The Smol Web

As the title asks, has anyone here had experience with it? I saw it mentioned once on lemmy and I was intrigued, but I don't quite understand what do you actually do on a specific tilde, how do you choose which tilde to sign up to and what makes them a "-verse", because they all seem to be rather disconnected from each other?

Or how yesterweb begat web revival begat ~smol~ begat {{INSERT_YOUR_GLORIOUS_AND_FREAKY_HOMEPAGE_HERE}}.

I'm still currently reading this piece, but it's already got enough soy on the bean* to be worth sharing. I think it might lean a bit too much into the nostalgia club area of things (which I'll admit is a personal draw), but like I said I'm not done reading it yet. :P

* alt to "meat on the bone" I'm still workshopping lol

EDIT: Okay, I kept reading and my initial reticence was unfounded. It's a great taxonomy of the disparate and overlapping personas that describe many of the netizens who feel like a better internet is possible.

Tag urself, I'm nostalgic corpo hater who wants everyone to get along.

030/100 [███░░░░░░░] : The "90s Web"
060/100 [██████░░░░] : The Anti-Capitalists
040/100 [████░░░░░░] : The Socialites
020/100 [██░░░░░░░░] : The Artists
020/100 [██░░░░░░░░] : The Minimalists

Blurb from the web page:

The Smallweb Subway is an experimental project that seeks to connect communities online using webrings.

[...]

The subway system theme is my attempt at making the internet feel more like a place where you can have neighbors. If a webring looks like a subway line, then it's easier to imagine a friend only a few stops away!

I really like this visual, and being able to see different topics on their own "lines." This feels like such an intuitive design, I hope it gets copied or riffed on elsewhere.

Example of a button: incidentally another fun place on da small web (the button is also a link).

The TL;DR is that it just sort of became the standard because of being an early standard, and then because they are kind of a nice size. Something I don't think the article mentions (I'll admit I started skimming around the end) is that when displayed for fun, web folk often like to stack or grid these together, so it makes sense that if you're making a new button that you'd make it the same size, so that it would fit in with all the rest.

Don't let your website be a dead-end. Add a links page to other independent web weavers, and let people continue surfing the tubular series of pipes that make up the small web.

Might be a useful philosophy for those who still find some utility in posting to larger social medias (like Mastodon, etc), but still want to maintain an indie presence that is totally under their control.

If you spend any amount of time perusing the small internets (for there are many), you will come across a link to yesterweb.org. However, you'll quickly discover that it is no longer active (see forum post explaining). It's a bittersweet feeling for anyone coming in late to the game.

But if you continue reading the available corpus, especially the "Summary" you'll find some interesting resources. I particularly enjoyed reading the sections under Significant Errors. To select a couple (just read the bolded parts for the gist):

On community size

It makes no sense to have over a thousand people in one chatroom and simultaneously have high standards for the quality of social connection and discussion.

On picking good moderators

Since moderation is (typically unpaid) work, many moderators rationalize this sacrifice through non-monetary compensation. [...] Others will realize this value in their self-aggrandizement ...

On compromising on technology

From our time with the Discord refusers it became clear that the vast majority were more concerned about the technology (and, ultimately, themselves) and less concerned about its social implications. [...] without [Discord] it would have been impossible for us to accomplish in any significant manner what we had set out to do.

I don't agree with this take, obviously, since I'm on here and not a Discord server. But I appreciate the authors sticking their neck out, and putting their rationale in writing, where it can be picked apart by armchair copy-pasters like me. :P

Misunderstanding terms/aims of project

Our understanding of culture had evolved over time and we realized at the very end that there was a widespread confusion with members mistaking a counterculture for a subculture.

See their definition of subculture v. counterculture here

There are a tonne of other notes, forum posts, blog entries, etc etc etc to dig into, but ultimately the project "failed" in some interesting and v well documented ways. I found this snippet from the forums of particular interest as someone who struggles even to raise their personal consciousness:

... the old culture returned and we could not progress from a tech-nostalgia-fandom server with a petty-bourgeois sense of rebellion that emulates what one would commonly find on Tumblr, Mastodon, or homes in a wealthy first world suburb.

Something to think about, right?

PS. If you poke around, you might find certain offshoots and capsules still pinging the void.

The part that I found heartening to hear was this one:

I am more optimistic than I've been in a long time about the massive potential of the human internet to come roaring back in a way that we haven't seen in a generation