Defining the IndieWeb boffosocko.com
@c "a Utopian dream of what the decentralized, open Internet could be."
As the man once said: Damn Right. Great Post.
@c FYI, your highlight/annotate functionality makes it nigh impossible to select and copy some text on iOS :-( Thank goodness for Reader mode ;-)
@c I really like the article; it makes it easy to wrap one’s head around the definitions of IndieWeb.
The one bit I did dislike, and it’s small, and a bit orthogonal, but still related:
Why should I have hundreds of social accounts and an online identity shattered like just so many horcruxes when I could have one that I can fully control?
I get your point there, especially in context, but I still don’t like the perpetuation of the idea, brought forth by these big data/social media corporations, of the flattening of identity. Before corporatized social media, it was relatively easy on the Internet, as it has always been in real life, to expose only a facet of your identity to a certain group, a different facet to a different group, and so forth. Everyone everywhere did not need to know all of me. This is one of the things that, despite all of the IndieWeb movement’s great strides in liberating us from the worldviews and constraints of the social silos, the IndieWeb doesn’t seem to have a good answer for (that I know of). Maybe there isn’t an answer that’s compatible with “a domain of one’s own”, and maybe that’s OK and I’m just reacting negatively to the appearance of that language. Dunno :-)
@smokey Personally, I don't think anyone should share 100% of themselves on the Internet.
With the IndieWeb, it gives you the control to share what you want and how much. But more importantly (and for me) the IndieWeb is all about owning your data and your identity, something you don't control/hold with social media sites.
@unoabraham For sure, we should share less than 100% of ourselves, and own and control that which we do choose to share. But—and this is a small issue, but it’s one that, for whatever reason, I get hung up upon, we should also be able to only share certain parts with certain people, and I don’t see a good solution yet to that issue with a single, centralized (but yes, under my control) “repository of me” on the the web. @bradenslen’s idea of multiple domains is certainly food for thought.
@smokey Further to my point about flattening of identity, @simonwoods posted this tonight. I’m priviliged that none of these real-world identity-flattenings affect me, but there are lots of people for whom it is a life-or-death situation, and the IndieWeb needs to be aware of the issue and iterate a little bit on this “single, centralized me” part of the message :-)
@smokey A couple of observations from my personal experience.
Typically when you follow a person you want to discover all of their content, so we begin to search for all of their blogs, YouTube channels, etc. Not really possible to segregate content unless you start blogging under a pseudonym.
I have been somewhat of a domain collector with over 80 domains and grand plans for each of them. Unfortunately, it's way too much work and too much hassle for anything really meaningful to get done with so many domains. I did plan one for a blog, and for a microblog, a photography blog, one for status updates, etc. and while I did try it for a month, it was too much work. So I eventually cut them down to 5 domains in total and to just one blog, and one photography blog.
A good idea to have multiple domains, but it's way too much work unless you have a content creation team on hand.
@smokey The multiple domains "solution" is what I ultimately went with. I wanted a blog of commentary on politics and world affairs where I was free to rant and thump (I'm a centerist so I thump both the Right and the Left) but I didn't want to bring bloody chunks of raw meat into MB. I value the community here at MB, the guinea pig photos, the level of discourse, the chat, the developer stuff: it didn't seem right for me to drag my political rantings in here. It seemed to me that would be doing to MB what I didn't like about Twitter and FB. And it's all in or all out on MB, I couldn't selectively post here. Another reason, which fits into what you are talking about Smokey, is that I didn't want my "web presence", my other domain, to get overrun by political stuff, that is just one part of me but you need to be careful where you place your lightning rods. :) So, I split, a domain for Nice Boring Brad and a place for Evil Brad. And yet this approach still can be within the Indieweb movement, own your own domain(s), own your own content, syndicate elsewhere, you are free to merge the two if you want in the future, etc.
@smokey I'll see what I can do to minimize it or potentially eliminate it (particularly on mobile where the UI could use some help.) I'd previously tested Android which wasn't horrible, but could be better. Thanks for letting me know.
@smokey I think you're right that this part of the identity piece hasn't been figured out well within the broader IndieWeb. There is a broader idea of "publics" that covers some of what you're talking about. I suspect that @kevinmarks has written about it extensively in the past if you're looking for some general guidance. Some of the other relevant pieces I'm aware of are those of "audience" and several have played around with the idea of private webmentions as well, though these have yet to be built out to enter the mainstream yet.
On my personal website I have several friends and family who have access to various private areas which they can only read and comment on while logged in, so it's a small start, but isn't nearly as flexible as one might wish.
I suspect that as things progress and laws like GDPR require more of it, these ideas will become larger itches for more people so that they can maintain just one website which only reveals the facets they want and only to the audiences they want.
Thanks for re-raising the issue. We definitely need more people thinking about and working on it.
@smokey Incidentally, I suspect that one of the communities that is likely to begin building and implementing a lot of this is the education sector which values semi-private posts to cordon off material for particular classes that aren't as public facing or that may run afoul of FERPA. I know a few IndieWeb developers who are working in the health care areas professionally and so some of the HIPAA regulations may seep in that way too for people owning their own medical data and keep it private.
Of course all this doesn't mitigate the fact that we need to do better outreach to more diverse and potentially marginalized people and communities who might help to better build out these pieces as well.
@c @smokey I think the euphonybof a domain of one’s own is the problem here. I have domains of my own that expose different aspects of “me” and each is Indieweb to a slightly different extent. I’ve worried in the past about how to tie them together but it has become a lot less important to me over time.
There was a thing recently where someone asked me if I was also one of my other identities. I just said yes.
@jeremycherfas Much the same for me. This site is the first to use my full name & for now is purely short posts. I have two other domains, that I use at least semi-regularly, for different things. Longer posts on one, craft stuff on another. @c @smokey
@c @khurtwilliams, I don't think I've ever seen Buckaroo Banzai and I still recognized the reference. ;)