[HN Gopher] Making the web fun again (2013)
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Making the web fun again (2013)
Author : sumnole
Score : 135 points
Date : 2024-01-04 18:01 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.neocities.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.neocities.org)
| jrmg wrote:
| (2013)
|
| Looks like this is from the dawn of NeoCities.
| qup wrote:
| I can't believe that was ten years ago. I remember it
| happening, here on HN.
|
| Edit: 11 years. Give me a break, it's only Jan 4
| EGreg wrote:
| _Massive web corporations flush with stock market cash acquired
| startups for billions of dollars, like rich brats that wanted a
| cool new toy, but then quickly got tired of it and threw it away.
| And in the end, we lost a lot of great ideas, companies, and user
| content that would have otherwise prospered._
|
| This could be a way out: https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-
| source-communities/
|
| Related:
|
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-a-web-that-lost-its-way-c...
|
| https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/
|
| I also interviewed Ian Clarke about Freenet:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ
|
| Here is his latest work:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBtyNIqZios
| charlie0 wrote:
| While I really admire this, I can't help but think we live in an
| entirely different era.
|
| How do you deal with content moderation?
|
| The spammers/native advertisers generating useless content to
| make a few pennies?
| fullshark wrote:
| All done with the help of programs calling generative AI. The
| thrill of the initial stages of the world wide web is never
| coming back.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Just make it financially infeasible. Spam and psych warfare
| require an abundance of inexpensive data channels for
| millions of sockpuppets and AIs. If people really care about
| quality web content, they'll have to actually value it by
| paying for it. That, and content will need to be curated;
| algorithmic feeds were never very good to begin with, and
| they will only get worse, thus they should be abandoned.
|
| But people think it's an offense to pay $3 a month for X
| (Musks insufferableness notwithstanding), so slop is what
| they shall continue to receive.
| troupo wrote:
| > Just make it financially infeasible.
|
| > But people think it's an offense to pay $3 a month for X
|
| $3 a month, or $8 a month, or $15 a month does not stop
| spam or advertising or bots as long as the profit is larger
| than that.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| How does spam make money if it isn't advertising
| anything, and even if it is who's paying for
|
| "The free interaction is great, but I love the best
| casino games on onlineslots.fun, amazing ever and I
| always love win cold hard cash 100% with no credit card
| sign up trial. Payday loans online."
|
| to be spammed on every old phpBB/SMF forum or article
| comment section crawled on the web?
| troupo wrote:
| > but I love the best casino games on onlineslots.fun
|
| > no credit card sign up trial. Payday loans online
|
| This is advertisement and scams. As long as there are
| enough suckers clicking through and leaving money at
| onlineslots.fun, spam will continue.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I didn't say that content should cost $3 to stop spam. My
| point was clearly that not enough people aren't even
| willing to pay _that_. That price was in reference to
| what people value. If people value fun web content that
| 's not currently being served to them, they should pay
| _something_ for it. The vast majority of people simply
| won 't, even if they're spending 1/5 their paycheck on
| Starbucks. If you think I wouldn't pay for HN if I had no
| other choice, you'd be mistaken.
|
| But if no one is willing to spend hundreds a year for web
| content that is not dominated by spam, ads, bots, etc.,
| then spam, ads, and bots is what they will get.
| fullshark wrote:
| I think we have learned a lot of people don't care about
| quality web content, that wasn't clear in the initial
| stages of the internet.
| hinkley wrote:
| The lesson of Apple, if there is one, is that you can get
| at least 70% of your potential margins from 10% of
| people.
|
| The web has become all about pandering. But there are
| people finding success through cultivating instead of
| pandering. (I don't know if many Patreon users fit this
| description, but I'm sure that population is > 0)
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| > How do you deal with content moderation?
|
| On your own static site all content is written only by you. So
| there's nothing to moderate.
| Moru wrote:
| The problem is the spammers starting their own static sites
| with AI-generated content.
| rimunroe wrote:
| That's probably a problem for the hosting company, but it's
| much less of a problem for users who are navigating via
| direct links between pages or manually curated webrings
| rather than using some sort of search feature or
| recommendation algorithm
| duxup wrote:
| Is neocities appealing to spammers at all?
| hinkley wrote:
| Maybe revolutionary things have to be counterculture because if
| not they don't get a chance to breathe and sort themselves out
| before the establishment co-opts them.
|
| There is likely some corner of the internet which is
| experiencing some of the things we complain about, but neither
| you, me, or any of us here feel/are invited.
|
| I've been wondering very recently if these social cycles (like
| fashion, the tech pendulum) are less a cynical play by
| capitalists and collective amnesia by the young, and more a
| moral equivalent of molting, where we slough off our old skin
| and get a chance to grow and be shiny for a bit before
| everything settles back into normal again. Maybe that's why the
| other two hominids died out and we remained.
| TIPSIO wrote:
| Theory: In the not so distance future, "presentation" (design,
| etc...) will be moved entirely to the user for static sites.
|
| Small, locally run AI will digest and output all content
| configured perfectly to the users preference. CSS will
| essentially become a recommendation language for source material
| at most.
|
| Many benefits will come from this such as solving accessibility
| permanently or being able to change how you choose to consume
| content by modifying layout on-demand.
|
| The new goal will not be how to design fun, unique sites --
| instead simply how fast and easy to get the content up on the
| net.
| Moru wrote:
| Ehm, that's how it all started. I'm sure you are pulling my leg
| :-)
| handity wrote:
| This is like hearing about your grandma who, in order to
| forward a webpage to her nephew, takes a picture on her phone,
| which opens in the web browser, which she prints to a pdf,
| which she embeds in a word doc which gets attached to an email.
|
| The idea that "AI" should be at all necessary for turning a
| markup language back into a markup language is insane. I really
| hope you're wrong, but realistically that's the direction it
| will go!
| cxf12 wrote:
| This was a period where web site discovery services like
| Stumbleupon were all the rage. It was like spinning the Wheel of
| Fortune anticipating where you'd land. It was fun! Then poof. It
| disappeared.
| wolpoli wrote:
| There are always people who wants to unleash their creativity,
| but that demographic has moved from Web sites to MySpace to
| Video content.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Oh man. This was the Digg/Del.icio.us era. The Web was still
| the Web back then, decentralized.
| undyingtrillion wrote:
| This is that, but for old style websites. Enjoy!
|
| https://wiby.me/surprise/
| cableshaft wrote:
| I made Flash games back then and had a personal website I kept
| them all on. I got a huge burst of traffic thanks to someone
| adding my site to StumbleUpon (my webhost had analytics and
| would show me referral links). Ran out of bandwidth several
| months because of it.
|
| Most of them are only on here[1] now, or in one of the Flash
| game archives. I should figure some way to get them up and
| playable elsewhere again. Been debating getting an itch.io page
| going or something.
|
| [1]: https://cableshaft.newgrounds.com
| basch wrote:
| What's missing from the calls for an old web is navigation.
|
| Discoverability requires a crawler, a directory, a hot ranking,
| or randomization.
|
| What is needed is some kind of hybrid wiki/directory that is
| more than "page of links to good travel blogs." It needs to be
| a database that can be navigated with filters and categories.
| Filter by travel, filter by country. Filter by food, filter by
| cuisine, filter by reviews or recipes. It needs both hierarchy
| and dynamicness, but it also can't be an open ended search or
| chat that has no inherent navigation. I want to be able to see
| what exists before searching, and search should be a tool to
| refine and pare the results.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Discoverability requires a crawler, a directory, a hot
| ranking, or randomization._
|
| don't forget webrings!
| nonethewiser wrote:
| This cool site was inspired by neocities. Major early web vibes.
|
| https://dimden.dev/
| ysofunny wrote:
| the webfont it uses kills the real vibe for me
|
| something about it is too modern
| adamdegas wrote:
| The layout and font gives off a more early 2000s vibe than a
| 90s vibe for sure, or, more accurately, "early 2000s with 90s
| leftovers." The average Neocities page uses more serif fonts,
| basic table layouts. Also computers in the 90s weren't going
| to be able to handle that rain effect, smooth scrolling
| marquees.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It absolutely is a blend of modern and early web.
| tr3ntg wrote:
| Blown away by the interactivity of this site. So fun.
| dt3ft wrote:
| Signup does not work on mobile. The button "continue" doesn't do
| anything.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| This telling - "yahoo bought geocities and shut it down, thus
| shutting the open web" - ignores the fact that all the other
| similar services died a similar fate. All the tripods and
| angelfires, they started being (1) ignores by general public (2)
| overrun by spam.
|
| I wonder how does neocities battle spam/bad actors problem.
|
| edit: but maybe I come as too negative. If neocities are working
| for someone and bring them joy then good
| akho wrote:
| Also, the open web is kinda difficult to shut down.
| kyledrake wrote:
| We use a combination of surprisingly powerful and effective
| things to deal with abuse (spam/phishing/etc). I'd love to show
| them off because some of them are very cool, but as an older
| gentleman that used to work at Geocities once told me (he works
| at the internet archive now), "don't train abuse people, don't
| let them figure out how you're finding them". Great unsolicited
| advice that I took to heart. It's always kind of an arms race,
| but I'm confident we can stay on top of things.
|
| RE Angelfire, it's actually still a company and still hosts
| most of the sites that have ever been created there:
| https://www.angelfire.lycos.com/. You can look around for
| random sites by using "keyword site:angelfire.com" on google
| search.
| leke wrote:
| I remember when this was announced on hacker news and I snagged
| an great sub domain name. https://420.neocities.org/
| codetrotter wrote:
| You should 100% put a bunch of low rez transparent gif pixel
| art images of Cannabis leaves flying around across the screen
| on your site.
| darklycan51 wrote:
| "Go to a Facebook profile, and ponder what we have now. Instead
| of having adventures into the great unknowns of the web, we
| instead now spend most of our time on social networks: boring,
| suburban gated communities, where everybody's "profile" looks
| exactly the same, and presents exactly the same content, in the
| same arrangement. Rarely do we create things on these networks;
| Instead, we consume, and report on our consumption. The
| uniformity and blandness rival something out of a Soviet bloc
| residential apartments corridor. And now adding to that analogy,
| we've found out that our government is actually spying on us
| while we're doing it, in ways the Stasi could only dream of. The
| web we have today is a sad, pathetic, consumption-oriented
| digital iron curtain, and we need to change that."
|
| Exactly what I felt when Youtube removed the ability to customize
| your channel in 2011, deleted my by then fairly large channel in
| protest (3000 subs in 2011 was alright sized)
| WobbuPalooza wrote:
| I've enjoyed using Neocities for obscure amateur hobby content,
| translating 16th-19th C. parlor games that involve creating
| stories or doing a little light roleplaying:
| https://wobbupalooza.neocities.org/
|
| One quirk that comes to mind is /whatever.html files
| automatically redirect to /whatever, so I guess you should treat
| the name without the .html as canonical
|
| It is open source: https://github.com/neocities
|
| Reasonably featureful: https://neocities.org/supporter
|
| I don't use its developer API, but it has one:
| https://neocities.org/api
|
| It's been a nice place to host a simple static site. On a
| personal level, I guess I could probably use GitHub pages just as
| well? I haven't really thought about it, but Neocities occupies a
| different niche--small, social, especially friendly to people
| learning about the web--that I've been happy building on.
| crtasm wrote:
| > https://neocities.org/supporter
|
| For anyone like me who has no need for the $5/mo features but
| wishes to support the project - I now notice they have a page
| for donations.
| gfodor wrote:
| Webspaces[1] is my answer to this call for the 3D web emergent
| metaverse. It's just HTML that you can host anywhere that is
| rendered as a 3D multiplayer world via p2p webrtc.
|
| [1] https://webspaces.space
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Ok, that is one of the weirdest and greatest little web
| experiences I've had in a while. I walked around shooting other
| (presumably fellow HNer) characters with my smiley emojis with
| a big goofy smile on my face. Really neat project!
| peebeebee wrote:
| And you can add objects to the scene. Neat!
| gfodor wrote:
| glad you enjoyed it!
| xerox13ster wrote:
| This was the first sort of idea I had when I discovered AFrame,
| and I'm glad to see someone implementing something like this!
| prakhar897 wrote:
| Can someone recommend some cool neocities sites?
| workethics wrote:
| Sure:
|
| https://simplifier.neocities.org/
|
| https://2bit.neocities.org/
|
| https://town.neocities.org/
| 1-6 wrote:
| Couldn't sites just add a Webring-like Javascript code to the
| header or footer so people can flip around easily from site to
| site?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Why Javascript? That could be generated statically.
|
| It does remind me of StumbleUpon, a browser addon that would
| take you to a random website whenever you clicked the button.
|
| Which in turn reminds me of https://wiby.me/surprise/, which
| takes you to a random 90's style website.
| treyd wrote:
| You can do that with an iframe.
| WesSouza wrote:
| 4th time's a charm
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=blog.neocities.org
| surprisetalk wrote:
| https://potato.cheap
| verisimi wrote:
| The web isn't un-fun because of a lack of Geocities or crap
| websites.
|
| The web today is at least partly a trap, and people are flies to
| be tranquilised, liquidised and digested from the inside out by
| governments and corporations. At least that is what they think.
|
| We now know about secret courts, that everything is being
| recorded to be replayed and reanalysed, continuous tracking, etc.
| It's a gilded cage, there are doughnuts in there, pron, games -
| lots of flashing lights.
|
| Anyway, if you're in a cage, even a gilded one, it changes
| behaviour. Similarly, if you're packed into a densely populated
| urban area your behaviour changes again.
|
| What 'fun' even means to an animal in a cage, in a framework not
| of their own making, versus what a wild animal thinks is not
| comparable, not even on the same plane of existence.
| confd wrote:
| I want the banal web.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _Making the web fun again_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5957850 - June 2013 (232
| comments)
|
| plus a bit:
|
| _Making the Web Fun Again (2013)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27192773 - May 2021 (1
| comment)
|
| and more generally:
|
| _Neocities: A platform that lets you create your own website
| /follow other's sites_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33648618 - Nov 2022 (22
| comments)
|
| _Neocities showcase - endless source of HTML inspiration_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953649 - Oct 2021 (1
| comment)
|
| _Neocities, a 21st century reincarnation of GeoCities_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26821746 - April 2021 (1
| comment)
|
| _Neocities: Free, modern Geocities reboot_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445181 - Jan 2017 (99
| comments)
|
| _NeoCities can now handle two million web sites_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6020776 - July 2013 (98
| comments)
|
| _NeoCities_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5918724 -
| June 2013 (209 comments)
| alexmolas wrote:
| I read a post without noticing it was written in 2013 and thought
| it was a great idea. It's sad that after 10 years, we have only
| managed to make the internet worse. With the introduction of
| LLMs, the situation is expected to worsen. Maybe companies like
| Kagi will help with this problem, but I don't think the situation
| will improve anytime soon.
| kyledrake wrote:
| FWIW, I'm actually pretty optimistic about LLMs overall. I
| really value their use in learning and bouncing ideas off of. A
| lot of Neocities developers use ChatGPT to help them learn and
| write HTML (it's great for generating HTML boilerplate), and I
| use it almost every day for code snippets. I've actually
| pondered adding an LLM as an assistant for the Neocities
| editor, but ChatGPT is a bit expensive, and I haven't found a
| good OSS alternative yet.
|
| The potential for LLMs to generate a lot of problematic crap is
| certainly there, but I haven't seen this happen yet, don't yet
| see it as an existential risk to Neocities sites, and if they
| lead to any new problems, I think we will be able to figure it
| out.
| pacificmaelstrm wrote:
| But there's nothing stopping anyone from making their own
| website. There are even lots of free options for hosting, the
| problem is audience, which is captured and driven by platforms.
|
| There must be a way to dispense with platforms entirely...
| kyledrake wrote:
| Hello! I'm still working on Neocities (was in the middle of
| working on it just now) and I still love working on it. I work on
| it year round but do most of the huge changes in big pushes
| (scheduled conveniently between summer and winter, or as the
| outdoor adventure weirdos like to call it "the shoulder
| seasons").
|
| I've got a few posts on the TODO list, including a 10 year recap
| with my thoughts on this blog post and the modern web, and an
| infra talk (I've promised HN I would show how we did our Anycast
| CDN with our own IP addresses, sorry for the delay).
|
| I'll try not to go to long here, suffice to say I'm a little
| surprised with my own writings. I did see some existential
| problems for the internet in terms of culture, but I also felt
| like a lot of my premonitions were wishful thinking directed
| towards making the project successful. So it's even been a real
| shocker for me to see social media (especially Twitter) take a
| massive nosedive into the dirt over the last few years (which I'm
| still sad about, I loved old Twitter), and we've seen a quite
| substantial increase in new sites and traffic in tandem, which
| has required a lot of thoughtful (and occasionally rash) upgrades
| to infrastructure. Things overall are going well and I expect
| that we'll have another solid year here and won't be running into
| any sustainability issues.
|
| I wanted to thank the HN community once again for your support
| all these years. HN was our "angel investor", because we received
| over $20k in donations after we announced on HN, and that was the
| funding required to get things booted up and running. Without
| that initial donation push, I'm not sure the platform would have
| been as successful as it has been. We remain to this day a self-
| sustaining platform with no needed investment, thanks to
| Neocities supporters.
|
| And FWIW, I still find the HN community to be the most thoughtful
| and interesting conversations on the web right now, even when I
| don't necessarily agree with everyone (or I say something stupid
| and get deservedly knocked down for it). Thanks for that, too,
| y'all are amazing and I hope you have a solid 2024.
| zoidb wrote:
| I guess because it is an old post the last link is broke
| http://neocities.org/new , but it might be nice to update it.
| kyledrake wrote:
| Just fixed it, thanks!
| tr3ntg wrote:
| So glad to see your parent comment and this one - that was
| my first thought - sent me on a 5 second check to see if
| NeoCities was alive and well - obviously is. Love it!
| antod wrote:
| While I'm unlikely to ever create on or browse neocities (I'd
| kinda forgotten about it), I agree 100% with your concerns
| about the modern web. And it seems like it got worse since your
| 2013 blog post.
|
| Thank you for your efforts, I wish you all the best!
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| I would like to create a site but I have been getting the error
| "Site creation is currently unavailable, please try again
| later" for the past week. Can you explain what is happening?
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