94 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
94 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
[1]Jim Nielsen’s Blog [2]Archive [3]Subscribe [4]About
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[5] Jim Nielsen’s Blog [6]
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[7]Jim Nielsen’s Blog [8]Archive [9]Subscribe [10]About Preferences
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Theme: This feature requires JavaScript as well as the default site fidelity
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(see below).
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Fidelity:
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Controls the level of style and functionality of the site, a lower fidelity
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meaning less bandwidth, battery, and CPU usage. [11]Learn more.
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[12](*) Default [13]( ) Minimal [14]( ) Text-Only Update
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Putting the “Person” in “Personal Website”
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2024-10-02
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The other day I saw a meme that went something like this:
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Isn’t it crappy how basic human activities like singing, dancing, and making
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art have been turned into skills instead of being recognized as behaviors? The
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point of doing these things has become to get good at them. But they should be
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recognized as things humans do innately, like how birds sing or bees make
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hives.
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I thought about that for a minute, then decided: making websites should be the
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same!
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The original vision for the web, according to Tim Berners-Lee, was to make it a
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collaborate medium where everyone could read and write.
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Social media sort of achieved this, but the incentives are off. And it’s not
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just about ownership of the content you produce and who can monetize it, but
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the context in which you produce it. Mandy nails this in her recent piece [16]
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“Coming home”:
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While one of the reasons oft declared for using POSSE is the ability to own
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your content, I’m less interested in ownership than I am in context.
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Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into
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a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other
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people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with
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setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds
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of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a
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favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time
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away.
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Yes! This is why I believe everyone could benefit from a personal website. Its
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form encourages you to look inward, whereas every social platform on the
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internet encourages you to look outward.
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A personal website has affordances which encourage you to create something that
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you couldn’t otherwise create anywhere else, like YouTube or Reddit or Facebook
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or Twitter or even Mastodon. Why? Because the context of those environments is
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outward looking. It’s not personal, but social. The medium shapes the message.
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If I were to put this in terms of a [17]priority of constituencies, it would be
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something like this:
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• Personal website: personal over social.
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• Social platform: social over personal.
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Additionally, a personal website and a social platform are two different
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environments: one I’ve cultivated, the other I’ve been granted. As Mandy puts
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it:
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[having a personal website] allowed me to cultivate the soil to suit my
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purposes—rather than having to adapt my garden to the soil I was given
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Like dancing or singing, you don’t have to be skilled to do them. Personal
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websites should be the same. They’re for everyone. Like dancing and singing,
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their expression can be as varied as every individual human.
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Reply via: [18]Email :: [19]Mastodon :: [20]Twitter
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References:
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[1] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/
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[2] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/archive/
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[3] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/feed
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[4] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/about/
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[5] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/
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[6] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/verified-personal-website/
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[7] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/
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[8] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/archive/
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[9] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/feed
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[10] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/about/
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[11] https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/website-fidelity/
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[16] https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/coming-home
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[17] https://adactio.com/journal/16811
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[18] mailto:jimniels%2Bblog@gmail.com?subject=Re:%20blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/person-in-personal-website/
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[19] https://mastodon.social/@jimniels
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[20] https://twitter.com/jimniels
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