Several people have been discussing
the utility of gemini this week[1]. I
don't really want to weigh in on that
conversation, other than to say that
one of the themes revolved around
whether gemini could serve as a
replacement for the web. It's worth
mentioning that replacing the web was
not the original intention. More
pointedly, none of us ever sticks to a
single protocol. Protocols are not
religions or political dogmas. They do
not need to provide a single, unified,
and exclusive internet experience.
Rather, anyone who reads this phlog
probably ranges across many protocols
on a daily basis, using the web,
gemini, gopher, ftp, xmpp, irc, pop,
imap, smtp, nntp, etc., etc., etc.
Realistically, it would be nearly
impossible for most people to abandon
the web today, since banking and
commerce depend on it.
I also stumbled across a piece
lamenting the loss of the older, more
personal web[2]. Several people
commented that the real problem is
that you cannot find personal sites
through search engines any more. I
think that's true. There's a lot of
good, personally produced stuff on the
web, but it's nearly impossible to
find. If you go three or four pages
into the Google search results, you
start to get a different experience of
the web. But it could be better.
Here's my proposal. It might just work
too. If you have a website that is
personally produced and non-commercial
(meaning *you* wrote the text or
produced the artistic content, and you
have no profit motive of any kind --
you're not providing a commercial
service, you're not seeking donations
via Patreon or PayPal, etc.), you
should add "smolnet"[3] to a meta tag
on your site. Google apparently pays
no attention to the "keywords" meta
tag, so I recommend the following:
<meta name="Description" CONTENT="Your content yada yada yada smolnet">
Maybe this is a flawed idea. If so
tell me. But it seems so simple.
Smolnet is a unique term that should
facilitate targeted searches.
A while ago, I read a piece in which
the author recommended that if you
wanted to find a helpful solution to a
problem, you should add "reddit" to
your search query. I know that's
liable to expose me to serious
ridicule(!), but I've tried it and
it's not bad advice. I'd like to be
able to do something similar by adding
"smolnet" to my searches so that I can
find the small-scale, personal,
non-commercial websites that I know
are out there.
[1]
https://lobste.rs/s/3nsvkk/gemini_is_useless
https://lobste.rs/s/vhlagb/why_gemini_is_not_my_favorite_internet
[2]
https://www.sffworld.com/forum/threads/i-miss-the-old-internet.57195/
commentary:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27491537
[3] I _think_ this term is Shufei's
kawaii-ification of Spring's "The
Small Internet," but I could be wrong.
