I recently had to post a bio of me online and the web directories I’ve built. While writing it I remembered I’d done this before on my personal blog. I pretty much stuck with science fiction, fantasy and horror with a specialized Lord of the Rings directory added in and a spy/espionage fiction directory thrown in for something different.
I’ve spent the better part of two days setting up a “The Unofficial Micro.blog Webring”, troubleshooting as to why my browsers blocked the ring code on my Hugo blog but let it pass on my WordPress blog, researching and looking for alternatives. All for nothing.
A webring is pretty worthless if all the browsers are going to block the ring code from loading. They didn’t block it on WordPress but they did block it on my Hugo based Micro.blog hosted site. Whatever.
It appears, that the newest browsers do not like ring codes, even HTML ones, that mix http and https links within the code. Webringo, the only working web ring host left, is http, you know, the way the web originally was. My site is https because People That Know and Google say it’s important and what Google wants Google gets. Anyway, you can’t mix these two protocols in the same code because the browsers get all puckered up.
Okay, so Webringo is out. Webring.org is also http and looks like it’s on life support. Ringsurf looks like SEO’s took it over. So what does that leave?
Modern if You are a Coder
There are people coding their own webrings. Most of these are JavaScript or Ruby on Rails type of things. Github is full of them, but these are one off’s meaning you fork the code, get it installed somehow, customize it all just to run ONE webring. That’s all fine and dandy if you are a web developer or a coder, but it’s all Greek to the masses.
Some people have made webrings on Glitch. Whatever the f–k Glitch is.
The best of these newfangled webrings or at least the one that caught my eye a few weeks is A Webring Kit by Max Bock. Max was nice enough to produce something, forkable, that others could use to set up a ring of their own. And indeed, I think he made it easier to duplicate than others. But frankly, it still sounds too complicated for me to attempt. But others with more skill than I have might want to look into it.
Old School but Risky
Another way is via a WordPress plugin: Draupnir Ringmanager. It works. I’ve seen it working because Greg McVerry got it to work. The problem is the plugin has not been updated in 5 years and has not been tested with the last 3 major updates of WordPress. Here at Indieseek.xyz Ive got an expensive directory script attached to WordPress so I just can’t justify the risk to this installation for the sake of one webring.
So here we sit.
There is some demand for web rings among bloggers, retro ’90’s webmasters, independent web types and some coders.
There are no truly usable web ring hosts left.
What is being built are mostly one off type code suitable for only running one ring if you know how to install the code to run it.
So the webring revival for the masses is stalled because of lack of infrastructure. The train ain’t coming and here we sit. Sorry Micro.blog members, I tried.
There is an updated HrefHunt page for 27 January 2020 by Kicks Condor. HrefHunt is Kick’s monthly trawl of distinctive sites he’s found on the Web and is always an entertaining surf opportunity. He really does a deep dive in exploring each site and telling you why he likes it. Nicely, displayed too.
A new local directory and blog has launched for Lake Orion, Michigan area at LakeOrion.info.
The blog has announcements and community interest posts.
The directory is a proper business directory with addresses, location maps, telephone numbers and URL’s if the business has a website.
This is one of the slickest local directories I’ve come across. I’m impressed with the layout and the information presented in a neat format. It showcases what you can do with a local directory and how useful it can be.
My friend Eddie reports that he has upgraded and expanded his local Forest of Dean (UK) directory based upon requests and suggestions emailed in by users. The update is complete and includes an expansion into the Wye Valley area. Details at those links.
Also neat is a Screen Cast on how to use the directory.
This is the local directory I always use as an example of how to make a proper local directory and portal: directory + events calendar + announcements blog, using local knowledge that Google maps can’t match. I know that the Forest of Dean directory is heavily used by both local residents and tourists.
If you are going to visit the Forest of Dean area, I recommend you give the directory a good look.
This started out as a thinking out loud type post a few weeks ago. At that time I couldn’t really think of a straight forward use for it but my instincts told me it could be useful or somebody would figure out a use for it eventually. Anyway I spent the week before Christmas 2018 getting things set up.
Wat?
Okay, a hyperlink node and “clump of links” are synonymous. If I call your link page a hyperlink node it suddenly sounds legit. 🙂
The Hyperlinks node directory is an index of individual collections of web links, by type. Therefore it indexes: blogrolls and following pages, directories, search engines, linkblogs, link pages, niche directories, webrings and other significant collections. Comments are enabled for each listing, if you have a thought on a listing, please share it. These collections often map out odd little corners of the web.
Utility
Thinking on it some more, I think it has value for: 1. discovery, finding new sites and blogs to follow by seeing what other people have taken the time to link to, 2. eventually I think it might be useful for indexing communities, 3. establishing, at least one, central index of decentralized search and the hyperlinking guerrilla war against the search monopoly silos, 4. an aid to reestablishing “surfing the web”. There may be more that I have not thought of.
The big utility for me is having a place to list these when I stumble across them, so they can be shared, rather than just bookmarking them (or worse forgetting to bookmark them).
Challenge #1: Build Your Own
My first challenge to you is build your own node: Easiest would be an old fashion link page or a blogroll/following page; or maybe a linkblog or a linkblog-directory hybrid; or even a directory. Whatever you feel like, build it and show people websites you like. Examples and ideas are in the directory. You can do this.
Challenge #2: List It Here
You might already have a linkblog, link page or big blogroll, if so you can either add the URL to the directory or you can send me the URL via the contact form (hopefully it works) at the bottom of this post and I will review it for inclusion. It dose not even have to be your own, if you run across something drop me the URL and I’ll look at it.
Or if you build something for Challenge 1, come back and list it.
The idea is to have a lot more of these all across the indieweb so web surfers can find human reviewed recommendations. Like Word of Mouth recommendations from people you trust.
I hope this is in some way useful. Thanks!
Be sure to include the URL to your node in the form below:
Kicks Condor announced the launch of his new web directory: href.cool. This is a meticulously made, well thought out tiny web directory. Each listing is curated: carefully chosen, descriptions crafted, meticulously displayed like a rare Ancient Etruscan object in a museum. But it’s more than that, it’s also a kid’s cigar box full of treasures: a couple of pretty marbles found in the dirt at the playground, a yo-yo, a mummified frog, a beloved grandfather’s service medal, a four color ball-point pen, a Doctor Who Tardis pencil sharpener and a secret decoder ring.
Wrapper
Let’s start with the wrapper. This is a nice touch: you get your choice of three templates. The default is cool, clean, sleek and inviting, like Taylor Swift, perfect in drapey silk. Another is yellow almost brutalist but the larger type and thumbnails make it easy to read. Did I mention it was yellow? The third is a homage to the earliest old time gray Yahoo! directory look, which might be best for working in a darkened room. And they all just work and are good choices.
Categories
The categories and sub categories are right out of that young boy’s cigar box: they represent the interests of the curator – they are not trying to please everyone or be orthodox, instead they proclaim, this is my collection and this is how I cataloged it. And you know, they make sense.
Listings
Listings have thumbnail images. On a conventional directory I’m not a fan of thumbs, but here they work well and help define the space for each listing. Without them, a category page would just be massed paragraphs of text blending in to one another. Each listing description is unique and generally tells you why Kick’s included it or why it’s cool. This is a rabbit hole in and of itself: you can spend lots of time browsing the directory just reading the descriptions without actually clicking on the links. They are great fun.
With the links themselves, we are back in the museum. This is the second rabbit hole: most of these sites are unique, and precious for the reasons given by Kicks. He’s your guide for this museum tour. I won’t spoil it for you, go to the directory and look around, you won’t be bored.
Time-Depth
Which brings me to another neat feature, the editor has given an estimate of how extensively deep each listing is in a range between 1 minute to infinity. This is either the depth of the rabbit hole or the length of alien abduction lost time that will occur on each site. And you can browse and sort the links by how much time you have to kill. I’ve never seen that before and I like it.
Surf’s Up!
I know Kicks kinda wants to bring back the practice of “surfing the Web”. I think he has succeeded in producing a directory that encourages that. There is no search function. Right now the directory does not need it and it’s going to be awhile before it does, if ever. This is a browsing directory where you want to take your time and wander through the categories looking for goodies.
Take Aways
The critical part of me wants to find flaws with this site but it’s hard to do that because it does everything it is intended to do. It’s not a search engine – it’s not Google. In fact it is exactly the opposite of soulless, godless search engines like Google and Bing. This is a human built directory. It uses human judgement on the quality of the listings. It uses human tastes as to aesthetics, humor, value, worthiness. These are all things that the Googles cannot measure. This is not a place for fast searching, for helicoptering in to find one page to match your query. Each link is like a monograph or a tome in a library.
Perhaps linking—and spending time telling you why I linked—is good enough. Perhaps it’s superior!
I think it is.
More than anything, I hope mine intrigues you to build your own.
This is an important point. You can do something like this too. Figure out a way to list links to stuff you think is neat even if it’s just a good old static HTML link page.
Joe Jenett created a site he calls the “linkport” which combines some of the best parts of a web directory and a linkblog: “directory linkblog” to give it a generic name. I want to explain how this changes the directory building game and how you can make this Indieweb compatible.
So keep the Linkport (above) open in a tab and look at it as we go along.
The Directory Linkblog
WordPress: The basis of this is a blog script. WordPress is perfect because there are lots of plugins available to help you do it right. For simplicity sake you want to dedicate this WP install to the directory.
Search & Categories: Most old style linkblogs do not have a dedicated search or subject categories. These two things combined are what make the directory linkblog different and usable. You want to have your blog search dedicated to the linkblog. You will want to find a plugin that enhances the WP search. You want to have subject categories for every link.
One link per post.
If you take a look at Joe’s Linkport you will see all these elements. That is the beauty of it. It combines the immediacy, newness and freshness of a linkblog with the categories and listings search of a directory script. You have an RSS feed, plus you can syndicate to social networks. And WordPress is a free script available with one click install from almost any hosting company. Bang! The Walls of Jericho just tumbled down. Almost anyone can start their own directory linkblog, be it, general, niche whatever and dirt cheap too.
This does not have quite all the features of a regular directory script. There is no way for webmasters to submit a URL, although you could use a contact form. You are also limited to one top layer of categories not a hierarchy.
Now Add Cowbell Indieweb
This makes it even more exciting: add Indieweb goodness.
This means that any time you list a new link you will be telling the blog listed that you have mentioned them. This helps generate awareness of your directory linkblog and usage. Plus it expands the Indieweb.
I ran across a web directory devoted to Neocities websites: Neocities Districts. It’s a very attractive human edited directory. “Districts” are a nice nod to the nostalgia for old Geocities districts.
Neocities has a great internal search function to find sites powered by Duckduckgo. But there is value in a directory like this one, in that you have a human editor sorting the wheat from the chaff. Something no search engine crawler can really do. If you want to find some interesting Neocities sites I suggest using Neocities Districts first.
In addition to building web directories I’m a firm believer in hyper-local news as part of the future.
Introduction
All across America there are small towns that are no longer directly covered by a local newspaper. Once upon a time they probably had their own weekly paper or maybe even a daily but those have shut down. They are probably served by a regional paper, but, and this is the important part, that paper does not report on the meetings of your little town’s government. Therein lies your opportunity if nobody is covering your town government.
Recipe
Start a blog on your own domain. Best if it sounds newspaperish.
Start a blog. I recommend WordPress for this. Find a newspaper looking theme.
Start attending meetings of your town government. It’s probably one night a month. Take notes ask questions.
Write up a brief summary of the meeting: topics discussed, action taken on your blog. Keep it impartial stick to the facts. Try to explain to your readers why the town is doing it the way they are – why it’s important.
Even small towns these days post transcripts of town council meetings, usually as PDF’s. Most town citizens will never take the time to read those. They are more likely to skim your summary.
Spread the word around town. And hand out flyers to people with your URL.
Put up a contact form, encourage clubs, churches, civic organizations to inform you of upcoming events and post those for free. The local library always has stuff going on, post that.
Make a business directory: you can probably find a plugin for WordPress. List all the local businesses and civic organizations. List the clubs and their meeting places and times.
Everyone has a smartphone with a camera these days. Walk around town. Take photos of interesting stuff. Heck, have Mr. Smith pose for you while he’s raking leaves. Post it on the blog. Or get a photo gallery plugin. People like seeing what’s going on around town at a sidewalk level. People like seeing their name in the “paper”. You can do a heck of a lot just with photos and captions.
If there is no “shopper” newspaper you might add a classifieds script.
Take some good photos of the town. Turn them into ePostcards with “Greetings from MYTOWNNAME” and get an electronic postcard script. Visitors and locals alike enjoy these.
Fill the vacuum left by not having a little hyper local paper.
Cover people’s hobbies when you hear about them: if you admire somebody’s yard and flower garden ask to interview them and take pictures then post. If somebody has a big model train layout, introduce yourself and ask to write a story about it.
None of this costs much except some time. This is perfect for somebody who is retired. You are helping knit together a community again. Go to the library, chances are they may have the archives of the old weekly town newspaper that went belly up 50 years ago. Read through the archives from 100 years ago. Small town papers were folksy a lot of the news was gossipy stuff: Robert Smith’s parents from Peoria are visiting him for a week. Delinquent kids are breaking bottles on the sidewalks in Founder’s Park. There is no reason your little news portal can’t do the same. Get the community involved in reporting news: post photos sent in of the Volunteer Fire Department fund raiser,
You are going to have to play with the scale here. Your town may no longer have many businesses left open in town proper. If everybody has to go to the next town over to shop then list those businesses in your directory.
Keep you blog’s comments open and as easy to use as possible. Use Akismet or other plugins to prevent spam. If you get a fair amount of discussion, consider adding a forum script for the local wags to discuss stuff.
It may take awhile for word of mouth to spread but keep at it and it will. Make friends with the local librarians, they will help you find resources to hone your craft and if they like you they will help informally spread the word.
It’s a good way to become involved, become self informed about your community and give something back by sharing.
