Been busy with real life so haven't written anything to here because of that. Anyway... I stumbled recently on something called IndieWeb and I guess my crappy website kinda is part of that culture? But I am personally against their principles and code of conduct so I think my website is part of indie web, not IndieWeb. I don't want other people telling me how to do my website or what I can say or do. Of course if that was all I had to say, this blog post would be very short so instead I will point out the things why I don't think I would ever be part of IndieWeb community.

Let's start with the principles.. I'll just point the ones that clash with my own thoughts, if you are interested in reading more about their principles (or code of conduct) I have links to them at end of this post..

IndieWeb very much believes in make what you need and use what you make... I don't. I think there is nothing wrong with making things you do not use or need, if just creating things for the fun of it is what you enjoy more. I personally prefer the creation phase, not necessarily the operation phase... I have always liked making websites for others, not myself (Yes, I know, ironic from a guy running his own website). And their logic and reasoning for it is a bit flawed and outdated too.. Their reasoning is that personal use helps you see both problems and areas for improvements quickly, but that's not really always the case either. Quite often the biggest improvement suggestions do not come from the person who created the thing, it comes from the outsiders, the ones who are looking at the project with very different set of eyes, after all, no project should be run like GNOME team runs their own project where only their way matters.

Documenting things is fine, I usually create at minimum a README.md via AI for my projects because that is useful for me... But their reasoning is: "Help others benefit from your journey, including your future self!". I do not agree on with helping others benefiting from my journey. You want to benefit from my journey? Then you better pay for it.

As for open sourcing my stuff, well.. I do open source some stuff, but opensourcing my website, my tools or whatever? That is never going to happen because they are personal to me and I do not want other people being able to just clone my website and push it to their own server.. That thought just makes me uncomfortable and I do draw the line there. Well, luckily open sourcing is not a hard set principle for them, but as it is listed in principles, I am treating it like sitting with a vegan at the same table... They pretend they don't care what you eat, but they definitely will be judging and forcing you to follow their ways instead of leaving you alone.

They also have "UX and design is more important than protocols, formats, data models, schema etc"... But... I hate UX. Like seriously hate it. They completely ignore that some people are comfortable with backend, not the frontend. Their logic is also UX before plumbing.. So they are slapping the sink and toilet into the house before the pipes for the plumbing have even been inserted, that's not how proper web design works. Proper design starts from looking at need of you or your client, then you look at how it should be done, and then you slap the coat of paint on top of it, instead that IndieWeb community has decided climbing ass first to a tree is the correct way.

Modularity I am fine with, although it is hard to realistically do. Let's say you have made your website in PHP in early 2000's using PHP 4.0. Most of that code will be broken and unusable no matter how modularly you have written it because things get deprecated even within programming languages.. Sometimes best practices also change. Good example is type declaration for PHP, for a long time people didn't really do type declarations, nowadays it's basically become a standard to do type declarations, especially when it can help with security too. This also kinda touches on longevity, good luck designing long lasting websites when it won't even take 5 years for stuff to get deprecated in a lot of the languages used for making websites.. Hell, there is probably three new frameworks for making websites by the time I am finished writing this blog post and two of them have already taken over the industry.

Well.. That's the principle stuff. Let's move on their current code of conduct. They claim it's a living code of conduct so it might change at any time... Which is actually fine, I do like that part because code of conduct that's too rigid will only create friction in the long run especially if it can not be changed to match modern times.

IndieWeb prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort.

Well, that's my biggest issue with their code of conduct. They pretend to treat everyone equally, but they do not. Whether someone is privileged or not should not matter when it comes to equal treatment. Not to mention, who is it that decides if you are privileged or not anyway? If we only look at it from our perspective, people who are doing better than us, will always feel more privileged than we do, we only see what we want to see and completely ignore that reality is usually far more complex than a boolean of privileged or not privileged. You might think I am privileged by daring to say that out loud... But the truth is nothing like that. My bank account runs empty for half a month, I've been dealing with health issues for a long time because I can not get the help I need for them. Equal treatment is when anyone from any background from any culture from any situation from any whatever else is treated the same as everyone else.

So in short... I am part of indie web, not HOA.. Sorry, I mean not part of IndieWeb. (Although let's be real, IndieWeb is just internet HOA) I do whatever I want with my website and I say whatever I want to say on my website. And I will never be part of IndieWeb either because it clearly stands against my own values. Not to mention I think running an indie web community goes against the core of being indie web dev.. Are you really doing it for the love of old web or are you just doing because you wanted a like-minded community? I personally do it for the love of old web, I was probably doing websites before most of the indie web devs were even born.

References:
https://indieweb.org/principles
https://indieweb.org/code-of-conduct