Human Protocols by Chris
In summary, the IndieWeb will thrive because of the human protocols we develop by using it. We don’t need a central standards body to define those protocols. Instead, we will refine them through continuous conversations with ourselves.
Let’s keep talking about it 👏 I think the next phase of the IndieWeb is developing clearer social norms. This is also a great way to engage non-technical community members!
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But I sorely wish the “Web” part of the “IndieWeb”, in the sense of building collective tools that lift all the boats instead of individual yachts being propelled, were something that was focused on more and not left to the rest of the world to just “adopt”.
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ActivityPub is a lot like email, and Ghost already supports email subscriptions. This means we can use the same interface to support both. Your audience enters whatever address they’re used to subscribing to things with, and Ghost figures out the rest.
This allows your readers to choose how they would prefer to subscribe, and your work to reach farther and wider when you publish.
Including readers in the IndieWeb
The IndieWeb in general is publishing oriented; however, the pool of people willing to publish anything is very small as a subset of the online audience. If the IndieWeb is meant to be for all, we ought to consider how our indie websites can serve people who primarily read content rather than write it — at the same time we lower the barriers to entry of posting replies and interacting with our sites. And I mean both technical and social barriers.
This conflicts with the idea of one’s website being the center of our online identity. But if that’s a barrier to making more flexible tools that are welcoming and encourage interaction, maybe that’s a principle the IndieWeb should revisit? *Throws down the gauntlet, but gently*
I’d posit readers are just as important a part of the IndieWeb as writers. We talk a lot about the problem of discovery, but not enough about who’s doing the discovering and how they’re going to follow and interact with whoever they discover. I think Jacky’s onto something that the approach of building things for ourselves may neglect building tools that are suited to a broader audience — and a (not necessarily true) perception that people are mostly interested in building for themselves could discourage conversations about adapting tools that start for oneself into something more people could use.
What draws new folks to the IndieWeb, I think, is the focus on people — and I suspect the underlying desire is connection. Except, the IndieWeb neglects those who are drawn to that ethos but don’t themselves want a website… yet.
I say yet purposely; websites are not something you can “try out” having easily, and there are big upfront costs as well as ongoing ones that might not seem worth the gamble. The first step to participating in a community is often observing; over time, as people reading see what others get out of having their own websites, it may become less daunting and more appealing to put in the work and emotional energy to have their own website. We should welcome people to the community even if they’re not at the stage where they want a website — as people are exposed to others’ personal sites, having a personal website becomes normalized.
Is requiring a website to participate something the IndieWeb community prioritizes enough to disregard the needs of most Internet users (i.e. non-posters)? Can we better support IndieWeb readers who don’t have — and don’t want — their own websites? Frankly, can the IndieWeb “succeed” if having a website is a mandate?
Let’s experiment!
In support of the idea of making small interactions easier, this week I’ve added the Open Heart Protocol to posts on this blog. That means readers can “heart” an article by clicking on it. (I welcome feedback / suggestions for better placement 😄 Currently it’s in the article header.) There’s a count shown, but no names — it’s just a quick, anonymous way to say “hey nice” or express sympathy or solidarity. I don’t know whether anyone will use it, or if different functionality would be better, but I think it’s good for people in the IndieWeb to experiment with different ways of connecting and making a human-centered web.
Now, the only reason I could add this little tool at all is because Benji set up the… er, I don’t even know what it does, but the thing that makes it work 😂 (Thank you Benji! I’ll post how I got it working on WordPress later this week for anyone else interested.) As a non-technical person, I rely on technical community members to share tools they make. I don’t want to demand labor from all y’all, and I imagine most others are the same — we’ll use the tools you offer up but we’re probably not going to ask you for them — unless you say you’d like to make a tool for the broader community, and want to know what problems we have and want solved.
If there’s appetite for building more things for the community at large, a conversation about the gaps in the system might be a good place to start. Let’s talk more about the tools we already have and figure out what needs they’re not meeting, and especially about the social side of them. If the tools we have technically will do what we want, why aren’t we using them that way? We’ve been having this conversation asynchronously via our blogs over the past year, and I think there’s still lots more to talk about!
