Like: Blog discovery for the future?
There is a great discussion going on there with Dave Winer, Don Park and others including Greg McVerry and Kicks Condor.
This is the kind of discussion that needs to be done and this is the group to do it. Frankly it makes my brain hurt, but in a good way.
Gah! I’m in a bit of a quandary about seeding this directory project: how much is enough to start out with and how much further seeding just adds noise?
I have raided my bookmarks, read laters, memory, etc. and have come up with about 300 links which, on the face of it, seems pitiful for a general web directory if I built it circa 1998 – 2003. But times are different now, those old directories where trying to be comprehensive: Dmoz had over 4 million listings and in the end it was a pittance compared to the ever expanding size of the web.
I’m not trying to be comprehensive, just a place where one might find useful or interesting things off the beaten path, and find them quickly.
My past experience in niche directories is of limited help here. Back in the day of static HTML sites, those sites were not huge, I could poke around and get a good feel for the value of the site rather quickly. Today, everything is blogs or sites built on platforms. There could be hundreds of posts and pages. Compounding that so many blogs are abandoned. Yes a blog abandoned in 2014 may still have some very useful articles but that is not something I can dig out in a reasonable amount of time.
All this is to say, I feel like I am forcing it. I am now just digging up links just to fill categories not because they are special. And that means quality starts to slip in favor of quantity.
A web directory never should quit growing, but I think I’m near the point where I need to open it up for submissions of links by the public while I also continue to add listings at a slower and more measured pace as I find things. Things need to grow organically.
Which means I need to get cracking on finishing up help pages and UI tweaks for a launch.
Any thoughts?
Like: Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness – The Atlantic
What a person is saying, the meaning, the intent, is far more important than how they say it.
This is how WordPress plays “Joy Whack a Mole”:
Me: Yay, I made a neat new logo. Happyhappyjoyjoy. (Tries to install it on WordPress.)
Sempress Theme: I insist that your logo be 50px X 50px.
Me: Are you daft? Do you know how tiny 50 X 50 is? That’s almost as small as a favicon. it looks silly.
Sempress Theme: Muhahaha!
Listening: Illinois Street Lounge | SomaFM
Classic bachelor pad. Got the Lava Lamp going. 😎
Watching: Murders at Barlume – MHz Choice
Light, comedic Italian mystery. As a mystery sort of so-so, but I like the characters. Acting is good.
Like: Framasoft ~ Portal Homepage
- A network dedicated to globally promoting “free” and particularly free software.
- Many services and innovative projects freely put at the disposal of the general public.
- A community of volunteers supported by a public interest association.
- An invitation to build together a world of sharing and cooperation.
Framasoft is a French based, public interest organization promoting free software and services on the internet. Note: one of their campaigns is to de-Google the internet, which is shorthand for providing free, opensource alternatives to web services provided by the internet silo’s.
The Framasoft’s goal is to offer, mainly online, a set of concrete and practical tools to facilitate adoption:
- of free software (directory, USB sticks, installer…);
- of free cultural creations (blog, translation, publishing house…);
- of free services (more than 30 free services in the project De-google-ify Internet).
Presented as a “gateway to the Free World”, the network Framasoft wants to position itself as a bridge between the librarian community and the general public.
Despite my earlier protestations, I am working on a web directory project on a different domain. It’s not a big deal but there is work to do, like: seed the directory with a starter set of links. I mean you go to a directory to find web pages or websites and it better have something for you to find or you will never come back.
Yeah, so I’ve got this used web crawler/indexer, that would be me, who is an old, slow and cranky, old git, but works cheap. The slacker likes taking a nap during working hours. This could take awhile.
Plus I’ve got to edit CSS font sizes which I’ve never done, and write help pages that explain what the heck I’m trying to do.
All of which is to say, I’ve got to cut back on blogging here for awhile and just get this directory ready for launch.
Thanks.
Signed, Me.
Bookmark: dokuwiki [DokuWiki]
Another wiki server script. Doku looks to be even bigger than PmWiki as far as plugins.
This one seems more about formatting writing in HTML rather than markup.
Pros:
No database needed. Files are stored as plain txt, which means they are forever.
Low server overhead.
Bookmark: PmWiki | PmWiki / PmWiki
This is an interesting script. I have not installed it or tried it, just browsed through the instructions.
Things that caught my eye:
There is no mention of mySQL or any database needed. I like that. Flat files can be good. All you seem to need is PHP.
You can install this on your home computer if you want a truly private wiki. Or you can install on web server.
Has a plugin type system so you can extend it.
If you add the calendar plugin you get one page per day. You could do a diary or daily journal with that.
Seems to be a very high powered wiki.
