An interesting article

[mekare]

I stumbled across this essay on community organisation and core web vs. peripheral web structures today. A fascinating read! It's been written by former organisers of a webring called yesterweb which seemed to have exploded in popularity before being shut down. The reflection on this experience (and general web trends) is really interesting.

Some excerpts:

The peripheral web can be described as the outskirts of the core web, with platforms such as Mastodon, SpaceHey, Neocities, Discord and IRC chatrooms, Matrix rooms, various imageboards, and others, including various functional clones of core web applications. It is the digital countryside of the corporate megalopolis. Advertising, sales, and data collection are substantially reduced if not entirely eliminated, providing better conditions for people to socialize in and a healthier experience overall. It is composed of web platforms that are hosted on separate infrastructure from the core web by individuals or organizations with various sources of funding. The peripheral web is discovered largely through word-of-mouth and personal research. In other words, bridging the peripheral web to the core web takes a significant amount of effort: the vast majority of internet users remain unaware of its existence.

The rapid increase in popularity of platforms like Neocities and Spacehey were a strong indicator that nostalgia was a significant force driving migration to the peripheral web in recent years. The community was first created when pandemic restrictions were just starting to loosen up. Nostalgia was often the first thing that stood out and appealed to new members: there is comfort in nostalgia, especially during particularly rough times.

However, Nostalgia would often lead to a regressive attitude within the space that made it difficult to achieve any sort of change. Users focused highly on nostalgia would value aesthetics as their primary focus which would lead to a distrust of new tools that did not meet their nostalgic criteria.

The organization began as a handful of individuals working to discover and address the needs of the community. As the community grew larger, it transformed into a loose organization composed of staff members. Finally, a well-defined organization formed at the core of the staff that created a distinction between organizers.

In its loosely organized phase, attempts were made to draw the whole community into organizing efforts. Results were poor because of low participation, and because the participants were mostly composed of the newest members who had the least knowledge about the community. We could not ensure an accurate representation from this setup, so we moved the decision-making as a responsibility for staff members. This would not work out either as moderators had varying levels of commitment and we could not reasonably expect them to take a greater responsibility.

Comments

[biteshelter]

Thanks for sharing this! I've heard of the Yesterweb, but I had no idea they had so much organization or that they shut down. The work put into the community and this essay is impressive.

The notes on hobbyists vs. tech workers and tech-first vs. community-first spaces are really interesting. I've seen some discussion lately of whether the indie web should prioritize accessibility or technological independence, so this perspective is insightful.

[merest]

Be careful of what the top members of the Yesterweb claim - I remember this drama from when it was happening, and the story I heard was that "attempts to draw the whole community into organizing efforts" actually meant trying to get everyone to get involved in communism, which the two leads, Sadness and Madness, were really into.

Stuff like banning commissions (wanting commissions was considered too bourgeoisie), even when they were small time artists or fanartists trying to get their name out there on the smallnet, or people just generally not aligning with their Marxist vision for the new old internet was a problem, and between that and spreading themselves crazy thin over about half a dozen poorly handled projects, Sadness and Madness eventually decided to tear down the very community they had built up.

Forums + Discord shuttered, sites deleted or revamped, webrings gone, and that was the end of the Yesterweb movement.

(Discord is also not smallweb/ "the internet outskirts"? It's a multi-billion dollar company powered by venture capital and filled with bots.)

Being communist isn't an issue in and of itself, but being communist and pushing out people who only wanted a better internet because they weren't communist was not healthy for the community they were trying to build, and I would be cautious of any article Sadness or Madness write. They very much want to blame everyone but themselves for what went down.