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

[le_gaosaure]

Name: Gao
Project(s): my craft archive
What are you hoping to work on for SWS? I need to finish uploading 15-ish years of craft backlog x') Also a page with tips for crochet intarsia and a few patterns.

I'm skipping the discussion starter, but I find it worth mentioning that what kicked my butt into coding my first site (this decade =p) was AO3 DDoS in early July 2023, which pushed me to cross-post all my writing on my own archive for these moments when AO3 is not accessible. Which turned out to mostly mean "I now have Chinese readers", which I hadn't thought of.

[annathecrow]

Wait, I'm curious, how do you know you have Chinese readers? Visitor tracking? Do they contact you? Sorry if this is nosy! It just caught my brain, I guess.

Also, I checked out your craft archive - all those friendship bracelets! So cool. Sigh, I haven't made one in literal decades... maybe I ought to try it again for nostalgia's sake.

[le_gaosaure]

Technically I'm not 100% sure they are reading on my site, but I had one self-identified Chinese reader on AO3 who asked me if they could translate my fics to post them on a Chinese site because AO3 wasn't accessible without heavy maneuvering in China, I said yes but also mentioned my site and they immediately answered they'd post the link where they had already shared the first fic they had translated because neocities was accessible. So I can't be sure people did follow through that link, but I had a discussion explicitly telling me it was an option for Chinese readers while AO3 wasn't, and I know my link was circulated on a Chinese site.

Yay for friendship bracelets ♥ This is the only page on my craft archive that's currently up to date and there's something so satisfying in scrolling through all these colors...

[annathecrow]

That's really cool :D Making fic more available is always good!

That big grid of colorful bracelets feels satisfying even to me as a visitor. It's just so lush.

[le_gaosaure]

*nods enthusiastically*

Thank you! I'm super happy to hear it's satisfying for visitors too ♥

[enchantedsleeper]

I'm skipping the discussion starter, but I find it worth mentioning that what kicked my butt into coding my first site (this decade =p) was AO3 DDoS in early July 2023, which pushed me to cross-post all my writing on my own archive for these moments when AO3 is not accessible.

That's extremely smart (and AO3 has been having some more problems with slowness and errors lately...) At some point early this year, I think it was, AO3 was down for a bit (can't remember if it was planned or unplanned) and I took great pleasure in reading a fic on a friend's personal archive and leaving a comment there xD

Seconding (or thirding?) the comments about how awesome your friendship bracelets archive is! It's amazing that you've made so many over the years! I've never made anything more complex than a three-strand plaited one but I would love to try some of those designs.

[le_gaosaure]

As we just come out of another AO3 downtime my comment feels way too timely x') Though while we're on this topic: does anyone know of a personal fanfic archives listing? I know of one webring (ficring.neocities.org) but I'm not too much into webrings myself (something in me cringes at the idea of putting links on my site that point to random pages I can neither choose nor describe next to the link) and I think having more sources of information around can only be for the best anyway.

Thank you so much for the love for my bracelets page ♥ (Amusingly this is not even the beginning of my braceleting adventures, but I have no pics of the previous decade lol, the archive starts when I joined a forum on the topic and began sharing my projects with other members!) One of the things I wanted for my craft archive was for it to be a central place to find back the patterns I used for all my projects, so if you ever decide to experiment more with friendship bracelets you can see the patterns I used =)

[enchantedsleeper]

Though while we're on this topic: does anyone know of a personal fanfic archives listing?

I'm afraid I don't, and I would like to know if anyone knows of any, too! I came across this directory last year and was keeping tabs on it, but it seems like nothing has developed since the initial suggestions post :(

One of the things I wanted for my craft archive was for it to be a central place to find back the patterns I used for all my projects, so if you ever decide to experiment more with friendship bracelets you can see the patterns I used =)

That's awesome! I would really like that - I particularly love the sixth one down from 2024, the kind of twisty rainbow one. I also read your "how to friendship bracelet" guide and now I know about the magic of friendship-bracelets.net - what a brilliant resource! Do all your patterns come from there?

[le_gaosaure]

Not all my patterns come from there, no. Actually, most of them don't, which is not obvious by looking at my archive because I link there every time I can.

I started learning friendship bracelet with a book, so my first patterns came from there. Then I made up mine, and I joined a forum as mentioned above, so I made lots of patterns from this forum. All in all, I discovered and began to use friendship-bracelets.net relatively late. But patterns circulate a lot, get copied, modified, copied again, never credited... so given that most of the patterns I used where found in places that are not freely accessible (book, login-walled forum (in French!), etc), I mostly link to friendship-bracelets.net because most of the patterns are *also* there. But if you look in the patterns section of my site you'll see that I had to host quite a lot of patterns myself anyway because not *all* were on friendship-bracelets.net ^^

For example if you open the page of that rainbow bracelet that caught your eye, you'll see that I link to the pattern on my site! (And I understand why this pattern caught your eye, I wanted to make it for a while, but the pattern is not the easiest for beginners because it uses both traditional method and alpha method. I hope you can feel comfortable making it at some point though! ♥)