Small Web September Check-In 3: Communities!

[enchantedsleeper]

Our third check-in point for Small Web September is at hand!

We're now on the home stretch - but there's still lots of time to play around with your small web project(s), so if you're just joining us, welcome! We hope you enjoy taking part and chatting with everyone in the comments.

The theme of this week's check-in is communities! There are lots of cool groups, forums, mailing lists, and social media movements for or adjacent to the small/indie web - I'm posting in one right now! These can be really excellent places to find like-minded hobbyists, share tips and resources, and take part in challenges and events (again, like this one :D).

So, in the comments, share how you're doing with your small web project(s) and also where you like to spend time talking about the small web, if anywhere! I'm not going to too-rigidly define what counts as a "community", so if you think it counts, mention it here.

As a bonus discussion prompt: what is something you would love to see/join a community for (this one doesn't have to be small web-related!) but you haven't yet found one? Have you ever thought of starting it yourself?

As a reminder, this is the third of four ‘check-in’/comment points that will be published during the event – you can check out the schedule and dates of these posts over on the event intro. There’s no cut-off point for commenting on them, so you can add something at any time – you also don’t need to comment on every one or do them in order! The themes are a loose guide and all discussion is welcome. For our previous check-in post, head on over to Small Web September Check-In 2: Halfway House/Troubleshooting!

There'll be a longer gap than usual between this and our next (and final!) check-in, which will be posted on Tuesday 30th September, the last day of the challenge - so look out for it then!

Comments

[enchantedsleeper]

I checked my progress against my SWS goals a few days ago and I admit that I was hoping to have ticked off more things than I have 😅 But my goals for SWS were pretty varied and my actual progress has been mostly focused on a couple of areas. Still, so far I have completed:

• Rearrange my fic and fan poetry so that any 1-work fandoms are categorised under ‘Other’, and archive a few of these works, since they should be relatively chill to tick off ✔️

I did the first part of this and have so far archived two new fics under 'Other', with a third one formatted and ready to go up.

• Make a start on at least one new fandom, which can also be a ‘catch-all’ fandom like Yuletide (which I’m planning to treat effectively as a fandom for categorising purposes) or my small fandoms drabbles ✔️

I added the fandom Peter Pan to my archive and archived two new works under that fandom.

I have also made partial progress with:

• Finish archiving my Rurouni Kenshin fanworks

I have one work left to go. It's a 7-chapter multichap fic, so I'm putting off all of the fiddly 'jump-to' coding, but I've now archived several more of these and it probably won't be all that onerous.

• Clean up and make consistent my use of <strong> and <em> versus <b> and <i> across the site, because I know they’re all over the shop (this will probably involve a lot of find & replace)

I did this for one essay, plus I've made a point of formatting the new fics I add with the right tags, but I still have a lot of old pages to do; I should probably make a checklist.

Even though I haven't completed that many goals (I always tend to aim high with goal-setting), I am pleased that I've made a good amount of forward progress with the basic goal of "archiving more stuff", specifically fic, which I've really been dragging my feet on. I don't know what switch has flipped in my brain, but now I'm most interested in just formatting fic to put up (and it's only a question of which fics I choose for the honour), and since I've been trying to bribe myself into doing that for months and months, I can't say I'm upset xD

On communities: my favourite places to chat about the small web are Mastodon (which was my main source of fic archiving inspiration and community before I found more small web peeps through this comm) and here, where I post (sporadic) updates on my site to my personal blog and also - of course - hang out in this comm. I also enjoy taking part in marchmetamatterschallenge, which has been pretty good at getting me to make at least some progress on my site via archiving meta, and I can often carry that momentum on to doing other site work as well. Most peeps in the event are archiving to places like AO3 and SquidgeWorld rather than personal sites, but it offers company while I add stuff to my site and has also been a big inspiration for running this event.

Pillowfort also has a good cohort of small web enthusiasts, mostly focused on the Neocities comm, which I don't use much myself because I'm not on Neocities, but I'll reblog something there if I think it's of general interest and it's cool to read what other people are doing with their sites. The Small Web September tag also gets some activity during this event. Technically I also run a comm on Pillowfort myself dedicated to the retro web (for "retro" read anything at least 15 years old, give or take) but I've not been giving it as much love as it deserves 😅

[alaterdate]

Wow that's cool, you're really entrenched in the small web!

Congrats on your progress! For me, starting the more tedious things like formatting always takes monumental effort, and then soon after I'm obsessed with doing nothing but that. So I totally get the switch-flipping thing!

[enchantedsleeper]

Thank you so much! <3 You know, I never exactly set out to find different places to connect with small web enthusiasts but I think I've gravitated over time towards the types of blogging/social networking sites where they're likely to be found, because people on Mastodon/DW/Pillowfort are generally looking for something a bit more old-skool and slowed-down from their online experience xD So, there winds up being a relatively high correlation between people who hang out there and people who enjoy the small web.

For me, starting the more tedious things like formatting always takes monumental effort, and then soon after I'm obsessed with doing nothing but that. So I totally get the switch-flipping thing!

You get me! It's funny because before, I was more interested in putting up meta as it felt more fun to dig out from the odd places on the web that I'd published it and collect it all together, and it was nice seeing the list grow, considering that I never thought of myself as someone who wrote much meta, but it turns out I had more than I realised. By comparison, I already knew I had a lot of fic and the thought of tackling that mountain was... uninspiring xD But since I got some momentum going, I've enjoyed chipping away at my fic backlog, and going fandom-by-fandom means I get a sense of completion when I do one, so it's not totally endless xD

Let's see how long I can keep it up 😂