= 2026-08-08 Saturday =

I'm in a quandry about how to best use Gopher while not duplicating
my online stuff (for want of a better word) in multiple
places/platforms.

I have the following online spaces - all self-hosted on a couple of
VPSs

1) Dokuwiki "notebook" which from time to time has also been a
sorrt of blog

2) Blog - now using chyrp-lite but in the recent past I've tried
Dokuwiki's blog plugin, Pureblog

3) Gopher

4) A website that is just a single page at the moment...

The Dokuwiki is the oldest of these and contains the most
information. I wouldn't want even contemplate moving its contents
to Gopher. I like the simplicity of the dokuwiki platform - all
content is simple plain-text markdown. No databases. The content
can be easily backed up, easily moved elsewhere by simply copying
*.txt files. Other media is simply stored in a simple directory
tree and can also be copied/backed up using normal filesystem
operations, outside of Dokuwiki itself. 

The Blog is a recent addition. I've dabbled in Blogs on and off
over the years. In recent times I've tried using Dokuwiki's "Blog"
plugin, and this is fine as far as keeping all my content in one
platform - dokuwiki - but for a Blog I don't think it's quite
right. So I've tried Chyrp-Lite and PureBlog. Both are simple
self-hosted platforms using nothing more complex than a normal
Linux Apache/PHP webserver. Chyrp does store the posts & media in a
SQLLite database file (not a full blown SQL database) which is
perhaps its only downside.

I've used Gopher for a couple of years. I was drawn to it after
finding it still existed and was being used as an antidote to the
bloated corporate WWW. I really like it, except that it's not
really intended to act as a replacement for "Blogging". Gopher
existed initially as a way of finding and retrieving other
information - files, documents etc. Using it as a "blog" is
problematical if (for example) you want to use images to illustrate
a point. 

As an escape from the WWW it's great, and you can certainly spend a
lot of time reading and learning and staying away from the largely
poisonous WWW.

But recently I found that although the modern WWW is not the nice
place it was 15-20 years ago, it *is* still possible to have a
space there to share your interests with like-minded people. You
/can/ still have a personal website. You can write a personal blog.
You don't /have/ to run away and live exclusively in Gopher space. 

There a still a lot of small personal hobby-related websites out
there. They aren't easy to find, because the major Seaerch Engines
are only interested in presenting you with commercial content and
getting your eyeballs on advertising.

But a lot of people have continued adding content to their
webspaces and stayed away from the bad side of the WWW. 

I want to keep using Gopher. And there's no point using it as a
reader/consumer if you don't also add content yourself.

I also want to make some hobby-related content available on the WWW
via a blog/website/wiki...

I originally planned to move everything to Gopher and kiss the WWW
goodbye. But I don't think that's sensible.

I'll just have to decide on what to share and which platform is
best for each item I'm sharing. I guess some stuff can go in both
places (simple plain text stuff) and some would best suit a WWW
Blog post, and some for filing away in my "Notebook" dokuwiki.

Let's see how things go. I know a lot of people automate the
process of posting the same content in multiple formats/platforms.
Or do it manually. I don't want to make "publishing tools" to
handle this. I like that Gopher is a simple process

Log onto server
Write a text file in nano or vim
Update (if necessary) a simple text-file gophermap.

It needs no bespoke scripts or software.
No "workflow"... just login, write, save, logout.