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/____/_____/\____/\____/_/   \__,_/_/ /_/ /_/ .___/
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|                                                                      |
|  TITLE: Gopher vs. Gemini                                            |
|                                                                      |
|  DATE: May 5, 2025                                                   |
|                                                                      |
|  AUTHOR: [email protected]                                          |
|                                                                      |
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I'm a regular reader of the Old Vintage Computing Research blog [1],
but I had no idea until recently that OldVCR was just a side project
of a much larger thing called Floodgap [2]. Browsing around Floodgap,
I discovered a proxy that allowed me to explore gopherspace without
installing a standalone client.

I was a little familiar with gopher. My local university had a gopher
server, and I poked around it a few times 30-odd years ago -- but it
wasn't enough to tear me away from the BBS scene. Then, a little thing
called Mosaic came out. That was enough to tear me -- and most others
-- away from BBSs and gopher for good.

Browsing gopherspace reminded me of a new low-fi web-like protocol
(gemini) that I'd read about a few years ago and had been meaning to
investigate. I downloaded the Lagrange browser [3] -- which
conveniently supports both gemini and gopher -- and immediately had
access to a world of content presented exactly the way I like it. All
text, no ads, no tracking and no AI slop.

After exploring voraciously for a while, I decided that I wanted to
try my hand at producing content for either gemini or gopher. It's
significantly easier to get started with both of them than it is to
produce content for the web, and I don't write web content unless it's
for a client anyway. Otherwise, I'm endlessly frustrated by the current
state of the web and wouldn't ever bother posting personal content on
it.

I've seen gemini sites and gopherholes that look amazing and are a
pleasure to use, but sites that crosspost to both don't seem to play to
the strengths of either and don't look nearly as nice. So, I wanted to
choose one or the other.

From the perspective of a relative rookie, these are my thoughts on
gopher vs. gemini.

WHY GOPHER? ◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

- Although laying out the content isn't quite as easy and pages may
 not look quite as beautiful, I gravitate toward gopher as a user
 because that seems to be the best place to find the content I want
 to read. I appreciate the blend of personal and informative content,
 whereas gemini seems to be almost entirely personal. Many of the
 attempts to turn gemini into a platform for something more than
 blogging seem to have been abandoned.

- Gopher is definitely not going away. Gemini is much newer. Although
 I'm new to gemini, it looks to me like it's in a bit of a lull after
 the initial explosion in popularity a few years ago. It's hard to
 tell whether the user base is growing or shrinking or where the
 community is headed. On the other hand, my observations suggest
 that the gopher user base is definitely growing.

- The volume of content on gopher is enormous. Exploring it really
 recaptures the thrill of the early web, back when you had no idea
 what interesting things you might find. Remember when people used
 to post content with no financial motivations?

WHY GEMINI? ◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

- Subjectively, gemini is more beautiful. I love great typography,
 and gemini content is a joy to read.

- With gemini, it's easier to create content in a way that looks
 uniform on all clients. Some of the tricks that make gopherholes
 look nice may not work on all clients.

- Gemini is possibly more private since it supports encryption. I'm
 operating under the assumption that gopher is essentially private
 since the powers that be probably don't care about it, but I might
 be wrong about that.

WHY I CHOSE GOPHER ◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

Ultimately, I chose gopher because I want my content to live in the
same space with the content that I actually read. Since I began my
adventures into the #smolweb -- a term I don't really like and
probably won't use again -- I've bookmarked many gopherholes and only
a handful of gemini sites. So, gopher it is.

[1] https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/
[2] https://www.floodgap.com/
[3] https://gmi.skyjake.fi/lagrange/

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