Small Web September: Kick-Off & Goals!

[enchantedsleeper]

Our kick-off for Small Web September is already upon us, and that means it’s time to set some goals! What would you like to work on during the month?

These can be as vague or as granular as you like; a lot can change as you’re working on a project, so it’s completely fine to change them up as needed (or do away with them entirely xD), but it can still be nice to set some ~aspirations!

There’s no set format for this post (anything goes!), but for anyone who’d like to use it, here’s a little pre-formatted set of prompts you can fill in – just overwrite the placeholders with your own info:

<strong>Name:</strong> (Username, nickname, whatever you like to go by)
<strong>Project(s):</strong> (Share a link to your project(s) if you’d like to, and/or describe what you’re making or would like to make!)
<strong>What are you hoping to work on for SWS?</strong> (This can be as general as “add to my site”, or as specific as “archive X fanworks” or “implement a responsive layout”. You could even include ‘bonus’ or extra goals you’d like to get to if you have time!)

I normally include a ‘discussion starter’ or two at the end of each post as well for anyone who’d like to answer it, so here are a couple of questions you can answer if you fancy: What inspired you to make (or start making) your small web project(s), and what is it that appeals to you about the small web?

I look forward to learning about everyone’s goals and projects! 💜 Our next check-in point for the challenge will be Sunday, 7th September (you can check the full schedule and list of themes here!), but if you want to share something to the comm before then, feel free to make a post!

Reminder that we have these amazing banners for the challenge made by javert that you can save to use on your site, your blog or anywhere you'd like to show you're taking part!

Comments

[aleteoryx]

Name: amity
Project(s): my WIP weird personal wiki glossary site, and the underlying ssg. once I have something together, this will be going at nosingularity.neocities.org.

What are you hoping to work on for SWS?
I want to get some photos together to do some sort of gallery/slideshow blog thing (no clue what the term is, have seen them before and they seem fun), and get my static-site generator able to do that.

then, I just wanna get the site to a proper initial state to put it up. I'm trying to have this website be a little labyrinthine, and I want it to be like that the moment it's up, so I've been writing a lot the last bit and probably will continue to for most of this month. the goals of this site are pretty vague though besides various forms of experimentation

[ceu]

Have you seen Kaylee Rowena's portfolio template? Not sure if it's what you're looking for for your gallery, but figured I'd link it in case it inspires :3

[toothpastepancake]

Name: Agnes/Toothpaste
Project(s):
My self-hosted website projects! aaaaaaand My personal website!
What are you hoping to work on for SWS?
I have lots! I'm hyperfixated on Computer Hobbying right now so there's lots I want to accomplish:
1) Self-host own fanfic archive site (different from the one on my personal site rn) <- this was my first goal when getting into self-hosting. A huge dream that will take a lot of learning to do! I got one up a few days ago as far as setting up my admin account and making users, but accidentally made a mistake somewhere before I could actually get it officially up and running. I'm pretty sad about that, but never thought I'd get even that far. So. Probably won't finish in September but it's a goal I've been working on every day or so now. And in a way working on overly ambitious projects is helping me learn more, because I've been able to identify what I've done wrong and how to fix it next time.
2) Finish uploading all of my past fic to the archive that Is on my personal site right now
3) make a proper fansite for a few of my interests. I love shrines to niche media so I might make one for a show ive been watching, Cleopatra 2525, when I finish it
4) Work on my webring again
5) Set up a site for my fandom OCs. Might put this on my dokuwiki instance tbh but im not sure I might use mediawiki instead
6) Set up and further promote my femslash forums

Anyway I'm so excited for this. Gives me motivation to Actually Do Things.

[enchantedsleeper]

Ooooh, self-hosting a fanfic archive is so awesome - I hope you can make some progress with it! <3 Cheering you on! Also, femslash forums! 🤩 And shrines to niche media ftw! I'm excited to see more of your projects if you share them :D Good luck with your goals!

[falkner]

Name: Destiny / falkner
Project(s): heartscraps.xyz
What are you hoping to work on for SWS? I want to create an archive for my fic, but I'm still in the brainstorming phase. I considered just going for good ol' efiction, but I fear that at this point that's not very secure to use, so now I'm trying to figure out if I want to manually code 100+ pages (and/or use something like Hugo). [I have tried running Ourchive locally and like it, but for a single-person archive it's quite overkill.]

[ravensilversea]

Not gonna lie, I coded my fic layout once and then saved a template version so I could copy-paste the code and then fill in the fic-specific details 😅

[enchantedsleeper]

Work smarter, not harder!! 😂 I also tend to copy-paste my header code from existing fic/meta pages into my new ones, plus I use the ao3 posting script by Min to tag all the HTML for me (I have it copied as a doc titled "Doc for archiving formatting"; I also use it for things like Dreamwidth post formatting). Not sure if that will help you any, Destiny! I wish you luck finding an archive option that you like ^^

[falkner]

Thank you for the link! I'm going to give it a try, I write my fics in plain txt format so I wonder if that's gonna get the paragraph breaks right (the most annoying part of converting to HTML).

Will report back on any progress throughout the month (^_^)7

[ceu]

If you or anyone else in this thread have fic on AO3 and want to port it over while customizing its look, I have custom AO3 css available so you can keep the AO3 metadata formatting but customize everything else (like colors, fonts, spacing, etc.)

If you want a more robust option or at least want to see what one might look like, I also have my own fic site where I use WordPress if that might be of any source of inspiration! I also have documentation for how I set it up :)

[enchantedsleeper]

I really like the custom AO3 CSS! Would you be okay for me to add this to my list of small web resources that I'm collecting, in the design section? (I haven't updated it since last SWS, but I'm planning to do another update this year xD) It's nice to have cool tools like this all in one place!

[ceu]

Yes, please do share! I'll check it out as well, I love finding new lists of resources.

[stel]

i'm several days late, but this sounds fun and i've been on a websiting kick lately!

Name: stel

Project(s): my personal site and my fanfic archive

What are you hoping to work on for SWS?

for my personal site: i've been doing a "mini-recode", mostly focusing on cleaning up css* and templating. as well as that, i'd like to:

• clean up some content pages that i think need work
• dust off some content pages that i have not touched in a long time
• rework/merge/split pages that need it (eg. move my bookmarks out of "links")
• make my file structure make more sense
• reorganize my art galleries! i'd like to organize them by topic rather than year, and maybe i'll have custom stylesheets for them too?

* my padding/margin situation was kind of a mess, and i've decided to make some big changes to it that'll be a lot less painful for me

for my fic archive: i haven't been keeping it updated since the "base code" i'm using doesn't have series, so i'd like to implement that. i've also been contemplating remaking it from scratch to be much simpler, but i do really like what i have right now, so i probably won't do that.

[kalloway]

May your cleanup go smoothly! (especially the padding/margins, and them doing appropriate things on both desktop and mobile not that I know this feeling or anything)

[enchantedsleeper]

There's no such thing as "late" in this challenge, you're perfectly on time! :D Welcome, and good luck with your code clean-up! I love the look of your personal site - I'm a sucker for a good moon (and stars) theme ^^

[ceu]

Name: Arrow

Project(s): I have a bunch I want to work on, but they're all under my main site umbrella, or my Pokemon site. Plus one on my studio site as well as my friend's website project that I handle all the webdev/coding aspects of.

What are you hoping to work on for SWS? I've written a more comprehensive post here, but tl;dr:

- Finish housekeeping for 2 projects under my main domain
- Redesign an archived page
- Finish Trick House (been working on this since March, but it's a big project)
- Convert my Psych episode tracker into a webpage
- Create and finish two one-page projects
- Establish a shop section for Berelyse
- Start working on the ACNH portion of my site

[enchantedsleeper]

Your main site design is so cute! And omg, I love the Pokéball design of the Pokémon one, that's so clever xD Also, you linking your Small Web September post reminds me that I haven't even posted to my own blog about thw challenge yet this year 😅 Need to add that to my to-do list for this weekend xD

Your goal list looks really comprehensive, and I hope you can make a lot of headway with it! Wishing you inspiration and motivation!

[ceu]

Thank you so much! And hehe, good luck on your goals too :D

[toothpastepancake]

!!! A psych episode tracker, that's so cool, I love that show!

[ceu]

Thanks! I've rewatched Psych enough now that I want to Organize Episodes, haha

[marycuntrarian]

Name: Kat
Project(s): I kind of want to learn to code Dreamwidth layouts so I can tweak mine and maybe make some themes for the community!
What are you hoping to work on for SWS? I just want to get better at coding. I know my code is pretty heavy and not responsive, it just happens I love websites that require absolute positioning. lol

[enchantedsleeper]

Ooooh, Dreamwidth layouts! That sounds excellent. Cheering you on in that endeavour! And I really like the idea of setting a goal to stretch yourself a bit and learn new things with coding. I should do the same 😆

[marycuntrarian]

Thank you, cheering you on as well! It seems pretty straightforward, it also helps that there's the templates the site provides I can just start there. :)

[kupokupo]

I am laaaate but I would like to join :3

Name: aero
Project(s): FFXIV resource directory.
What are you hoping to work on for SWS? I want to organise it better, give it a new layout, add new links + descriptions for each one. Overall make it easy to use but also pretty to look at. Bonus goals is settling on a name for it that I like and maaaaaybe moving it to a different domain.

[enchantedsleeper]

You are right on time, welcome! Your directory looks like a wonderful wealth of information and knowledge! Best of luck with getting it organised in the way that you'd like, and coming up with a cool name too :D 🍀