stories - A free and accessible collection of short stories from the public domain.
Global Grey ebooks - Free ebook downloads on a wide range of topics.
Weird Old Book Finder - A search tool that responds with one public domain book at a time.
Oldest Search - Search for the oldest results on the internet.
Deletionpedia - A wiki for articles deleted from Wikipedia.
Killed by Microsoft - A graveyard for the discontinued.
The Ultimate Dark Academia Book Recommendation Guide Ever
The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.
Dark Academia staples:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum
Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko
Dark academia litfic or contemporary:
Bunny by Mona Awad
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
White Ivy by Susie Yang
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates
Attribution by Linda Moore
Dark academia thrillers or horror:
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
They Never Learn by Layne Fargo
The It Girl by Ruth Ware
Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Vicious by V.E. Schwab
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
The Betrayals by Bridget Collins
Dark academia romance:
Gothikana by RuNyx
Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake
Dark academia YA or MG:
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Crave by Tracy Wolff
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Dark academia miscellaneous:
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip
HUGE list of free (!!) books by black authors and revolutionaries. includes writings by toni morrison, james baldwin, assata shakur, angela davis, malcolm x, audre lorde and frantz fanon.
Masterlist for learning languages
Brick-by-brick language learning challenge
Best language learning tips & masterlists from other bloggers I’ve come across
my tips for a language study plan
topics for new vocabulary
how to find a language partner
my tips for how to practice writing in your target language
Recommendations for Learning Languages & Other Stuff
Learning a language = learning a culture
Vocab list templates: #1, #2, #3
Some easy Fantasy books to read in your target language
Language Learning Tips: #1, #2
6 tips for learning languages
App for organizing your language-learning (and anything else): Trello
Apps i use to learn languages
|
Requests / Asks:
-> you can find all my answered asks by searching for #ask, #ask response or #request
Indo-European Language Families
Improving your vocab
German infinitive & when to use it
English word order
How to find a language learning partner
Changing a game to your target language & "harmful" learning strategies
Can you get away with just using "das" the majority of the time in Germany?
Do you have any tips on how to improve your writing in your target language?
Do you have any resources/methods about how to reach an academic level in the language you’re learning (& how to improve your writing)?
Do you have any linguistic recourses on Ruhrpott-Deutsch?
Cultural Dark Academia
here’s pt. 2
After my last post about the lack of representation in academia, I felt it neccessary to provide some examples of what I’m talking about. Obviously there are more countries in the world than I can list and provide books for, so for a quick list this is what I got. !! Keep researching !! If you have any more books by POC please reply them !! If a country isn’t listed, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, this is just what I could get together real quick. If I made any mistakes, please let me know, we’re all learning. We need to help each other end eurocentrism in academia, so value representation and educate yourselves 💓💓💓
Chinese:
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Dream of the Red Chamber
The Water Margin
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Journey to the West
The Scholars
The Peony Pavilion
Border Town by Congwen Shen
Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang
To Live by Yu Hua
Ten Years of Madness by agent Jicai
The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong
Japanese:
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oë
Haruki Murakami
Pakistani:
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
Ghulam Bagh by Mirza Athar Baig
Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm by K. C. Kanda
Irani/Persian:
Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji
Savushun by Simin Daneshvar
Anything by Rumi
The Book of Kings by Ferdowsi
The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam
Shahnameh (translation by Dick Davis)
Afghan:
Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Indian:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Aithihyamala, Garland of Legends by Kottarathil Sankunni
The Gameworld Trilogy by Samir Basu
Filipino:
Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca
The Last Time I Saw Mother by Arlene J. Chai
Brazilian:
The Patriot and The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto
Broquéis by Cruz e Sousa
Don Casmurro by Machado de Assis
Colombian:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Delirio by Laura Restrepo
¡Que viva la música! by Andrés Caicedo
The Sound of Things Falling by Jim Gabriel Vásquez
Mexican:
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolf Anaya
Adonis Garcia/El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata
El Complot Mongol by Rafael Bernal
Egyptian:
The Cairo Trilogy by Nahuib Mahfouz
The Book of the Dead
Nigerian:
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Malian:
The Epic of Sundiata
Senegalese:
Poetry of Senghor
Native American:
The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
Starlight by Richard Wagamese
Almanac of the Dead by L. Silko
Fools Crow by James Welch
Indigenous Australian:
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
First Footprints by Scott Cane
My Place by Sally Morgan
American//Modern:
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Internment by Samir’s Ahmed
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson
Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch
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