personal sites

[helenic]

Today, with the help of romauld, who is now kindly hosting me, I bought two new domains: fox-fires.org and wax-and-wane.org. (No links because, as yet, no content.) art-fag.net expired last week (which is why all my links are broken) because I tried to renew it, but couldn't remember my password, and the password email I requested never arrived. That domain has now been Evilled by my old registrar; that is, they've made it unusable for a year unless I pay them £200 to renew it because I didn't renew it before it expired. I hadn't updated the site since last April in any case, and I've had it for over four years, so. Time for something new. Wax-and-wane because the moon is significant for me, for various reasons, because it has overtones of transience and flux and I'm in a state of perpetual moodswing, but at the same time never really feeling like I change. It has various attractive symbolisms, the phrase is pleasing, it's a Cocteau Twins song. I think I'm going to use it for my art, semi-professionally. Fox-fires is a contraction of another Cocteau Twins song (what can I say; they have very pleasing lyrics, and all the other things I came up with were taken), "Frou-frou foxes in midsummer fires". It is also a cunning inversion of PhyrePhoxx, which was my first ever username on Yahoo in about 1996.

It's all got me thinking about websites again. The personal site is a strange genre. Perhaps it's just the ones I've seen, but it seems to be that they are all owned by photography students from Scandinavia, and the layouts are always the same: white page, large rectangular photograph (of the edge of a building, or trees, or someone's legs, usually) with links in a random serif font underneath the picture. Or else they're scrapbook style with scannings-in and handwriting and things cut out of magazines. I'm not trying to be insulting - a lot of them are very well executed and very aesthetically pleasing - but there's no denying the extent to which these things follow trends. I know I've been guilty of it as well, probably more than all the efforts I've (obliquely) described above. But there's something simultaneously depressing and compelling about it, like badly-written escapist fantasy novels. On one level they are pleasing, an enjoyable waste of time, and "inspiring" in the sense of giving you dead-end ideas that can't be developed further, or aesthetic but largely meaningless lyricism, or an idea you'd seen somewhere before but had forgotten. No real change, nothing really new or affecting, but a small kind of nostalgia. Taking comfort in the familiar. Moods you've already had, that sort of thing.

I used to be a bit addicted to these sort of sites, but I haven't browsed the usual suspects in almost a year now, just as I'd left my own domain untouched for so long I'd almost forgotten I had it, and largely used the space for storing livejournal images. I do want to have an online presence again (why? I don't know; suggestions on a postcard plz) but I'm at a bit of a loss about what, precisely, to do with it. I've always wavered between actually putting my abortive and talent-lacking creative endeavours online in the hope of getting vapid compliments, and between being defensively abstract and just putting up a string of paragraphs that chronicle my preoccupations at the time, and try to articulate some of my thinking about things like identity and environment. I want to change tack, but am unsure how, so because this is livejournal I'll ask your opinion rather than, you know, being original and thinking for myself.



[Poll #428405]

Comments

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

interesting, i have found my own answers to be not very nice! in theory i would like to put up creative output and avoid personal revelations, like i have been meaning to have a cartoon site for a long time. looking at other people's, however, i go straight for the personal pictures, juicy biographical detail and other people they link to. i dont always find the art that that amazing or manage to read through the fiction, but the personal rants can be fantastic! perhaps i am a classic case of "nosy parker on the net".

[libellum.livejournal.com]

mm. Yes, that's the thing. I'd rather put up creative rather than personal stuff. but the truth is that unless it's *outstanding* I rarely look at creative stuff online. I'll read essays, but never fiction; I'll look at art if there's a decent amount of it and it's professional quality. But that's it. I'm much more interested in revelation. The problem is that all the interesting things I have to "reveal" is stuff I'd be happy strangers knowing, but not my parents ...

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

Domain name: ART-FAG.NET
...
Record expires on 24-Jan-2005.

This domain name is renewable until the end of February, all .net (and .com) domain names have a 40 day renewal grace period after the expiration date prior to entering the Redemption Period. It shouldn't cost any more in this 40 day period to renew the domain name. Even if you didn't renew it, it would be available to register anew a mere 75 days after the expiration date. Sounds like they've been trying on the hard sell tactics, something I wouldn't have expected of 123-reg.

But you've decided to have a change, so fair enough, heh.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

really? I got

Domain Name: ART-FAG.NET
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Name Server: NS7.Z-HOST.COM
Name Server: NS8.Z-HOST.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Status: REGISTRAR-HOLD
Updated Date: 25-jan-2005
Creation Date: 24-jan-2003
Expiration Date: 24-jan-2006

The expiration 2006, and "registrar lock" presumably referring to this in 123-reg's FAQ:

"If you have not renewed your domain before, or up to 35 days after expiry the Registry will put the domain into a 'redemption status'. This means that the domain is still registered but would have had its nameservers removed. The domain can be made live again, but this is a manual process and has to be done by contacting 123-reg Support. The cost of getting a domain out of redemption is £200 plus vat. Redemption periods vary in length, however, if a domain is still not renewed in this time it will then become available to register again."

I don't know, really. I think the change is a good thing, though :)

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

Registrar-Lock is simply meaning the domain has expired, but isn't yet in the Redemption Period. When it is in the Redemption Period, it says it is in the Redemption Period!

£200 + VAT. Hahaha, they're having a laugh aren't they? I could understand £100 + VAT given the costs of getting a domain redeemed - still, if a domain name is that important to someone!

It shows 2006 because the renewal grace period is actually a tentative 1 year renewal by the registry that is cancelled if no actual renewal for the domain name is made in the grace period.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. I've felt very lost the last couple of days trying to get my head around all this. Still, I suppose they can get away with the outrageous fee because their basic charges are so very, very cheap...

[aletharch.livejournal.com]

What I feel about the issue of similar layouts is that webdesign is a very snobbish art form. One has to learn several new computer languages in order even to make the first steps (I'm just starting cascading style sheets), and it's very useful that pre-designed layouts exist. I'm less concerned about similarity of layout than I am of the artistic/creative/though-provoking merits of the site's content. In other words, the only thing I hate are sites started for no reason other than "all my friends have one, LOL".

[libellum.livejournal.com]

yes yes yes. That's exactly what I was trying to say in my entry. There's a huge divide between people who see personal websites as fun and interesting, and people who see them as an art form. Can they ever be an artform? if so, how much does this have to do with content? can they be good art and also interesting personal sites?

I think my conflict is arising from my desire to have both an interesting, informative, useful and amusing personal website, and also to have a website that is a piece of art. I suppose if the two aren't actually compatible, I have two domains now: I could do both!

[mijra.livejournal.com]

I'd say yes, the two are compatible, but the compatibility sometimes is detrimental to the content. Structure determines what sort of content makes sense; content should, in the ideal world, determine what sort of (artistic/design) structure you give your site. I'm not sure if I'd consider a website that is first and foremost a piece of art to be a personal website. To me, at that point, it's just art.

As far as websites themselves are concerned, I'm very... text-oriented. And humor--amusement--is always important.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I suppose I'm torn because I like the simple, elegant, aesthetic sites. I'm trying to think of examples of sites I like pretty much entirely for design. Hmmm. Well, undreaming.net is good because of all the little corners, but mainly it's the unusual layouts and good graphics. sherbetmassacre.net I like, again, for the unusual design - she always has long screens, and scanned bits, and (I think) Ema may have been the one to start several of the trends. stellamara.net is just stunning. most of them have content that is either artistic, or snippets of text - nothing funny, or thought-provoking, just beautiful. But I *do* have things to say and I'm a good essayist and rhetorician even if I can't write fiction, and it's combining what I want to say with my desire to do elegant and beautiful design, which I believe I have the skills for... but they're very different genres. Hmm. I'm sure I'll work something out :)

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know what really annoys me ...

Personal web sites that the creator thinks are so important that they've created RSS feeds of the contents, and they've got little RSS icons on their website. There are so many blog style personal websites now, which are little more than a set of poorly considered opinion articles by people that think they have a clue.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

How is that different to LiveJournals? :)

I think that at least an RSS feed is an attempt to make it easy to read from several different sources, in the same way that the LJ friends page means I can read loads of journals where as I'd never be able to look at them all individually.

I get more confused at the idea of a standalone blog generally (especially if it doesn't have an RSS feed). Fair enough if someone doesn't care if no one reads it, but sometimes I get people telling me to look at their blog, and of course I look once and never go back again.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

sometimes I get people telling me to look at their blog, and of course I look once and never go back again.

Yeah. it's only the really amusing, sharp journallists who keep my attention. but I don't have any blogs I check regularly in the same way I check webcomics. Although I always read Fred's rants on megatokyo, and I read Neil Gaiman's blog :)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

ha, yes. the only blogs I like are the ones where ten people or something are all hosted on the server and they all share a blog on the central domain. then the interaction is amusing :) but normally... blogs are a bit crap. There have been some great political ones, but unless you have a single theme, create a site for the purpose of writing about that theme, and stick to it, it's difficult reading.

[oakwonder.livejournal.com]

Art-fag was one of the few personal sites I've seen that I really enjoyed exploring. Despite having clicked certain boxes in the poll, I don't know what attracts in a site. How well you know the person, if at all, makes a lot of difference in what you want to see. A stranger's is more like an artwork: it has to interest and attract. Strikingly good pictures or text will do that, of course; but I find I very much like to read indifferent or incomplete text when I'm led in by pleasing design. It seems more personal. (Oh, that's all truisms, I suppose.)

Anything good in the design of a site usually has me viewing the source: what nice trick of CSS or JavaScript did they use to achieve that transition; or what font and size is that that looks so good in that colour? I'm not graphically creative myself, but like to see and perhaps imitate what has worked well for others. Something as simple as turning off underlining on links, or knowing Verdana is so much better at 10pt than 12pt: well, your buildings and trees are the graphic equivalents of these. Something wistful, or evocative, or tantalizing: it works in a certain way, and if you're tiring a little of it, you're still very much at the lead of 'fashion': it's still very good compared to most of what's out there.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

A stranger's is more like an artwork: it has to interest and attract.

That's the thing. I want it to simultaneously be interesting and attractive to strangers, which involves creation as well as just representation, and to not seem hideously pretentious/self-indulgent to people who know me in real life. I suppose that's the biggest dichotomy I'm coming up against - something interesting to both my friends and to complete strangers.

thanks for the thoughts on design. I don't think I'm going to give up my graphic-centric, moody design style, but I'm going to put a lot more effort into textual (non-fiction) content.

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a big difference for me between the way I'll interact with a site of someone I actually know (IRL or fairly well online) and a complete stranger. I'm interested in most things from people I know, but if it's a stranger I'll usually have found them because of their fiction or art, at which point I don't care about photos of their friends, and am unlikely to care about their views on life unless they're important to their creative output, or happen to be exceptionally perceptive.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

that's exactly the difficulty. the stuff that appeals from a stranger is creativity, style, aesthetics. These are difficult to construct without being horribly pretentious, if it's about you. And so it's going to piss your friends off a bit. But the stuff your friends might be interested in isn't going to really be of interest to anyone else. In the past I've always used my livejournal for things my friends might be interested in and my site for strangers, but I want to collate some written material on my site, as well as using one of them semi-professionally. Which all necessitates finding a balance. I think I need to break away completely with my residual fascination with the small pretty arty sites I've been talking about. I've always liked something about them but I can't use it for what I want. And, you know, breaking away from fashion is good :)

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

There's a myth of the Northern Lights that states they're caused by arctic foxes lighting fires in the far North of the world, BTW.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

really? fantastic. I thought there was another reference too, that there were phenomena referred to as "fox fires" but google isn't helping me, so I'm possibly making it up.

[mostlyacat.livejournal.com]

I made a site ages ago (http://www.salokin.demon.co.uk/) which was intended to get lots of visitors (legitimately without using porn or pirated software etc). I started it way back in 1996 and it has had over 1.4 million visitors and still gets 100-150 (http://extremetracking.com/open;unique?login=salokin) visitors a day. I haven't updated it since 2002 and even then only a bit. I can't take it down because it's on my parents' internet access web hosting and I would have to log on using their dial-up account to access it. The visitors there are mostly people at work looking up things about using the command prompt in windows. When I started using the command prompt lots for work even I went there a few months ago!

One of the spin-offs from my web site was the creation of a world-wide market for home-made cables for graphical calculators. :-) How geeky is that! I sold that part of the site for $600 when I was at university - yay the cash was very nice then.

For ages I went off web sites but then I made the evil_nick (http://www.fluffhouse.org.uk/evil_nick/) one. It's not intended to generate a load of traffic (http://extremetracking.com/open;unique?login=evilnick) from random people. It's not intended to have a very clever or pretty design - if I had tried to make the design too clever then I would never have actually made anything. I like the fact that huge chunks of it are generated automatically so I can change it or add to it really easily as long as I don't mind my PC taking hours to do the work. The photos part involves a bit of programming which is nice, although the code is really quite messy. I started with an off-the-shelf design that I liked and then added some nicer features to it that weren't there in the original and customised it.

I like to see how many people go there. It gets very few visitors normally but then it gets huge spikes in visitors just after a party or whatever. The spikes are getting bigger now - January is by far the biggest month, mainly because of the Histories and last weekend.

If I get time I want to do some clever things with the evil_nick site, like learning PHP and doing some nice interactive things like online consequences or something. I could also make a proper front page with some nice pictures from the photo collection or something.

Hugs to you Helen you are lovely. Your stuff is in a large padded envelope ready to send. You glasses are well protected in a hard case too. I'll post it tomorrow.

Gah! I have to get the *bus* at 8am because my car is being repaired.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

oooh yay. I've seen The Useful Site before actually, I must have followed the link on evil_nick. I can't believe it has so many hits! I was more interested in the bio and pics than your code bits, but that's cause I know you :)

I don't think I'm up to clever things like php or anything. but online consequences would *rock*.

thankyou so much for sending the things! although I may come over tomorrow to look after Elly so if I do and you haven't posted it then you may as well save postage and give it to me then :) *hugs*

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

How important are original artwork/layout design?

Textbox was too small to explain. I'm more bothered about design and layout in the sense of providing a site that is readable and easy to use (no blue on blue text, no silly popups, no stupid "iframes" etc), than whether it looks artistic or not. And I don't care about originality at all. I'd rather people copy the design of sites which work; people who try to be original usually make their sites impossible to use.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

really? I suppose I've just seen a very different segment of the market. The sites I mentioned above in my comment to mijra are the kind of thing I mean by "original design". And I like cunning links and things. Also small popups are fun, but only when you click on a link instead of taking you to a new page, rather than automatic popups which I agree are annoying. And why use iframes when you can use divs with position: absolute?

[matt13.livejournal.com]

I like sites that are artistic (interesting photographs as backgrounds/borders, original colour schemes -- not blue!) and make good use of available technology without abusing it (i.e. use a structured HTML document, with as much CSS as is wanted to achieve the artistic effect, without putting everything in a popup window and relying heavily on javascript). Some content is good too, even if it just says a little about the owner of the site.

Sites with too many cunning links can be annoying -- I can't easily see where to click, or where I'm going to be taken. I suppose I also look at a different sector of sites to you, I tend to find more technical sites, generally with the boring blue and light blue colour scheme.

I haven't taken the time to make my own site (http://matt.blissett.me.uk/) artistic, that would mean a lot of time and effort (I'm certainly not a natural artist) which I can't spare at the moment. I want to take the pictures myself, so it will also have to wait until I have a camera. At the moment it has to stick with being functional, when I can think of a suitable domain I'll be less selective in it's content (the current domain, my name, is too restrictive. I want an anonymous domain for the next site).

CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com/) generally impresses me, mainly because I appreciate the work that's gone in to each design: having used CSS in reasonably innovative ways myself, I can appreciate the massive effort that's gone in to each design, though I can't appreciate the graphics in the same way.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Mostly, I've given up on the idea of a personal website. LiveJournal does a much better job for personal writings (it's more likely to have people read it, it's easier for people to comment, and it also doesn't suffer from the problem of becoming dated - I found it annoying having to continually make changes to several pages, because they were out of date, and reflected an old version of me, where as everything on LJ is clearly marked with a date). Fotopic does a much better job for hosting photos. The only thing I still use a webpage for is to contain programs I write.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I much prefer having my own photo hosting than using fotopic. I've had realy problems with it in the past - whole galleries being down "for maintenance" for durations of about three months! And I suppose I try and make personal websites so none of the information on there is likely to go out of date quickly. I don't mind updating every other month or so.

also I find it more likely people will read my website than my livejournal, but that's because my livejournal is friends only :)

[lsur.livejournal.com]

I can't help feeling that a lot of stuff on the web is ephemeral anyway. There is no quick way to success in anything worthwhile whether painting, writing, science, music, whatever. Easy access to the web seems to lead some people to think they can achieve recognition without any real work. It's largely a kind of fidgeting, fiddling with a keyboard, learning some little trick with html (not exactly a 'real' programming language) and generally a displacement activity. In most cases, the result has no more significance for the world than a teenager's bedroom (unless you are Tracey Emet.)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

the ephemeral nature of online things has always been what I liked about it; which is why the content of my sites in the past has always been inconsequential and self-referentially fleeting. I'm theoretically interested in creating something more substantial but have my doubts about where to start - hence the poll. Certainly if I was putting art online I wouldn't expect to get much business through it from random browsers, but it would be useful to have somewhere to direct people to that had all the information, rather than writing it all into emails every time I get a commission. The art I was putting online wouldn't be intended to have significance for the world, although perhaps in ten years the art that was mentioned on it might do.

I realise the poll sounded a bit snobbish, although I don't think "amateur" is deprecating, just a statement of fact. But yes, when it comes to creative quality I am a snob. I dislike how much shitty "art" and fiction there is out there just as I dislike how many opinion articles are written by self-important people who don't have a clue. It's not so much the inherent quality of the work that bothers me as the author's own attitude towards it. I don't know though, perhaps I'm just a judgemental bitch :) I've had writing online before but I never would now because I know I'm no good at it. As far as I'm concerned it's our responsibility to raise the standards.

[translucent.livejournal.com]

I'm posting this quickly before even reading the poll just to exclaim that you've articulated pretty much all I've been fretting about in putting up a site again -- though I think you have more experience of current "trends" since I no longer have much time to browse & discover new sites in depth. I used to run a Tamora Pierce site very long ago as well as having a "personal" site to various degrees, and this last ran through standard "look at me!" trash with tiny text & black backgrounds to lots of directionless artfaggery (artfagerie?) on one whim after another. The former died rather sooner than the latter as I got bored with content (and the fantasy community!) ... I blather. I'll get my arse onto the questionnaire.