food for thought: "how the blog broke the web"

[Rika Sukenik]

hey all, I came across this article called "how the blog broke the web. https://stackingthebricks.com/how-blogs-broke-the-web/

I found it to be a fascinating expose of how the web became boring once services like Livejournal and Blogger made it easy for people to create journals, which in turn stifled creativity by templatizing journal entries. It got my gears turning to one, Wordpress; and two, today's trend of 'no code' webpages. Are we stifling creativity by making it too easy to use the Web? Are we doomed to live in a world of Tic Toc videos? And lastly, it got me thinking about my tiddlywiki and the customization options available that I haven't spent much time exploring yet :)

[TW Tones]

Rika,

Interesting philosophical question.

A Quick response;

• The web was not broken, the more possibilities and ease to publish the better
• What has happened is people have being funnelled into the easy solutions and thus creativity is restricted.
• The democratisation of the web is here, but the democratisation of build software has a way to go.
• In time it will be easy and very flexible.

Of course the answer is TiddlyWiki!

Tones

[Felicia Crow]

Hi Rika,

maybe it is just a generational thing, but I feel like the article, while having a somewhat valid core theory, leaves out the very important part of how the web, who uses it and the perception of it has in general changed over time in favour of becoming a rant about how back then everything was so much simpler, but yet elite because you had to have the time, money and willingness to access the web, make the effort to learn how to and create webpages by hand and host them. Listing things that the web did not have back then in a way that makes it feel like it is a point of pride and having a dig at how not everyone back then did have the desire to share personal things as if everyone now wants to, makes it at least to me seem less like an honest discussion and reminds me more of the stereotypical old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn.

No we are not making it too easy to use the web, we give more people access to it not only as users, but also as creators. Which in my opinion makes the web less boring because while blogs/websites may look from similar to completely the same the content can still be very interesting depending on the creator and ones own interests.

Saying that a CMS like Wordpress or more dedicates sites like Livejournal or Blogger restricts creativity in general is also not fully true, since it assumes everyone deep down wants to have this full creativity instead of using such options to concentrate on what they are really interested in and want to share. Yes it can restrict creativity, but these restrictions and trying to work around it can also lead to either new things and ideas or to someone moving from the easier to the harder solution when their needs are better met.

Tiddlywiki itself can be used as an example for this. It works a certain way with a given set of macros and plugins out of the box. For some people this is fully enough, while others drift of into various ways of customization, both by using things someone has already created and shared as it fulfills the same need/wish or by customizing things themselves. Looking into tiddlywiki's customization options can be great especially if it feels like there is something missing, but not everyone needs it.

Also I am leaving Facebook/Twitter/other social media website of the day out of this discussion because of the social expectations for people to not only have an account there, but also to be to a certain extant active on it.

Kind Regards,

Felicia

P.S.: While not necessarily fully on topic I got reminded of this article while reading the article above and landing on the list of all the things they did not have back then, since it captures quite well how crazy modern web development can look from a beginner's/outsider's perspective: https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f.

[TW Tones]

Felicia and Rika,

I agree with your words Felicia , but would add that both increased possibilities but constraints also promotes creativity. How far can I extend beyond the apparent limitations?, is a life long challenge for many. For more than a few decades I craved obtaining the next best thing in graphics cards and monitors, I always pushed it to the maximum, along with audio outputs. I watched a demo video the other day where some recent graphics cards were using 1kw (1000w) of power to operate more than 50 frames per second.

Creativity and frustrations often exists both at the "bleeding edge", and pushing at the sides of a small box.

This article historically ignores the BBS Bulletin board systems that proceeded the internet, I was doing this in the early to mid 80's, computers with one or more dialup modems that multiple people connected to either at once or over time. There was message boards where you would have chats online or over time, and a lot of downloading and uploading took place. The proto web designers were people who built or customised BBS's. Since BBS's were based on personal computers they were much richer than the unix systems that were first linked on the internet. Let us not forget how long it took to get a color screen and the Graphical interfaces, I remember GEM a graphical environment before Windows. Even TSR programs Terminate and Stay resident), which you could switch to with a key combination.

Prior to this I was playing with 16kb computers pushing the use of characters to generate "images", using peek and poke to push values into video memory (80x40 or so characters on the screen from memory), then later saving our programs to audio cassette tape. There was some great software back then I still remember, especially once we had the first floppy disk drives.

I remember arguing with an executive who insisted business will never need colour monitors, the monochrome is enough, without pixel graphics.

Personally, I often find more creativity and forward thinking comes from those who have struggled within and against the constraints of the day (including today), and who like myself are "digital anthropologists, with lived experience".

In contradiction of the original article, the only way to operate at the bleeding edge is to soften and round the previous sharp edges "lest we bleed to death."

Regards

Tony/Tones

[TiddlyTweeter]

Interesting.

Good it mentions MoveableType. Which definitely was a (now lost) influence.

One current group will say: Oh, what we LOST!

Another will say: Oh, it HELPED us move on so well!

Both are right.

TT

On Thursday, 22 October 2020 18:34:37 UTC+2, Rika Sukenik wrote:

[TiddlyTweeter]

Felicia Crow wrote:

Tiddlywiki itself can be used as an example for this. 

Right. TW, shorn of server ties is VERY, VERY good at compact essentials all web has but barely uses.

TW can show it, neat.

TT 

[Chuck R.]

I wouldn't say making publishing easy stifles creativity but it sure lowers the signal to noise ratio quite a bit. There's just a whole lot more junk to sift through now to find something that is quality.

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Chuck

Part of it is technology.

Technology is great but every new level increases complexity.

I tend to favour (hand) WRITING as its a pretty nice technology since decent graphite came along. Though chalk was awful.

But sure, the printing press, later, did allow me to reproduce some pamphlets so more than Mildred could read them.

With the advent of the internet I did think, for a while, that reproduction got even cheaper & effective.

Well IT DID. But it is SERIOUSLY INSUFFICIENT.

The problem is/was the SWAMP effect. 

Now, Mildred spends much of her time reading the "The Lost Cat Columns" rather than yours truly.

Just a comment

TT

[TW Tones]

TT,

You sat: Technology is great but every new level increases complexity. 

But as it matures it allows you to collapse this complexity into new general forms. A Re-simplification can take place.

This appears how the brain and evolution of technology works, broaden understanding by broader solutions, then successive levels of abstraction, we learn from each iteration. 

I have a book idea based on this "Occam's Electric shaver".

Regards

Tony