indieweb mixed bag article

content/post/2021/03/the-indieweb-mixed-bag.md

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+---
+title: The IndieWeb Mixed Bag
+subtitle: Thoughts about the (d)evolution of blog interactions
+date: 2021-03-09
+tags:
+    - privacy
+    - accessibility
+categories:
+    - webdesign
+---
+
+It's that time again: I started fiddling with my blog code - for the _nth_ time. Kev Quirk calls it [pissing around with the code](https://kevq.uk/the-wonderful-world-of-wordpress-wizardry-for-working-with-websites/). That was meant negatively, and one of the reasons for him to switch back from Jekyll to Wordpress. I, however, like _pissing around_ because I like _pissing_ - or coding, just for the sake of it. After all, _Brain Baking_ is a big side project that helps me learn and discover new things, blogging technology included. 
+
+## So, what changed?
+
+I discovered the [IndieWeb](https://indieweb.org/), perhaps an integral part of what Aral Balkan likes to call the [Small Web](https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/). Many IndieWeb W3C standards have been around for almost twenty years! I have no idea why I only came across it a few weeks ago. Since then, I've been trying to refactor parts of my site to support the IndieWeb standards, and I'm starting to see why.
+
+It's a _big hassle_.
+
+There's this thing with `h-card`, `e-content` and `u-url` meta-classes that have to be added in order for your HTML content to be machine-parsable. Verification can be done with any [microformats2-parser](https://aimee-gm.github.io/microformats-parser/) or the nice website [indiewebify.me](https://indiewebify.me). That meant messing around with the templates - again - as of course many components were not properly placed within each other. Author information should be on the root page of your domain, syndication links should have proper meta classes, etc etc. 
+
+## But why?
+
+Now we're getting somewhere! One compelling component of the IndieWeb movement is **Webmentions**. A webmention is a logical evolution from `pingback` links from the hopefully long lost XML era that nobody ever implements unless they happen to run a Wordpress website. With Webmentions, you notify others when you've written an article and linked theirs - or written a comment on theirs. 
+
+The concept is a webmention is that instead of commenting on someone else's domain, you _own your data_. Want to write a comment or remark? Post it on _your own_ site and send a webmention instead. This idea is also called [POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE): _Publish On your Site, Syndicate Elsewhere_. As opposed to PESOS: _Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate to your Own Site_. A very intriguing concept that got my full attention. 
+
+Until I started thinking about the ramifications of POSSE. It would be cool if the [Switch supported POSSE](/notes/2021/03/04h08m47s31/) instead of having me post screenshots to a private Twitter account. It would be great if we had access to the ecosystem of the target _silo_ (a centralized social platform) when simply interacting with our own site. [Jamie Tanna](https://www.jvt.me/mf2/2021/02/hvjtd/) uses [Indigenous](https://indigenous.realize.be/) to publish content to his site. Oh, you'll need to implement a few microservices (micropub/sub) in order to get that working... And you'll also lose context. So, again: why?
+
+I like the idea of webmentions, because as an academic, I also like the idea of correctly citing each others work. In theory, writing something like this should automatically post webmention notifications to the people I mentioned in this article. A link to this article should appear on their page. Note that I'm using the word _should_ here. A few major problems prevent me from smiling instead of sighing: 
+
+- The responsibility for sending webmentions is the web blog owner. Many blogs do not send them out and only receive them because [webmention.io](https://webmention.io/) makes it semi-easy to implement. Yes, many efforts like [webmention.app](https://webmention.app/) exist to automate this, but none work effectively, and they all still require you to run the scripts. 
+- Being dependent on something like webmention.io defeats the purpose of a _Small Web_: now I'm still using a big central silo to receive my stuff!
+- As for POSSE: that's simply ridiculous when thinking about something like Goodreads. I might also be interested in what others are reading, and not every context gets synced to my site with the IndieWeb tools. 
+
+## So don't do it!
+
+I wrote about my [Facebook PESOS attempt](http://localhost:1313/post/2020/06/tracking-and-privacy-on-websites/) before. I'd love to POSSE, but some questions that are posted there simply don't make it back, and as a community maintainer, I simply sometimes need to be there, even if I really, really hate that. 
+
+**Blog comments**, another big debate. My evolution from Disqus to Commento to nothing to Mastodon to Webmentions says it all[^comm]: it's a hassle. People like [Evan Sheehan](https://darthmall.net/weblog/webmentions/) add a small form to each page where webmentions can be requested - although they should be sent automatically. But what about "normal", non-tech savvy people? What if they want to comment? Oh, they can just use [commentpara.de](https://commentpara.de/). Well, that doesn't work, and I've tried it - and it's another external liability. 
+
+[^comm]: Managing comments is a hassle, as Kev and others agree. I got rid of these systems last year. If you like to chime in on the discussion, just toot or e-mail me. 
+
+All these headaches made people not just leave the IndieWeb standards behind: they are actually leaving static website generators behind and reverting to Wordpress! Read about [Ru Singh](https://rusingh.com/2021/03/05/waving-thankful-goodbye-to-static-websites-and-more/) and [Chris Wiegman](https://chriswiegman.com/2020/08/hello-wordpress-my-old-friend/)'s reasons. It's mostly the convoluted workflow, and the hassle to get all the tools of their Jamstack-site just right. 
+
+![](../blogchart.jpg "Courtesy of rakhim.org. I'm somewhere on the lower right...")
+
+[What's a jamstack](https://jamstack.org/what-is-jamstack/) 🥞? I've been jamstack-ing more than four years and only just found out that there's an acronym/cool word for the counterpart of a LAMP-stack: a _Javascript + Microservices-stack_. Because if you're interested in receiving webmentions, you still need an end-point... 
+
+Sleeves up, code out: 
+
+- microservice endpoint: check, https://github.com/wgroeneveld/serve-my-jams
+- javascript tools: check, https://github.com/wgroeneveld/jam-my-stack
+
+Okay, so now, I can answer the _why_. Not because it will be heavily used, or the IndieWeb stuff feels like the future. The low adoption rate says it all... No, simply because I was bored and wanted to learn about modern JS frameworks. I had an excuse to code again. Yay!
+
+Still, once I more or less finished a first revision of my own toolset (sending is up next), I felt a bit empty inside. What's the point? Who will _webmention_ me anyway? Those few other tech-related cooler bloggers? If you pay attention to the webmentions on other sites, you'll notice that `95%` of them are Twitter feeds, probably converted into webmentions by services like [brid.gy](https://brid.gy/). My point is that as far as **usability** goes, the IndieWeb standard completely falls apart. Sure, decentralization is the future. That's why I try to host and own my own data such as my [Mastodon Instance](https://chat.brainbaking.com/) - and that's the philosophy of the IndieWeb. 
+
+But I can't ask my wife to stop posting on Instagram because she's giving her data away?[^data] I can't ask her to post it on her own Wordpress-site, after installing a bunch of barely working POSSES-related plug-ins? And I can't ask visitors of my own site to "webmention me!" if they don't have a site? 
+
+Feel free to prove me wrong, though. Why don't you webmention this article?
+
+[^data]: One of the key properties of POSSE-ing is that you include a url-shortened reference to the original article, like so: `(short.co 34yf1)`. Having to put up with visible junk metadata on Twitter is also a big concern for me. Without it, you won't know if it's POSSE or PESOS. Aren't you still giving your data away either way?