Small Web September Kick-Off/Check-In 1: Goals!

[enchantedsleeper]

Somehow it's September already and the kick-off point for Small Web September has arrived! \o/

As a reminder, this is the first of five ‘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 these, so you can add something at any time – you also don’t need to comment on them all or do them in order! The themes are a loose guide, but all discussion is welcome.

This first post will be for introducing yourself and your project(s) and talking about what you’re planning to do during the month. Of course, there’s no obligation to stick to what you’ve set down and no-one will be checking up xD But it can be a nice thought exercise! You’re free to make the goal(s) as broad or as specific as you like – it’s totally up to you.

There’s no set format for this check-in, but here’s one you can use if you’d like (just copy-paste and replace the placeholders with your own answers in the comments):

<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 goals’ – more ambitious things you’d like to get to if you have time!)

Also, if anyone would like to answer it, here’s a discussion starter: What interests you about the small/indie web, and how did you learn about or get into it?

Comments

[innumerablewounds]

Name: Kip
Project(s): For a while I've wanted to make a fan shrine for something or other, but the idea snowballed into basically a full fan site for one of my fandoms (Tales of the Rays)... A lot of the things like archival work and documentation on how to get the offline version of the game working after the official cut-off date for file downloads are stuck on Discord servers, so I'd like to provide an alternative outside of Discord. (I still want to include shrine-like elements! My vision is a sort of 50/50 split between the two.)

What are you hoping to work on for SWS? The bare minimum I want is to get the layout finished! I also want to learn some sort of static site generator because dear god the idea of updating a navigation menu by hand made me want to tear my hair out the moment I thought about it (mostly I've gotten around it so far in existing projects by either abusing PHP or having subpar navigation that prioritizes ease as a webmaster over ease as a visitor). For that I've been heavily considering Eleventy since it seems the simplest and easiest to learn?

The ambitious ideal goal is to not just get the layout finished, but also write at least a first revision of all of the core pages.

EDIT: Oh related to the challenge but not to my main project, I'd like to get back into online TCGs! I fell off the wagon last year for a variety of reasons but I really want to get back to it. TCGs were the first place I got to put my hands on a space on the web that really felt like "mine", so they're special to me in that sense, too. This is my current trade post; I'm still proud of the layout I made for it.

[annathecrow]

What are TCGs? I've never heard of it, it's impossible to google, and now I'm super curious XD

(Also, if you need help with static site generators hit me up, I've worked with several. Automating away boring tasks ftw.)

[innumerablewounds]

TCG is the usual acronym, "Trading card game". But rather than physical cards, it's little graphics made to look like cards, and rather than the focus being on some sort of game played with the cards, the collecting is the primary focus. The general... gameplay loop? Is that you play games to get cards, toss them on your trade post, trade them around with other members to get a full set of the same deck, and then turn those cards in for a badge saying you "mastered" the deck. It sort of requires having a place to display your cards (a "trade post"), and while you can put it anywhere you can freely display large amount of images (often Dreamwidth posts), it's a lot less tedious if you can use server-side scripts to do a lot of the legwork for you. As a result, there's always a handful of people in the community offering free hosting to other TCG players, and a lot of people touching FTP clients or PHP for the first time. (Though someone actually made a javascript-only script setup in recent years for one of the longer running TCGs so people could host their trade posts on Neocities!)

I've pretty much only ever played ones with some sort of fandom theme-- the only one I'm a member of currently is Sakura-- but I've seen ones around with other themes too, like desserts or locations.

Thank you!! I'll keep that in mind if I end up struggling once I've gotten my basic layout pinned down.

[annathecrow]

Thanks for explaining!

[enchantedsleeper]

As a result, there's always a handful of people in the community offering free hosting to other TCG players, and a lot of people touching FTP clients or PHP for the first time. (Though someone actually made a javascript-only script setup in recent years for one of the longer running TCGs so people could host their trade posts on Neocities!)

I love that members of the community are helping each other out with site-building and resources - that's really cool ^^ Sounds like a great scene to be part of.

[innumerablewounds]

It really is! I feel like I took it for granted when I was younger, but coming back as an adult I keep marveling at how everyone takes care of each other.

[pebbleinalake]

I used to be really into TCGs, and yet never knew there was an online version! Thank you for that info, I now have a deep dive to keep me busy the rest of today lol.

Also, good luck to you on building your fansite! It sounds awesome.

[enchantedsleeper]

+1 to never having encountered this take on TCGs before! It sounds really fun :D

[innumerablewounds]

I'm glad I could introduce more people to it!! It's a hobby that thrives on having more people involved after all.

And thank you for the well wishes! I hope your projects go well too!!