Still Thinking About It

The World Wide Web was built to share information. From the beginning, it was designed as a network of decentralised servers and clients communicating with each other. However, over the past 25 years, it seems to me that the web has become much more centralised.

Initially, I also embraced the new, exciting and fascinating world of social media. However, the more time I spent on it, the less I enjoyed using it. I never posted much on social media. Over the years, I have used many of them and have seen them come and go. I still remember when Diaspora was launched, and the hacker scene — of which I was a part at the time — thought it would be revolutionary. In my opinion, it didn't really take root until Mastodon joined the field, and even then, it only really took off after the Twitter meltdown.

Do you really need to comment?

One of the things that bothers me most about the modern web is that it makes everyone feel like they have to publish their opinion on everything. I remember listening to a Big Think interview with Stephen Fry, in which he also touched on this issue:

It’s such a pity and that’s one of the reasons I love the online world is that although that exists in abundance you can choose absolutely which part of the online world you want to live in. You can make your own kingdom in that sense, so things like Twitter or whatever I’m sure there are all kinds of Twitter you know clusters of people who have politics that I would find horrific and really just views that I would preposterous and impertinent, but I just don’t have to follow them and I can block them and I will never know they exist and that’s glorious.

And similarly as long as you don’t lower your eyes when reading a blog, as long as you don’t go down to the comment section where the trolls lurk, where the viciousness is because that’s… I mean there really is just suppurating, boiling seas of acid where if you just so much as dip a toe you’ve lost your limbs you know, just vileness abounding.

Source: Stephen Fry, How Oscar Wilde Helped Stephen Fry Confront His Sexuality, 8 December 2009, ~13:30

In his later blog post, "No Comment...", he writes:

I don’t know about you, but my eyes are already trained only to read the top half of a web page these days. Rather as a Victorian would not look below the waist, I do not let my eyes have even a second’s contact with the revolting Have Your Say or Comments section of a BBC site, a YouTube page or any blog or tech forum. The lower half of web pages is very like the lower half of the body — full of all kinds of noxious evil smelling poison.

Source: Stephen Fry, No comment..., 28 May 2010

This influenced me so much that, since then, I have tried not to read the comment sections on websites. However, sometimes I still find myself reading them. This is also one of the reasons why I don't have any comment functionality on my blog. There are, of course, some technical reasons why I do not offer it, but the biggest reason is that I do not want the legal responsibility that comes with hosting content created by others.

This doesn't mean that I don't want people to respond to what I write. On the contrary, I still believe that the web is for sharing. And this might make me seem hypocritical after the paragraphs above, but let me explain my reasons.

My main goal is to be in control of what I read and consume. I want people to publish their own stories and opinions, to link to interesting content and to respond when they have something to add. What I don't want is for all of those things to be pushed into the same space where everybody is expected to read and participate in the resulting conversation. I want independent spaces for people where they are in control of their inputs and outputs.

So, how can people share their stories or opinions with me while I remain in control of what I read?

The Independent Web

In recent years, and especially since the beginning of this year, I have noticed a resurgence in the movement to build an independent web. The idea behind it is that people own their content by hosting and publishing it themselves. Recently, Adam Newbold blogged about how anyone can do it and how inexpensive it can be. For those who are not technically inclined, I can recommend this blog post by Brennan Kenneth Brown.

One fundamental problem with the independent web is discoverability. How can we find other people on the independent web? Services like Bubbles, Ye Olde Blogroll and Kagi Small Web are definitely good starting points, but they still feel somewhat centralised. I would like to use more decentralised methods.

In 2017, the W3C published the Webmention protocol. They describe it as:

Webmention is a simple way to notify any URL when you mention it on your site. From the receiver's perspective, it's a way to request notifications when other sites mention it.

Source: W3C, Webmention, 12 January 2017

Even though Webmention is not directly meant to solve the discoverability problem, it can still help make the people and websites that form the independent web more visible. When one site mentions another and sends a Webmention, it creates a connection between the two. Following these connections can lead readers from one independent website to another and, in that way, help them discover people and sites they might otherwise never have encountered.

I wrote my own implementation of this protocol, which you can find here (more about open source projects later). My blog also supports it, and you can send me webmentions. I have not yet implemented the extensions Vouch or Private-Webmention. As I will not support comments on my blog, I will probably never implement the extension Salmention.

Recently, there was some discussion on the independent web about the privacy implications of Webmention, which you can read about here, here and here. My implementation does not import or display any content from external sites. The only thing it does, following the spec, when receiving a new webmention is to check whether the source really links to my blog. It does not modify my blog post to include a reference back to the source. If you find one, that means I added it manually.

Webmention is probably the most technical way to make your reply known to me, but it is an open protocol in which everyone can participate. In addition, I believe that one should have different ways to achieve the same goal and not be forced to use one specific method.

While reading about how to provide reply options for my readers, I came across the blog post "Please let me interact with your blog post!" by Michael Harley, where he also proposes email as a viable option. That post is why I implemented this option as well, but to reduce possible spam I used some of these email address obfuscation methods.

Reflecting on this, I came to a similar conclusion for open source software.

Maintaining Open Source Software

Years ago, when I came into contact with the local hacker scene, I was introduced by a friend to the concept of free and open source software. At that time, I had already taken my first steps into programming, and while learning a new language, I began to publish my little tools as open source. I also contributed, although rarely, to some projects. But there was a thought that lingered in the back of my mind for a long time.

We have seen maintainer burnout in the past and probably will see more in the future. I have also experienced hostile behaviour from a maintainer in response to a feature request. All this makes me mindful of my own well-being in this matter.

The same principles that influence how I handle comments on my blog also influence how I publish my software. I want to share my source code, but sharing it does not mean that I want to open another channel through which anyone can demand my attention. Open source does not mean open access to the maintainer.

This led to making my software not available anymore on centralised hosting platforms, but hosting it myself. This means that contributions to my software are now deliberately gated. There is no issue tracker anymore; there are no feature requests and there are no pull requests. If you want to contribute to my software, you can send a patch via email. I may read your email, I may reply to you, and I may apply the patch or not.

Sharing on my own terms

In the end, I still believe that the web is for sharing. I want to share what I write and the software I create, and I want other people to be able to respond or contribute. But sharing something does not mean giving up control over my own space or making my time and attention freely available to everyone.

Whether it is through Webmention, email or Mastodon, I prefer methods that let people reach me without placing me under an obligation to read, reply to or act on everything I receive. I can decide what I consume, what I respond to and what I accept.

For me, that is what an independent web should offer: the freedom to share, but also the freedom to choose how we interact with each other.