What is the Indieweb? It’s many things, like a philosophy of publishing content on your website and a set of protocols to connect those websites.
The most crucial aspect I discovered over the past two days is The Indieweb is a wonderful community.
I just attended IndiewebCamp Brighton, where I had a mind-expanding time with a bunch of folks as enthusiastic about the web as I am. It left me with a sense of hope that there are pocks of people keeping the dream of a free and open web alive.
It also gave me a new way of thinking about writing and publishing: The Digital Garden. In this paradigm, posts aren’t a once-and-done affair; articles can be returned to, updated and changed. Content creation becomes more akin to tending a garden than cranking out posts one after the other. The date still matters, of course, and I’ll keep showing ‘published on’ in my articles, but I’ll add a ‘last updated’, too.
Digital Gardening breaks my sense that things must be perfect before publishing them. I can return to posts repeatedly to massage them into shape.
Jeremy Keith said something that resonated. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist was: “You either feel that you don’t know enough, so you shouldn’t share, or you know too much and think it so obvious that people don’t care.” I hope this new way of thinking will help break this spell. In this spirit, I also created a to-do list, which I’ll update periodically.
I wrote (the first version of) this post in fifteen minutes.