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Some quick thoughts nowhere near complete.

It’s sort of a rule in room design, that it is hard to make a big, wide open room cozy and inviting.  You do this by adding odd, warm, interesting alcoves and inglenooks around the perimeter.

Likewise, modern open plan designed homes are practical in a sense, you can survey the home from front door, through the great room and kitchen to the dining area all at a glance.  But what gets lost is the delightful sense of exploration and being surprised when opening a door and seeing what is beyond.  Old homes had parlors, withdrawing rooms, nooks, turning hallways with many doors, sunny window benches for reading, surprise unexpected seating alcoves.

I kinda look at a WordPress blog the same way.  You have all these plugins and pages, so can you make areas, spaces if you will, that surprise, hopefully delight and entertain.  Odd bits of eccentric whimsy that capture interest.  These are not quite an easter egg but are not in your face either. You don’t want to take away from what you have written but you want to add value.  Navigation is there, easy to find if one does more than helicopter in on a search query and then helicopter out.  They are there if one explores.

These spaces can have utility too. An oaken paneled library, provides knowledge, entertainment, quiet refuge and a sign of what the owner finds interesting.  A bookshelf full of books in a guest room provides interest for insomniacs.

And it may be that these virtual spaces get little used, but if they bring pleasure to you knowing that they are there and to the odd visitor then all to the good.

Needless to say, I’m not a minimalist.

I fear that our technology, search engines delivering you to individual pages you are looking for, while efficient has robbed us of a sense of wonderment and adventure. Can a website or blog be both an effective conveyor of information with an optional dungeon crawl like D&D?

Feel free to comment.

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Today I made an Exit page.  So many people end their visit by hitting the Back button on their browser.  The exit page is a last attempt to get them to explore the Blog Directory to find an entertaining blog.  Or failing that to try a search on a search engine they may have never tried before.

A directory isn’t much good if it does not provide traffic to the sites listed in it.  So I’m obliged to drive traffic to it.  As for the search engine, I’ll probably rotate different search boxes every few weeks.  Exploring the Web needs to be fun again. We can make it so.

Added:

It’s not that I’m inviting people to leave.  This was always one of the worries about webrings, that you were inviting people to leave.  That is a false worry. Visitors leave when they are done with your site.  Like a webring, the exit page, if they chose to use it, is intended to make their exit more productive by sharing traffic with other blogs or introducing them to a search engine other than Google.  With the directory link it’s a chance to reintroduce “surfing the web” as in bygone days.  And maybe it gives the act of leaving a small element of – adventure.

It’s a bit of whimsy that uptight corporate blogs and blog magazines wouldn’t dare.  😈

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The un-celebrity president: Thirty-seven years after leaving office, Jimmy Carter shuns riches, lives modestly in his Georgia hometown

Like: The un-celebrity president: Jimmy Carter shuns riches, lives modestly in his Georgia hometown – The Washington Post

I was not a fan of his as President, but I respect the man.  He practices what he preaches.  In an age of phonies he’s the real deal.

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Replied to

 

Source: XXIIVV Webring

I like it.  It’s unconventional and neat.  I think with a ring of personal diaries and wikis emphasizing the Random navigation makes sense – like a teleporter.  All the other points you made: classy, sophistication, minimalism are all valid.  Good webring. Good find.

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Syndication (crossposting) to:

Facebook: (change) – I no longer post to FB and quit that long before the recent FB API rules change.  Brid.gy had problems and I didn’t care enough about FB to try and fix it.

Twitter: (changed) – this blog now posts to Twitter via WordPress Jetpack.  I made the change because I can control what goes out to Twitter on each individual post.

G+: (same) – via Jetpack.

Mastodon – (same) – via Mastodon plugin

WP Reader – (same) via Jetpack.

Micro.blog – via Micro.blog and RSS.

Indieweb.xyz – this is manual, on a post by post basis.

I get quite a bit of traffic from all the above.

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Fetch recommendations from threads at micro.blog. Explore links from Discover.

Source: Micro.Threads

This is for exploring and discovering conversations at Micro.blog and intended mainly for Micro.blog users.  However, non-users can utilize part of it’s capability.

Users and Non-users alike can explore many of the sub-category topics on Micro.blog.  Users can find people to follow or conversations to join in on too.

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Bookmark: ADN Finder

This is a social network username directory.  If you know your friends username on Twitter, Micro.blog, Mastodon or (defunct) App.net you can find their handle on the others.  Very handy if someone you follow has left Twitter, or if you are migrating to some new social networks and want your friends to find you.

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The Boston Globe has invited newspapers across the country to stand up for the free press today with editorials. …

Like: A Chesterton Tribune Editorial

Yeah!  I think the national politicians need to get out of their marble temples and see what the real America is like. The Chesterton Tribune is about as even handed and mild mannered as you can be, but they can be feisty when they want to be. But they show us what democracy, stewardship and civics are really about.

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