Skip to main content

Homebrew Website Club Meeting (2025-02-05)

Everyone in the meeting wearing hats

I stopped by the European chapter of the IndieWeb group during my lunch and I feel that I got a lot of out it. We went over a lot of different things but here are some of my favorite highlights.

4 oh 4 pages

I joined the meeting late and caught the tail end of discussions about what other people do when someone tries to go to a URL that doesn’t exist under their domain. I remember seeing some sites redirecting the user to the home page after a minute or two or showing links to other pages that match some kind of pattern within the url.

IndieWeb Movie Club

Mark Sutherland will be spearheading this month’s movie club. The topic will be any version of Romeo & Juliet. I originally planned on the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet because that’s the one that has my favorite version of Tybalt, but I might just go with Gnomeo & Juliet instead.

Mad as a Hatter

Just a moment where we took some time to get a hat from around where we live and put it on.

Serious stuff.

Validating my Feelings/Website

We had a very nice discussion on what makes a page valid. We started with what colors someone should use when putting together and what considerations to make. I tooted my own horn about how my webpage is valid only to find that it has a lot of things that some validators might not like.

It further emphasized the point that you should continually test your site. Things do change over time and it gives you a chance to rethink things. In my case, I got a chance to question whether my choice of having meta tags containing the trailing slash like the following:

<meta itemprop="wordCount" content="23" />

For me, it’s a reminder of the connection between HTML and XML. At some point, I have to make the decision on when is enough enough.

I also think I found what was causing the issue with my header.

I was using text-wrap: balance for all headers and it was causing some unforeseen problems when it comes to having an image in the header. I removed it and haven’t seen the issue since.

Kind of dreading the Superbowl for some reason. I’ll be happy when it’s over so that I don’t have to wait so long in the grocery line as everyone is doing their party shopping.

AI of me bald.

My friend sent this series of messages to me today. Just a little reminder about how these systems are trained. I’m not surprised.

My friend and I have a bet to see who can get to 100 pushups first.

A brief note about longform

There have been a couple of posts on Micro.blog - the service I use to host my blog - about how to improve the handling of longform content. I thought I would yell into the void write my thoughts and feelings about this topic.

How did I get here?

I’ve been blogging for a while. I remember the days of GeoCities and LiveJournal and enjoyed spending time on the internet. When twitter came out, I spent a lot of time trying to be witty and win sweepstakes. I enjoyed it because it was quick dopamine hit to see new content or create my own without going into details like titles or nuance.

When twitter started to get less fun, I found myself wanting to get back into owning my own content. I saw Manton’s kickstarter for micro.blog and it really was the answer I was looking for.

Where are we?

With Micro.blog, I got the following:

  • Hosting for my blog where I didn’t have to worry about the the technical infrastructure
  • Web and iOS clients to make my posts
  • Freedom to share it outside of micro.blog

I think the last point is really one of the things that I like about micro.blog. I make something and there isn’t a pull to make you part of the service. Either with cross posting or RSS, I’m confident that my message goes out there. Whether it’s my media reviews, pictures of my dog, or asinine comments, I share them on my blog an in The Timeline.

The micro.blog timeline shows the last 40 to 50 entries from different accounts that you are following and allows you to respond quickly if you choose. The people that you choose to follow is the thing that engages you, not an algorithm designed to trick you into doomscrolling. The Timeline doesn’t do reblogging, retweeting, or boosts. Much like time itself, it’s ephemeral. The content is there as a snapshot in time and you are more than welcome to explore more of the authors content on their respective sites.

Though, The Timeline is not perfect.

I’ve been on the service for years and I sometimes don’t know or remember what content shows up in the timeline. For example, if I want to share a link, I have to decide on whether I share just the link, text around the link, whether I should use the title of the page being linked or my own title because all of these could show up different in The Timeline.

First world problem.

Where are we going with this?

We live in a world where sometimes 180 to 300 words don’t really convey what we want to say. For some of us, we’d like to share a little more. This works for our personal blogs, but it seems as if some of us want more. And it seems as if there is some change coming to the service.

Great points in this conversation about how Micro.blog handles longer blog posts with titles. Maybe the time has come for a change here. I’ve never wanted Micro.blog’s timeline to be a bunch of summaries and “read more” links, but right now we should be encouraging longer posts, not relegating them.

I’ve had some time to think about what I would enjoy as a way to have more longform in The Timeline.

  • Make it clear that the Number 1 priority for The Timeline is for the readers.
    NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T is more than just a clickbaity title. I love reading things from my friends such as @JohnPhilpin and @lmika, but I would rather see their longer pieces on their own websites or in my RSS reader. If I’m reading The Timeline, I want to see as many things from my friends before I get back to pretending to work.
  • Make it so that the rules are clear
    When the change happens, have the rules next to the post text area. There should be directions to get help either on the page or a link to where the directions are.
  • Allow for image previews
    If you do a book review, a small preview of the book cover becomes available. This could be a long term goal to include something like that for those who add images to their posts.

I’ve been scratching my head trying figure out why this is wrapping improperly.

Things that I’m grateful for:

  • My community
  • Opportunities to be better everyday
  • Sleep
  • This time I’m taking to write this
  • Clean water

I’ve been taking an unintentional break from writing the last couple of weeks. Just kind of numb with all the things that are going on. Just filling my mind up with Severance theories as I try to ignore the world burning.

Last year someone shared a snippet to have Hugo only show the posts with titles. I thought I would remember it.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

{{- range ( .Paginate (where .Site.RegularPages "Type" "post" )).Pages }}

I wanted to try making a collection and put it in a post.

A hand is holding a partially eaten, filling-stuffed pastry over a table, with red seating in the background.A hand is holding a hot dog wrapped in a thin, crispy crust on a paper plate with some sauce and cheese.A hand is holding a partially eaten pastry filled with a reddish filling, likely a type of sandwich or empanada.A person is holding a partially eaten pastry filled with a red, meat-like filling.A hand holds a partially eaten sandwich filled with sauce, above a paper plate with some spilled sauce.