A lot of websites seem deadset on annoying me everytime I visit the site. On the other hand, there are plenty of sites like Lobsters or Hackernews which load instantly, require zero to no javascript to function and don’t try to install adransomtrojanware or whatever is currently hype.
Personally, my benchmark for my own HTML code is that it should be readable in a terminal and 90% operable without javascript. People are sometimes surprised how modern a plain HTML+CSS site can be and look.
Outside my own homepage (which I’ve been wanting to rewrite fully custom instead of abusing a CSS framework), not many of these projects have made it into the wild sadly (or that I can easily disclose them to the public)
I think the best way to learn is to seriously look into the MDN documentation and modern vanilla JS and CSS; both are very capable on their own these days and a simple, tailored vanilla JS framework will run circles around heavy-weight frameworks out there.
It’d be interesting to create an ad-blocking, anti-tracking search engine whose search results only return pages that don’t contain “bad stuff”. It could allow users to pick a set of filter lists, similar to uBlock’s filter lists, and if a page is triggered by one then it’s removed from the person’s search results.
I think one problem with the “user-hostile web”, though, is that the entities creating the content people want the most, and the platforms hosting them, are 100% okay with it being user-hostile.
I started working on one like it. I plan to not index anything matching e.g. the Easy List. Also I think about penalizing JavaScript use. I did too little research on this regard to be sure what exactly to do. At first maybe I will not index all sites with JavaScript. Maybe there could be allowed limit of JavaScript in single digit kilobytes or percentage.
I hope that it will result in small enough operation to make it viable. It may be possible to make the index available to download. Using torrent and some smart mechanism for updates. Then with local application only crawling would be done by me.
I am not a user for whom good experience of viewing text or images ever requires JavaScript. From the statements here, I would assume neither is @hawski.
I do agree with you that some things like voting or commenting can benefit from scripts, and it may be a better position to ignore these parts (as long as they are first-party) than to penalize them.
And this is what we often fail to realize: without its users—without you— Facebook would be nothing. But without Facebook, you would only be inconvenienced. Facebook needs you more than you need it.
Counterpoint to all these web is dying posts. The web is fine. More people than ever have access to the internet. Hosting a site is more affordable than ever. Assuming you don’t weigh it down with globs of javascript, visitors clients will render your site better than ever. It’s not zero sum.
Also, why does everybody think longer is better? Just keep piling on points without thinking about them, is that the way? Like:
Try posting a picture of the Francisco de Goya’s “The Naked Maja” or your naked breasts (if you’re a woman) on Facebook; it’ll almost certainly be removed.
Is that much different than if I post the naked maja on lobsters? Is lobsters not the open web?
Because people don’t usually engage with essays on their own terms, so this essay (and essentially all others tackling a “big topic”) is easily undermined no matter what.
Give a few points with in depth explanation: you’re accused of drawing conclusions from a small amount of evidence and dismissed.
Give a bunch of points without thorough enough explanation: you’re thesis isn’t connected well enough to your evidence and you essay is dismissed.
Do both and your essay will be quite long (lots of thoroughly examined evidence takes up space), and people will pick at one or two points and then announce the whole essay is full of it. Which might seem like reaching, so let me elaborate. If the author brings lots of evidence, but doesn’t present enough analysis for some reader’s taste/needs, then even one or two of the many cases will be picked apart and presented as a fatal flaw that undermines the entire argument.
Is it fair to say you’re doing that here? Meh, doesn’t really matter. The point is that the author gets shit on for like a billion mutually unfair reasons, and it’s hard to decide where to elaborate and where to trust the reader’s ability to engage.
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What’s a better approach? To ask ourselves “why”. Why is this being presented as a piece of evidence? And instead of trying to find counterarguments immediately as to why it’s not evidence (i.e. what if I did this on lobste.rs?), give the author the benefit of the doubt and honestly try to figure out what the author is saying. (If for nothing else, at least to see the full argument before deciding if you agree or not.)
With the point you provided, for example:
Try posting a picture of the Francisco de Goya’s “The Naked Maja” or your naked breasts (if you’re a woman) on Facebook; it’ll almost certainly be removed.
What is this evidence trying to get at? Perhaps at the power Facebook has to dictate what is and isn’t acceptable to present about yourself, your interests, inspirations, etc. That sounds reasonable, so let’s flesh it out.
Facebook is the main technological avenue through which people share pieces of their personal lives: “what’s on your mind”, what you’ve been up to, that article you just read that spoke to you for whatever reason, those pictures from your trip abroad.
But Facebook takes an active role in telling you what is and isn’t okay to be shared to your friends and family. In some cases, I’m totally down for that kind of enforcement: no exploitative images of children, no revenge porn (posting naked photos of somebody without their consent), no gore, etc. (I don’t think these cases are nearly as ambiguous as people make them seem.)
But if we’re both on vacation at a beach outside of the United States where cultural norms of nudity are different so we’re both allowed to have our tops off: you’re allowed to share that picture of you with your friends/SO having a grand old time, but I can’t. Because Facebook thinks so. So they get to make that choice for me, and everyone else, and it’s a unilaterally enforced social norm with no avenue for recourse.
And if you’re not into this argument, then there is always the classic art argument that the article presented more directly: no, you can’t share that painting that you’re feeling real inspired by right now, because… well, it actually doesn’t matter why Facebook does it, because they can, and do, so fuck off.
Is this a level of moral policing that it is wrong and harmful for Facebook to be taking upon themselves? The essay certainly seems to think so, or at least wants us to have that conversation.
(I hope it’s clear why asking if the same were true of Lobste.rs is basically irrelevant: the role of lobste.rs in it’s readers lives simply doesn’t intersect with this issue in the same, direct way that it does with Facebook (if for size alone).)
This article quite resonates with me.
A lot of websites seem deadset on annoying me everytime I visit the site. On the other hand, there are plenty of sites like Lobsters or Hackernews which load instantly, require zero to no javascript to function and don’t try to install adransomtrojanware or whatever is currently hype.
Personally, my benchmark for my own HTML code is that it should be readable in a terminal and 90% operable without javascript. People are sometimes surprised how modern a plain HTML+CSS site can be and look.
Are any of your HTML+CSS projects available on github or elsewhere to look over/learn from?
There is a whole lot of crap out there, so much so that it sometimes feels hopeless trying to find the signal in all the noise.
Fully functional, actually-used-in-practice examples are like the holy grail.
Outside my own homepage (which I’ve been wanting to rewrite fully custom instead of abusing a CSS framework), not many of these projects have made it into the wild sadly (or that I can easily disclose them to the public)
I think the best way to learn is to seriously look into the MDN documentation and modern vanilla JS and CSS; both are very capable on their own these days and a simple, tailored vanilla JS framework will run circles around heavy-weight frameworks out there.
It’d be interesting to create an ad-blocking, anti-tracking search engine whose search results only return pages that don’t contain “bad stuff”. It could allow users to pick a set of filter lists, similar to uBlock’s filter lists, and if a page is triggered by one then it’s removed from the person’s search results.
I think one problem with the “user-hostile web”, though, is that the entities creating the content people want the most, and the platforms hosting them, are 100% okay with it being user-hostile.
I started working on one like it. I plan to not index anything matching e.g. the Easy List. Also I think about penalizing JavaScript use. I did too little research on this regard to be sure what exactly to do. At first maybe I will not index all sites with JavaScript. Maybe there could be allowed limit of JavaScript in single digit kilobytes or percentage.
I hope that it will result in small enough operation to make it viable. It may be possible to make the index available to download. Using torrent and some smart mechanism for updates. Then with local application only crawling would be done by me.
Note that JavaScript is required for a good user experience these days. It may not have anything to do with tracking you.
I am not a user for whom good experience of viewing text or images ever requires JavaScript. From the statements here, I would assume neither is @hawski.
I do agree with you that some things like voting or commenting can benefit from scripts, and it may be a better position to ignore these parts (as long as they are first-party) than to penalize them.
Key quote:
Counterpoint to all these web is dying posts. The web is fine. More people than ever have access to the internet. Hosting a site is more affordable than ever. Assuming you don’t weigh it down with globs of javascript, visitors clients will render your site better than ever. It’s not zero sum.
Also, why does everybody think longer is better? Just keep piling on points without thinking about them, is that the way? Like:
Is that much different than if I post the naked maja on lobsters? Is lobsters not the open web?
Because people don’t usually engage with essays on their own terms, so this essay (and essentially all others tackling a “big topic”) is easily undermined no matter what.
Is it fair to say you’re doing that here? Meh, doesn’t really matter. The point is that the author gets shit on for like a billion mutually unfair reasons, and it’s hard to decide where to elaborate and where to trust the reader’s ability to engage.
–
What’s a better approach? To ask ourselves “why”. Why is this being presented as a piece of evidence? And instead of trying to find counterarguments immediately as to why it’s not evidence (i.e. what if I did this on lobste.rs?), give the author the benefit of the doubt and honestly try to figure out what the author is saying. (If for nothing else, at least to see the full argument before deciding if you agree or not.)
With the point you provided, for example:
What is this evidence trying to get at? Perhaps at the power Facebook has to dictate what is and isn’t acceptable to present about yourself, your interests, inspirations, etc. That sounds reasonable, so let’s flesh it out.
Facebook is the main technological avenue through which people share pieces of their personal lives: “what’s on your mind”, what you’ve been up to, that article you just read that spoke to you for whatever reason, those pictures from your trip abroad.
But Facebook takes an active role in telling you what is and isn’t okay to be shared to your friends and family. In some cases, I’m totally down for that kind of enforcement: no exploitative images of children, no revenge porn (posting naked photos of somebody without their consent), no gore, etc. (I don’t think these cases are nearly as ambiguous as people make them seem.)
But if we’re both on vacation at a beach outside of the United States where cultural norms of nudity are different so we’re both allowed to have our tops off: you’re allowed to share that picture of you with your friends/SO having a grand old time, but I can’t. Because Facebook thinks so. So they get to make that choice for me, and everyone else, and it’s a unilaterally enforced social norm with no avenue for recourse.
And if you’re not into this argument, then there is always the classic art argument that the article presented more directly: no, you can’t share that painting that you’re feeling real inspired by right now, because… well, it actually doesn’t matter why Facebook does it, because they can, and do, so fuck off.
Is this a level of moral policing that it is wrong and harmful for Facebook to be taking upon themselves? The essay certainly seems to think so, or at least wants us to have that conversation.
(I hope it’s clear why asking if the same were true of Lobste.rs is basically irrelevant: the role of lobste.rs in it’s readers lives simply doesn’t intersect with this issue in the same, direct way that it does with Facebook (if for size alone).)