Principles

Last updated 6 Feb. 2025 | Mirror of my post Guiding principles for my website 

1. Be friendly and kind

• Link and cite generously
• Post my blogroll
• Post my contact info
• Invite connection
• Accept comments and Webmentions
• Reply to comments more often than not
• Don’t be a dick — be kind even when critical
• But fuck civility — niceness is a trap

2. Be open (but not too open)

• Share where it may be of value to others, but only what I am comfortable sharing — I don’t have to push my own boundaries
• Don’t fear the impact of my blog on my professional life — embrace whole person-ness
• Do not share things about myself that could endanger me under fascism
• Employ private posts — I don’t have to publish everything I write

3. Respect privacy

• Do not post offline friends’ names
• Do not post images of others’ faces without permission
• Don’t talk about my relationship or partner more than incidentally
• Don’t use corporate analytics or collect unnecessary data about readers
• Use people’s names in the format listed online, even if I know their full name
• Avoid using gendered pronouns unless specified on their website (this one’s a work in progress but I’m trying 💓😅)
• Try not to link to anyone’s RSS club posts

4. Play with it

• Do what sounds fun (why is this so hard 😂)
• Play along with other bloggers
• Follow whims, indulge myself, use color 🌈, seek delight, be weird
• Explore, experiment –nothing need be permanent
• Make things just because it sounds cool — not everything must be “useful”
• Follow my own rabbit holes
• Keep it a feel-good, safe space for myself — I am not obligated to approve rude comments

5. Prioritize connection over reach

• Seek quality connections and conversation over a large readership
• Delist my site from corporate search in favor of indie search and referrals from readers
• Make it easy to follow
• Make it easy to comment
• Participate — or even go first 😱
• Remember I’m not writing for everyone

6. Use it as a tool

• Take notes for myself
• Use it as a tool for attention
• Personalize it so it works well for me
• Seek connections and synthesize what I’ve learned
• Push my thinking and writing skills
• Practice craft

7. Keep it informal

• Feel no obligation to post on any schedule
• Write about what I want to write about
• Posts can be as long or short as I want
• Cuss when it’s warranted
• Enjoy exclamation points! and emojis 🦾
• I’m allowed to unpublish posts and/or edit them after posting

8. Go slow

• Respond to things in my own time
• Be patient, reject urgency
• Embrace asynchronous, slow conversation
• Take advantage of slow thinking and the nuance allowed by long posts

9. Practice imperfection

• Don’t be precious about posting (this one trips me up sometimes for sure)
• Be kind to myself, and recognize growth, when older posts don’t meet my current standards
• Accept that I will sometimes get things wrong and that’s actually even a part of learning darn it
• Can’t please everyone, got to please myself

10. Use it for good

• Showcase what IndieWeb connections can look like
• Explore the future of the open web
• Use it for advocacy and solidarity
• Value language and truth and reality
• Support independent creators and small businesses
• Pay it forward