Explaining Myself.
Branding the Non-Commercial Web
08/16/2024
I posted the following in reply to a Threads post last week and kind of like it.
So here it is again at my blog with maybe more context.
What is needed is to brand a non-commercial web and then get people to participate in that brand. Right now everyone has their own idea of it so there is no organized movement that everyone can relate to, to foster one. My website (in profile) is no-commercial and very much what you mean. But for it to be a thing, it needs to interlink with another website like it, and so on, and so on, and so on.
As noted this blab is in response to someone who misses the old somewhat ad-free internet and web of the early days, and is my thought on at least a partial solution. The closest thing we have right now is the IndieWeb movement.
The IndieWeb gets everything right insofar as a rationale goes, but doesn't seem to touch on people's desire for reach, which is a thing that social media and commercial platforms do so well with. Also, I suspiciously note that the movement does not preclude monetizing anywhere that I can see; it just focuses on publishing logistics and data liberty. If there's no loud stand against monetization, who's to say that a web of independent publishers don't wind up enshitifying?
People need to collectively agree on what the non-commercial web is, why it makes sense for a body of information sharing, and then participate in propagating examples of it. Once that happens, reach will be restored.
By Dave for Personal Blog.
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Is it Suddenly Wrong to Post Like This?
08/07/2024
Here is one example of the decay of the WWW's open spirit.
In this post I am recounting a trip I made recently to Wilkes-Barre, PA - my birthplace and the city I ultimately went to high school in - even though I did not grow up there. While recounting, I am throwing up a simple picture of my remaining blood family on my mother's side. Myself, Mike, and Chris (who is officially known as Herbert).
The thing is - it feels bad, almost illegal, to post someone's picture on your blog suddenly.
There might be good reasons to not do something as simple as this today, but I'm racking my head trying to figure out when doing so actually became bad.
Myself, Chris (Herbert), and Mike -- fine, I won't post any last names!
At some point it became bad etiquette at the very least, to outright hostile at worst, to volunteer images of others on an open forum like the web -- though there is much less stigma and understanding for doing so on say, Facebook.
It's not like I can't imagine why it morphed into recklessly rude practice. The web and internet made people cautious over time. People acquired a sense of purposeful privacy and there are in essence understandable objections to having an unvolunteered picture of yourself wind up in a Google image search (hiding from that abusive ex for example).
But, when that we just wouldn't post pictures of others at our personal blogs anymore as a security solution have its day in court as the opt security practice exactly? It bothers me that there is this uncontested ever creeping set of rules that doesn't even actually just stop with posting pictures but really extends to any degree of personal sharing online.
It's a tough feeling to explain. I get it, but at the same time I'd feel somehow better if someone just decreed that we wouldn't share our stories on the open web and made it a national law or something, rather than everyone just sort of quietly and collectively not doing it, until I, up and like an idiot, do it to possibly everyone's aghast.
Whatever, I hope there is a kindred spirit out there who gets what I'm saying here.
As for this nostalgic trip and family reunion, it was my first time back in Wilkes-Barre in what I take to be at least five years at this point -- probably a little more.
It was technically a belated birthday party for my "Uncle Mike" but the keystone event of this was a minor league baseball game between the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (a Yankee team affiliate) and the Louisville Bats.
While there I found time to tour around Wilkes-Barre's Public Square and harken back to places I worked and even went to school at.
In this picture, off to my right shoulder, is the old Wilkes-Barre Times Leader building where I illustrated for about two years and briefly wrote as a stringer. Some time ago they moved their operations to another address in the city (not far).
By Dave for Personal Blog.
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Let Me Explain
07/08/2024
In June of 2024 I reengineered my entire WWW presence to reflect the reality that all my online expressions were taking place first and foremost on commercial social media platforms. To make online interaction worthwhile I conceded that I needed an active audience in order to fuel the spirit, and that the blog platform -- even one based on a CMS engine that I myself had developed -- wasn't providing me enough of the lulz.
The "blog it first" syndication model as it is sometimes known as became futile, inefficient, and redundant; whereas commercial social media platforms afforded everything I need to emote fast. Try as I might to resist reacting on Threads, Facebook, Reddit, and so on, before blogging, I could not. And when I failed to do so the energy of a reaction that I swore I would carry over to a longer more meaningful blog post later, evaporated before I could.
As a result my blog languished. And that felt somehow corrosive to my writing and production spirit. Not to mention that it fanned a betrayal of my passionate advocacy that people live more on the open web.
I still understand the criticality of one's own WWW place. But given the reality of my behavioral preferences, which is not unlike the untold millions of others, I see that my advocacy for an independent digital presence needs to process a different formulation.
And so, here we are. Everything I do online wherever I'm doing it is first, and this "blog", if we can still call it one (we can't, more on that in a moment), is now something like a second.
My WWW space is now a repository platform. Somewhere to place and reference things I have produced with focus and with exceptional significance that needs to live somewhere I control. Under this model I don't expect repeat visitors or a perpetual audience. I expect it more to be a showcase that I can link back to from social media as needed.
I think this is a better balance for me and a better use of the independent streak. Not just here at my personal blog repository but my other sites as well. I will export this philosophy making it part and parcel of my other blogs like BuffScan.
Blogging will still happen but only under exceptional circumstances. No more trying to beat a story or point out of a thin conviction. I don't know how frequently under this model my personal writing will ever appear here, but know now that when it does, it is over something borne of conviction and feeling.
Why, take this very entry as an example.
By Dave for Personal Blog.
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