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Current Mood: thoughtful

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small web september

Small Web September Check-In 1: Links!

We’ve reached the first check-in point for Small Web September! How is everyone doing so far? Whether you’re just getting warmed up or are already ticking off goals (or maybe you just found this and want to join – welcome!), come and share your progress in the comments of this check-in.

The theme of this week’s check-in is links! Earlier this year, I came across Coy (

osteophage)’s link compilation in praise of links, which led me down a rabbit hole of reading various essays about the importance of hyperlinking and being a good steward of the web. This includes not making your own site into an effective dead end, but sending people on to interesting destinations via links that you’ve included there.

I’ve always been a lover of curating cool webpages and sites, but it struck me that I wasn’t actually doing much of this on my own little website – now, it’s a personal fanworks archive, so you could argue that linking out to random pages is a bit out of step with the purpose of it. However, it broadened my thinking about where I could start adding more links: from archiving rec lists to linking out to gifts that other fans had made for me over the years.

So, the discussion starter for this check-in is: how do you link, and to what? Do you have a link hub or set of interesting finds? Would you like to do more with links?

( Read more... )

The Friday Five for 5 September 2025

These questions were originally suggested by

rawee1.

1. When did you "lose your innocence"?

2. Would you say you have an accent?

3. Do you hope to be married (married again if divorced)?

4. If you could take one technology to a desert island (the obvious satellite phone excluded), what would it be?

5. What is the last activity you bought a ticket for?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

Code deploy happening shortly

Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

Current Mood: inspired

Entry tags:

small web september

Small Web September: Kick-Off & Goals!

Our kick-off for Small Web September is already upon us, and that means it’s time to set some goals! What would you like to work on during the month?

These can be as vague or as granular as you like; a lot can change as you’re working on a project, so it’s completely fine to change them up as needed (or do away with them entirely xD), but it can still be nice to set some ~aspirations!

There’s no set format for this post (anything goes!), but for anyone who’d like to use it, here’s a little pre-formatted set of prompts you can fill in – just overwrite the placeholders with your own info:

Name: (Username, nickname, whatever you like to go by) Project(s): (Share a link to your project(s) if you’d like to, and/or describe what you’re making or would like to make!) What are you hoping to work on for SWS? (This can be as general as “add to my site”, or as specific as “archive X fanworks” or “implement a responsive layout”. You could even include ‘bonus’ or extra goals you’d like to get to if you have time!)

I normally include a ‘discussion starter’ or two at the end of each post as well for anyone who’d like to answer it, so here are a couple of questions you can answer if you fancy: What inspired you to make (or start making) your small web project(s), and what is it that appeals to you about the small web?

I look forward to learning about everyone’s goals and projects! 💜 Our next check-in point for the challenge will be Sunday, 7th September (you can check the full schedule and list of themes here!), but if you want to share something to the comm before then, feel free to make a post!

Reminder that we have these amazing banners for the challenge made by

javert that you can save to use on your site, your blog or anywhere you'd like to show you're taking part!

A cat lying on the keyboard of a laptop with code on the screen. Text overlaid on the banner reads, Small Web September, a month-long small web event on @ small web.

A cat lying on the keyboard of a laptop with code on the screen. Text overlaid on the banner reads, Small Web September, a month-long small web event on @ small web.

Photograph of a spider web with the words Small Web September superimposed on it. Below this, text reads, a month-long small web event on @ small web.

The Friday Five for 29 August 2025: Trash Questions

These questions were written by

spiralsheep.

1. Does where you live have regular doorstep rubbish collections or do you have to take your trash somewhere else?

2. Do you separate recycling? What sort of stuff gets recycled from your household?

3. Do you take things you don't need to charity shops, or give them away online, or sell them secondhand, or ...?

4. Do you pick up litter in your local area, from streets or trails or play areas or parks? Have you ever found anything interesting discarded or lost in a public space?

5. Are there "repair cafés" near you to help mend fixable items? Have you ever been helped by a community repair service or volunteered for one? Do you do any other kind of upcycling?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!