I was reading a post by Greg McVerry when I happened upon the credit for his featured photo. At first I had thought it was a stock photo, and when I realized it was from a IndieWebCamp, I looked closer and noticed that Aaron Parecki’s website was featured on the photo in the cell phone. I looked a bit closer and thought “someone has doctored his avatar as it’s tilted in the photo.” Then, knowing Aaron, I thought I had better check on my cell phone.
It turns out if you visit his site on a cell phone, his avatar rotates with the phone!
The whimsy of this just brightens my day.
Syndicated copies to:👓 Community is the Curriculum: Aligning Praxis, Pedagogy and Product on the IndieWeb| Greg McVerry
Join us on a story of a Commons of Knowledge unfolding, reinforcing and growing as we describe how the goals, practices, and tools used by the IndieWeb community interact as symbiotic building blocks.
Reply to Blog Engines and Indieweb Controlling Upstream by Brad Enslen
Brad Enslen (Brad Enslen)All this WordPress 5.0 Gutenberg stuff got me thinking. With WordPress it seems like the Indieweb starts making serious and cool progress and the WordPress people come along and knock the game board and pieces off the table. And it sounds like the disruption from WordPress is going to continue f...
Brad, I like and agree with your general thoughts, but I think that looking at the long term broader picture, most of what you’re describing is covered under the umbrella principle of plurality. For things to grow and thrive, we all need plurality to flourish. As a result there are several hundred projects within the broader IndieWeb which are growing and thriving. It seems far slower because a large number of the projects are single-maintainer single-user ones which are being built for personal use.
It’s nice that there are mass-scale projects like WordPress, WithKnown, Get Perch, Grav, Drupal, and a few others which have one or more “IndieWeb-centric” developers working on them that allow those without the coding skills to jump in and enjoy the additional freedom and functionality. The occasional drawback is that those big-hearted developers also fit into the broader fabric of those massively distributed projects and sometimes their voices aren’t as well heard, if at all.
I’m aware of the disruption of the Gutenberg Editor within WordPress v5.0 and how it applies to those using IndieWeb technology on WordPress. I’m sure it will eventually get sorted out in a reasonable fashion. Sadly, throwing out the baby out with the bathwater as it comes to WordPress and IndieWeb may not be the best solution for many people and may actually be a painful detriment to several hundreds.
While it would be interesting to see a larger group of developers converge on building an open and broadly used IndieWeb system as you suggest, it takes a massive amount of work and community collaboration to get such a thing moving. I think this bears out if you look at the lay of the land as it already exists. Just think of the time effort and energy that the core IndieWeb community puts into the tremendous amount of resources that exist today.
Looking back on the past 4+ years of IndieWeb within the WordPress community, I’m really amazed to see exactly how far things have come and where things currently stand. There used to be a dozen or more pieces that required custom code, duct tape, and baling wire to get things working. Now it’s a handful of relatively stable and well set up pieces that—particularly for me—really makes WordPress deliver as an open source content management system and next generation social medial platform that aims to democratize publishing. In terms of building for the future, I suspect that helping to bring new people into the fold (users, developers, designers, etc.) will increase and improve the experience overall. To some degree, I feel like we’re just getting started on what is possible and recruiting new users and help will be the best thing for improving things moving forward. IndieWeb integration into large-scale projects like WordPress, Drupal, etc. are very likely to be the place that these ideas are likely to gain a foothold in the mainstream and change the tide of how the internet works.
While it may seem daunting at times, in addition to the heroic (part-time, it needs to be noted) developers like Mathias Pfefferle, David Shanske, Micah Cambre, Michael Bishop, Ashton McAllan, Jack Jamieson, Ryan Barrett, Peter Molnar, Amanda Rush; enthusiastic supporters like you, Greg McVerry, Aaron Davis, Manton Reece; and literally hundreds of others (apologies to those I’ve missed by name) who are using and living with these tools on a daily basis, there are also quieter allies like Brandon Kraft, Ryan Boren, Jeremy Herve and even Matt himself, even if he’s not directly aware of it, who are contributing in their own ways as well. Given the immense value of what IndieWeb brings to the web, I can’t imagine that they won’t ultimately win out.
If it helps, some of the current IndieWeb issues pale in comparison to some of the accessibility problems that Gutenberg has neglected within the WordPress community. Fortunately those a11ys are sticking with the greater fight to make things better not only for themselves, but for the broader community and the world. I suggest that, like them, we all suit up and continue the good fight.
Of course part of the genius of how IndieWeb is structured: anyone is free to start writing code, make better UI, and create something of their own. Even then they benefit from a huge amount of shared work, resources, and simple standards that are already out there.
Syndicated copies to:👓 Blog Engines and Indieweb Controlling Upstream | Brad Enslen
Brad Enslen (Brad Enslen)All this WordPress 5.0 Gutenberg stuff got me thinking. With WordPress it seems like the Indieweb starts making serious and cool progress and the WordPress people come along and knock the game board and pieces off the table. And it sounds like the disruption from WordPress is going to continue for a couple of years.
Why not take a page out of Apple’s playbook and take control higher up in the food chain? Why not come out with an Indieweb compatible blog engine of our own? Either fork an existing open source project or build new? This does not mean you have to make it exclusive but make it the way the Indieweb wants the Indieweb elven magic to function. Also put in the standard blogging features most people expect. Why keep trying to adapt the Indieweb stuff to blog or CMS platforms that are at best indifferent, never designed for or just that don’t want to play ball?
This isn’t a slam on the coders who are working so hard to make everything work on WordPress, I’m just asking if maybe it’s not time to find better terrain to fight from.
If the Indieweb really wants widespread adoption they need to come out with a turnkey solution. It would act as a solution for many and a proof of concept for others to emulate. Something that can be put in hosting C-panels for one touch install. Something that just works, is easy to move to and move away from. Something supported, active, growing with enough polish that it inspires confidence in the user.
I’d really like to hear serious discussion on this.
👓 Writing documentation is a good thing | Andy Sylvester
Recently, I read a post on the Digital Ocean blog (Documentation As An Open Source Practice) talking about best practices for documenting open source project repos (like Github). The main focus of the post was on providing community-focused documentation (code of conduct, contributors, etc.). I agre...
📺 “The West Wing” Bartlet for America | Netflix
Directed by Thomas Schlamme. With Rob Lowe, Stockard Channing, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney. In an episode dotted with flashbacks, Leo and his attorney Jordon Kendall (Joanna Gleason) face a Congressional inquiry into whether the president lied to the American people regarding his MS, but this particular day of hearings concerns itself more with Abby and her secretly medicating Jed, and later with Leo's having fallen off the wagon during the campaign (a politically motivated Republican rep on the committee witnessed Leo drunk in his room three days before the nomination); we see the meeting in which Leo talked N.H. Governor Bartlet into running for president, introducing his idea, "Bartlet for America", on a cocktail napkin, which the president later frames and returns to Leo as a gift in thanks for all he's done for the president over the years; Cliff Calley, Donna's boyfriend and special counsel to the judicial oversight committee, asks the committee chair to halt the inquiry before the rep can compel Leo to admit his personal transgression; Leo asks Jordon to Xmas Eve dinner.
📺 “The West Wing” The Women of Qumar | Netflix
Directed by Alex Graves. With Rob Lowe, Stockard Channing, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney. CJ cannot control her outrage when the US agrees to an arms sale to Qumar, a country that brutally abuses women. Josh meets with Amy Gardner, a leading women's group lobbyist. The content of a Smithsonian exhibit draws protest from a veteran's group. Leo and the President discuss options when the possibility of a Mad Cow infection strikes the US beef industry.
📺 “The West Wing” The Indians in the Lobby | Netflix
Directed by Paris Barclay. With Rob Lowe, Stockard Channing, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney. On the day before Thanksgiving, CJ has to deal with two Stockbridge-Munsee Indians who won't leave the lobby until they get an answer on an application their tribe submitted 15 years ago. Josh tries to arrange the extradition of an underage boy whose parents sent him to Italy after he killed his teacher. The President learns why Abby wants to have Thanksgiving at Camp David this year, and places an anonymous call to the Butterball Hotline.
📺 “The West Wing” Gone Quiet | Netflix
Directed by Jon Hutman. With Rob Lowe, Stockard Channing, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney. When the military loses contact with a submarine in hostile waters, the President must choose between risking the lives of the crew and provoking North Korea. CJ relishes the Majority Leader's flubbing of an interview. Babbish informs Abby that she is the weak link in the President's legal defense.
📺 “Star Trek: The Next Generation” When the Bough Breaks | Netflix
Directed by Kim Manners. With Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Denise Crosby. A planet that was able to cloak itself for thousands of years suddenly reveals itself, with its inhabitants proposing peace. But, after initial negotiations, children of the Enterprise are kidnapped due to the infertility of the inhabitants.
Reply to A small blog neighborhood hiding in plain sight | Jon Udell
Jon Udell (Jon Udell)For as long as I can remember, I’ve tweeted every blog post. As an experiment, I didn’t do that with this one. As a result, WordPress tells me that relatively few people have read it. But I’m not monetizing pageview counters here, why do I care? The interaction with those who did read that item was pleasant.
So, the experiment continues. Some items here, like this one, can enjoy a more intimate space than others, simply by not announcing themselves on Twitter. A small blog neighborhood hiding in plain sight.
Old school blogs are the new social media. It’s nice to be ahead of the curve, isn’t it?
Syndicated copies to:I’ve been stockpiling episodes in my podcast queue for far too long, but Haley and Angie have been killing it on Human Current doing interviews with some of my favorite complexity systems thinkers. My listened to list is slowly growing. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend subscribing.
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Hopefully, by now you’ve recognized Inoreader as your go-to place for regular content consumption. But we know there are many more ways to come across great new content – and we want to help you with that, too. Now you can save pages from all over the web with our new feature, Saved web pages …
👓 Inoreader How-to: Do more with browser extensions | Inoreader blog
When you’re casually browsing the internet, there is nothing better than stumbling across a new source of excellent content – but nowadays you’re rushing so much that you might not put in the extra effort and fire up your Inoreader to add a feed to your subscriptions. Inoreader Companion, our dedicated browser extension, will save …