[HN Gopher] WEIRD - a way to be on the web
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WEIRD - a way to be on the web
Author : weinzierl
Score : 96 points
Date : 2025-04-15 12:42 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (a.weird.one)
(TXT) w3m dump (a.weird.one)
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| wanted to create a profile but am getting a 500 error on this
| page https://weird.one/login
| tcmptn wrote:
| That's weird.
| GreatGreenStar wrote:
| Same, seems that it is in some way broken at least for now.
| cootsnuck wrote:
| So is this like Carrd? Not quite getting it after reading through
| the website...
| SirFatty wrote:
| This gives me a geocities vibe.
| imaginationra wrote:
| Neocities is more like Geocities than this is
| https://neocities.org/
| imaginationra wrote:
| Still feels too much like Web 2.0 soulless template based sites-
| https://mmm.page/ is much better for unique human made sites-
| especially if you use the drawing tools.
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| mmm.page reminds me a lot of https://kinopio.club/ which is one
| of my favorite "fun" productivity tools
| imaginationra wrote:
| Oh nice- haven't heard of this- checking it out thanks
| thundergolfer wrote:
| Wow, first impressions of mmm.page are really good. I'm happy
| with my personal website but still signed up because I don't
| want to lose track of this cool little thing.
| nottorp wrote:
| It lags like hell on my m3 pro macbook pro in firefox tho.
|
| No, not trying it in Chrome.
| xhfloz wrote:
| Creator of mmm.page here. Let me know if you have any
| questions.
|
| Re: laggy. I know... 1.0 introduced new features but also
| inefficiencies. The cost of working on something solo.
| Releasing a patch soon.
| psoots wrote:
| This is fine, basically geocities. But you may have a hard time
| introducing the term "agentic" at a time when AI "agents" are on
| the rise.
| brendanfinan wrote:
| everything is agentic now
| colecut wrote:
| Its giving me "hatch" vibes which my son and I used until it shut
| down a month or two ago =-/
| turnsout wrote:
| Cool project, but I can't understand why they created their own
| protocol rather than just building this on ActivityPub
| riffic wrote:
| the github roadmap alludes to fedi support coming.
|
| https://github.com/muni-town/weird?tab=readme-ov-file#roadma...
| superkuh wrote:
| Pretty formalized for being weird. But I think the most important
| thing for human beings continuing to have websites (and so weird
| websites) is to keep HTTP/1.1 and HTTP+HTTPS alive. Without those
| thing websites are just too fragile for humans to keep going more
| than a few years. Whereas with those things websites have
| indefinite lifespans even unmantained. I know the pieces fit,
| because I watched them fall away: http://superkuh.com/the-pieces-
| fit.html (a wierd web page). HTTP+HTTPS _does_ work for human
| person use cases. Even if the profit-seeking corps and
| institutions want it gone because it doesn 't fit theirs.
|
| WEIRD is okay, and a fine start, but using someone else's service
| does not usually lead to creativity or weird. Just look how
| _weird_ the early web was when everyone just did their own thing.
| riffic wrote:
| nice to see "Open Social" on the roadmap (found on GitHub),
| presumably activityPub support?
| settsu wrote:
| > Weird is a brand new thing, but: Think of it as if WordPress
| and Notion had a Linktree-shaped baby. That is to say, a
| WordPress-type website engine with the editing experience of
| Notion and the simplicity of Linktree.
|
| How many people that understand that, need this?
| duncancarroll wrote:
| Me, for one. As a person with negative free time this sounds
| like exactly what I need.
| apercu wrote:
| I really dislike the Wordpress ecosystem and I find Notions
| popularity baffling as it has been a really terrible experience
| for me when other people use it and send their Notion documents
| to me as requirements documents. So, not me?
| troupo wrote:
| The next sentence after this blurb explains it much better
| rambambram wrote:
| Cool idea! Especially curious about the 'federated
| webring'-thing. With Hey Homepage (link in bio) I do something
| similar, but I call it 'Shared Links' and it's connected to the
| built-in RSS reader.
|
| RSS is great, but together with OPML it has even more potential.
| Easily share bookmarks and RSS sources, easily 'retweet'
| interesting articles on my own timeline, easily 'subscribe' to
| new feeds, etc.
|
| I'm slowly eating my own dogfood and slowly moving towards only
| using the real social media; the open web. It's hard, with HN and
| Youtube around, but I have trust in my own algorithm. Getting my
| info diet from around 1400 RSS sources, filtered by random
| request to feeds, so no violations of other websites' resources
| and doomscrolling isn't even possible. Really interesting sources
| get automatically checked by the newspaper functionality.
|
| I see more untapped potential for RSS in combination with OPML.
| First I need to get completely rid of the idea that my software
| product needs to be for the masses. It's just not going to happen
| that the majority of the people are going to do more than tap an
| app and swipe for instant gratification, and that's okay. I'm
| also not willing to look down on how the masses use computing and
| the internet, as I see a lot of people do on HN (talking about
| 'the regular user' as if it's not your neighbor or your friend),
| so I want to make the onboarding and usage as welcome as
| possible. To me, that's still the true spirit of the open web.
| genewitch wrote:
| The only product I know in the RSS / opml space is freedom
| controller; but those technologies are also part of podcasting
| 2.0, as well, I think.
| rambambram wrote:
| In a sense it's beautifully simple technology, ready to use
| by everybody, and with even more applications than podcasts.
| Imagine all social media functionality, without the platform,
| just the open internet as platform.
| erlend_sh wrote:
| Hey, one of the two cofounders here. Very cool to see Weird on
| HN, although we had purposefully refrained from posting it
| ourselves yet since it's still baking.
|
| Weird is essentially gonna be ported over to being the static,
| persona-first extension of Roomy: https://blog.muni.town/chatty-
| community-gardens/
| lexicality wrote:
| How are you planning on making enough money to cover server
| costs etc? eg to avoid another Cohost style catastrophe.
| erlend_sh wrote:
| Weird is very cheap to host so we've already covered hosting
| costs with our first batch of early adopters:
| https://blog.muni.town/selling-dreams/
|
| The extended version of Weird that we're building now however
| will include community hosting ranging between $10/$100 per
| month as part of a B2B play as opposed to the B2C model of
| Weird as-is, so that.
| MatthiasPortzel wrote:
| > I want Weird to be my digital 'soul pod'. It's the
| digitized me; the source from which all of my other digital
| being springs forth.
|
| I recommend working on your elevator pitch, because while
| strangely eloquent, that is utterly incomprehensible.
| posterguy wrote:
| Not disagreeing with the thrust of your post though I
| would take issue with it being both "strangely eloquent"
| and "utterly incomprehensible". It's just awkward
| writing... which, for a platform called WEIRD, is perhaps
| the point.
| pedalpete wrote:
| This looks really interesting, I always thought Linktree (and
| all the copycats) were just too simplistic.
|
| However, I don't see anywhere on the homepage where you have an
| example. I think it would be really helpful if the example
| images you posted actually went to those pages. Or even better,
| can your homepage just be a demonstration of your product?
|
| ATM, it seems quite distracting, rather than just being clear
| about the benefit.
| kebokyo wrote:
| The fact that they're trying to cop "smallweb" vibes while being
| incredibly soulless and flat at the same time is making me. so
| frustrated. This isn't "weird" in the alt sense, this is "weird"
| like how you would describe JD Vance.
|
| Hillary Clinton is actively diving her head into her elbow-pit,
| and we cannot stop her. We can only watch in horror as she
| destroys the fabric of our universe and merges all that was once
| "cool" and "hip" into the conglomerate apathetic mainstream.
| spencerflem wrote:
| yeah I can't quite place if this is sinister souless or
| unfortunate souless - there's no AI or blockchain or obvious
| monetization - but the vibes are definitely off.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| The "barefoot developers" link that they cite as an
| inspiration is _heavily_ steeped in AI bullshit ( "First,
| that language models will create a golden age of local, home-
| cooked software and barefoot developers.").
| spencerflem wrote:
| yeahhhh. my current read is that the people making it are
| good people making it for genuine reasons as a service to
| the world. So I really don't want to be harsh or
| discouraging, and I hope it succeeds. but they also read as
| being surrounded by silicon valley style culture a lot more
| than most indieweb projects and that is reflected in the
| tone of the marketing copy and other places.
|
| & fwiw I'm a huge AI hater, but if we _must_ have it, using
| it to let people make tiny apps for them and their friends
| easier is about as good a use as there gets. Its a shame to
| lose the culture of craftsmanship around code itself but if
| you want to make something your friend will like that's
| cool even if I'd have done it differently.
| kebokyo wrote:
| yeah, the "Angetic Developers" section of their site feels.
| very out of place. and it's the main reason why i hate this
| product lol
| hiatus wrote:
| What does Hilary Clinton have to do with this?
| spencerflem wrote:
| Its someong taking something that exists in culture and is
| "cool" (dabbing) and doing it in a weird / lame / cringey
| way.
|
| Similarly this site has a lot of the astehtic trappings and
| language of indieweb et al. but (IMO) doesn't stick the
| landing. And it comes off a little as the cool culture being
| exploited by someone who doesn't get it.
|
| Idk if they're doing it in a greedy or sinister way, like
| when corporations co-opt social movements or big brands use
| the "quirky local indie" astehtic. It's probably someone well
| meaning with different taste than me. But the site does rub
| me the wrong way regardless
| hiatus wrote:
| Wow, thank you for the explanation. I was taking it
| literally and had no idea what the parent was talking
| about.
| kebokyo wrote:
| i am grateful that at least one person other than me got
| the memo on my bit lmao
|
| you're right, it might not be intentionally malicious, but
| it still comes off as wrong due to the visual and
| mechanical design of the service. if you want to support
| smallweb, it's better to host a VPS service than a shittier
| linktree.
| duncancarroll wrote:
| idk if I agree, it feels genuine enough to me, plus you can
| self-host so it's not like they're just trying to own your
| content.
| kebokyo wrote:
| Their main page didn't say a single bit about their code
| being open source. I had to dig through the creator's GitHub
| to find it: https://github.com/erlend-sh/weird
|
| That doesn't really inspire confidence in them _wanting_
| people to self-host.
| bitwize wrote:
| Definitely going for that "used to be a Homestuck fan, probably
| has a Blahaj stuffie on their bed" dollar. And that copy rings
| about as authentically as does the narrator on the Mighty No. 9
| trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YngbHOz--oc
|
| "Hey! You! Do you like awesome things that are awesome? Then
| you gotta check out our website, where your profile... is also
| your website! It's like Wordpress and Notion had a Linktree-
| shaped baby! Make big tech as mad as an incel gamer on a
| school-shooting rampage!"
|
| That and the Star vs. the Forces of Evil-inspired art style...
| think I'll pass.
| duncancarroll wrote:
| There are a lot of weird comments in this thread but to me this
| looks like a cool, genuine project which has an obvious need; I
| don't think the vibes are off at all.
|
| Given that lately I can't even be bothered to write Markdown for
| my static site I'm looking forward to giving this a try this
| weekend.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Yeah, I'm one of those commenters. I do believe its a genuine
| project made by someone who cares with the intention to make
| something lovely for the world. I believe the people who are
| making this are good people.
|
| Its just that the marketing copy has some of the breathless
| silicon valley tone and organizational structure to it like its
| selling a product which grates against the quirky, personal,
| community-first vibes of indieweb.
|
| And hell yeah! Any excuse to put something fun on the web is a
| good one, excited to see what you make :)
| Yie1cho wrote:
| i immediately stop reading any article when I see the word
| "interwebs".
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Offline editing?
| seafoamteal wrote:
| Seems cool, but overloading the term agentic development is a
| risky play. I almost clicked away when I saw that because, my
| opinions about LLMs for development aside, I do not want them
| anywhere near my blog, because that's where I want my own voice
| to come through strongest.
|
| That aside, this looks really cool and I wish you all the best!
|
| (addressing erlend_sh because I saw them in the thread)
| dimal wrote:
| I think I like the idea, but I have to ask a favor: Please stop
| the animated banner text!
|
| I'm getting tired of how many web developers don't realize that
| endless, unstoppable animation is a huge accessibility issue. My
| brain apparently has some deep programming to follow anything
| that moves, so I can't actually read anything about the project
| without straining my brain. For reference, I'm autistic. Many
| neurodivergent people have similar issues. So, unintentionally,
| you're excluding people that might enjoy this.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I gave up on the visual accessibility demands. Someone wants to
| make a website that I can't easily use? I avoid it. If it
| bothers me enough because it contains information I want, I
| will write them directly and kindly ask for an accessibility
| option.
|
| Demanding everything be 100% accessible to everyone at all
| times is something that I feel is not necessary. It also feels
| like I am imposing my demands on someone, limiting their
| artistic creativity to suite my disability - I don't feel
| comfortable with that idea. If someone enjoys all the animation
| and blinding colors then let them. I'm actually happy for them
| that they can.
| accoil wrote:
| Yeah. Every time I come across a banner like that I have to
| immediately scroll it off screen, otherwise my attention is
| spent tracking the banner and I can't focus on the text. Makes
| me wish `prefers-reduced-motion` supported `none`.
| yzbq11c wrote:
| very little weird about it
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(page generated 2025-04-15 23:01 UTC)