#Blog web editor

[gravitatives]

ֹ ⑅᜔ ׄ ݊ ݂ sskk fool stamps / buttons ۪ ֹ ᮫

♡ ˚   ︶  these were done on a total whim . pretty lazy and i’ve never made this stuff before sew .. ya

︵︵ self-indulgent

︵︵ f2u without creds .. they’re berry appreciated thou ♡ however please credit me if it’s for a resource rentry !

︵︵ stamp borders by @puppizai !!!

[hauntingmizi]

Mizi and Sua renders, f2u credit appreciated

[hymnis]

⚠️ WARNING ! NEW EVENT ⚠️

[ T : hymnis 600 event! ]

•　　a while ago i promised to do an event for 100 followers but now i finally got the chance with 600+ , thank you all for the support and love!! im very grateful (..◜ᴗ◝..) 。

•　　interested? check the full post for info! 。

• participation ! ૮꒰ˊᗜˋ* ꒱ა

•　⠀to take part on this event, you can repost this post ! but on the event, use the tag #hymnis600 with your edit and @ me 。

•　⠀the event will be 8 days long, 5 days for the prompts + 3 if you miss something! it will start tomorrow (June 18th) (i'll post a reminder okay) 。

•　⠀information / rules ! ૮꒰ˊᗜˋ* ꒱ა

•　⠀if you fit on my dni (check pinned), dont even try to take part in/you'll be excluded from the event 。　⠀

•　⠀have any questions about the event or the prompts itself? dont be afraid and send an ask! 。

•　⠀you can do edits, mood/stimboards, mogai flags, colorings and psd to the event 。

•　⠀heavy gore, nsfw, incest, pedo media will not be classified if edited on the event 。

•　⠀winners will be decided by me and my trustfully judges (friends) (they are cool dont worry) 。

•　⠀winners will be informed on a separated post, they will claim prizes sending an ask on my inbox, pay attention to my b&w list when claiming your prize 。

• prompts list ! ૮꒰ˊᗜˋ* ꒱ა

•　⠀DAY 1 : a media from a fandom you hate OR from a fandom you love 。

•　⠀DAY 2 : something based on the last photo you got in your device gallery OR the last song you heard 。

•　⠀DAY 3 : your favorite fanart OR your favorite side character 。

•　⠀DAY 4 : the first manga you read OR the last manga you read 。

•　⠀DAY 5 : something, but with an opposite style of your own! OR free day 。

•　⠀OPTIONAL PROMPT : something based on me or my profile 。

•　⠀prizes ! ૮꒰ˊᗜˋ* ꒱ა

•　⠀first place: full themepack (icon, banner, pinned, divider, reply icons), 3 graphics and 6 web decoration 。

•　⠀second place: tumblr layout (icon&banner), 2 graphics and 4 web decoration 。

•　⠀third place: 1 graphic, icons and 3 web decoration 。

•　⠀support? (ask 4 removal) : @dwevilliette @eimimiwq @aaaqil @selysie @lavendergalactic @nomkiwi @dollrndo @bandagewastern @pwrinc @favouritekiss @hwizou @kiochisato @pixelpurrz @gravitatives @minwri @castodust @xxrosemixx @cuisinekuga

[theopiumeater]

[autumnslance]

Um - hi. We’ve never met before, but Happy New Year! 😅

I came across that Another Thing For New Tumblr Users post you made back in July, and… I’d like to confirm, does the read-more tag really still redirect people to the original post on your blog, no matter how far in the reblog chain? This would be unimaginably handy for a post of mine, which I expect I’ll have to re-edit later on, but another friend told me it’s been patched out…

Happy New Year! And Well. It depends. Especially since things change all the time around here.

In the Legacy editor, the "Keep Reading" will usually force someone on desktop browser to the original blog post (unless one has a particular XKit extension). But with the new editor more prevalent, even in a browser without XKit, if I click on a "Keep Reading" link, it opens the rest of the post directly on my dash.

(I keep a login on MS Edge sans XKit for testing purposes)

In the mobile app however it takes me to the mobile version of my blog post itself, which doesn't use anyone's themes aside from color choices.

Now, this is just how people access the post; on the dash or on the blog directly. You can still edit it! I do all the time! Anything below the "Keep Reading" cut should show updated in reblogs...with caveats. I fixed a format error in a post I put up this morning, "Missing Scars". It was reblogged before that by a guildmate. The format correction does appear on mobile when I click on the "Keep Reading" there, as it takes the reader to my blog. But that same reblog on browser, where it just expands the cut on the dashboard, still shows the old format error.

Which is. Well, Tumblr sure is a Functional Webbed Site.

Might be a cache issue and the dash just has to "catch up", but I had to log in after not using Edge for awhile (cuz why would I normally).

Of course, clicking on the header to go to the post on the fakey dash-like version of my blog, or the timestamp in the meatballs menu to go to the actual blog and post itself (I really hate that non-intuitive change just go to my actual blog, Tumblr!) does show the edited format correction.

So. The "Keep Reading" cut will open the post on the dash, OR take one back to the original (maybe edited) post on one's blog, depending on the text editor used to make the post, whether or not you're on browser or the mobile app, and whether you use the "Keep Reading" link or take extra steps to look at the actual blog post.

And if the original post is gone, or the URL has changed, the "Keep Reading" will not work to take one back to the blog (as there's no longer a valid link), but whether or not it can still show that content on the dash I haven't tested yet, and may depend on the age of the post, which editor was used, etc, but the source is still gone.

[escapaldi]

TUMBLR, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY DASH?! WHY IS THAT ALL THE WAY OVER THERE?! I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS?! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?! WHO SAID THIS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?!

[frnwhcom]

The Evolution of WordPress: Over Two Decades of Innovation

WordPress, a name synonymous with blogging and website creation, has transformed from a simple blogging tool into a powerful content management system (CMS) over the past two decades. Its journey from a niche project to dominating the web is a tale of innovation, community, and adaptability. Early Beginnings WordPress was born out of a desire to improve the existing blogging software,…

[thememakker]

Mplify - Versatile Bootstrap 4 Admin Template by Thememakker

Mplify Admin makes the development process easy and fast for you and aims to help you implement your idea in real time.

Product Highlights

Mplify is a fully professional, responsive, modern, multi-purpose, and feature-rich admin template. It can be used to create various websites, admin templates, admin dashboards, backend websites, CMS, CRM, blogs, business websites, timelines, and portfolios. This versatility makes it an ideal choice for developers looking to build functional and aesthetically pleasing web applications efficiently.

Key Features

Bootstrap 4.3.1: Ensures compatibility and modern design standards.

jQuery 3.3.1: Offers extensive plugins and support.

Built-in SCSS: Provides more flexibility and control over styles.

Light & Dark Full Support: Allows users to switch between light and dark themes.

RTL Full Support: Right-to-left language support for global accessibility.

W3C Validate Code: Ensures high coding standards and practices.

Mobile and Tablet Friendly: Responsive design for all devices.

Treeview: For hierarchical data display.

Drag & Drop Upload: Simplifies file uploading processes.

Image Cropping: Integrated tools for editing images.

Summernote: Rich text editor integration.

Markdown: Support for markdown formatting.

Beautiful Inbox Interface: User-friendly email management.

User-Friendly Chat App: Built-in chat application.

Scrum & Kanban Taskboard: Task management tools.

Add Events to Your Calendar: Event management capabilities.

File Manager: Efficient file organization and management.

Blogging: Tools to manage and create blog posts.

Testimonials: Features to showcase user testimonials.

Maintenance: Tools to manage and schedule maintenance.

Team Board: Collaboration tools for team management.

Search Result: Enhanced search functionalities.

Beautiful Pricing: Elegant pricing tables and plans.

Contact List & Grid: Efficient contact management.

User Profile: Customizable user profiles.

Extended Forms: Advanced form functionalities.

Clean Widgets: A variety of clean, modern widgets.

Technical Specifications

Bootstrap 4.3.1

Bootstrap 4.3.1 is a powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development. It includes HTML and CSS-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, tables, navigation, modals, image carousels, and many other interface components, as well as optional JavaScript plugins. Mplify leverages Bootstrap 4.3.1 to ensure a consistent and responsive design across all devices.

jQuery 3.3.1

jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, and animation much simpler with an easy-to-use custom API integration that works across a multitude of browsers. Mplify includes jQuery 3.3.1 to provide enhanced functionality and interactivity to your applications.

Built-in SCSS

SCSS is a preprocessor scripting language that is interpreted or compiled into CSS. It allows you to use variables, nested rules, mixins, inline imports, and more, all with a fully CSS-compatible syntax. With SCSS, Mplify offers a more powerful and flexible way to manage styles.

Light & Dark Full Support

Mplify comes with built-in support for light and dark themes, allowing users to switch between these modes based on their preferences. This feature enhances user experience and accessibility, especially in different lighting conditions.

RTL Full Support

For developers targeting global audiences, Mplify provides full right-to-left (RTL) language support. This feature ensures that languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian are properly displayed, making the template versatile and inclusive.

W3C Validate Code

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sets the standards for web development. Mplify adheres to W3C's coding standards, ensuring that the template is built with clean, valid code, which improves browser compatibility, SEO, and overall performance.

Mobile and Tablet Friendly

In today's mobile-first world, having a responsive design is crucial. Mplify is designed to be fully responsive, ensuring that your mobile application looks great and functions seamlessly on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

Applications

Mplify’s versatile design and feature set make it suitable for a wide range of applications across various industries. Here are some key applications:

Admin Dashboards

Mplify provides a robust framework for building admin dashboards. With its extensive set of UI components, charts, forms, and tables, you can create comprehensive dashboards that provide valuable insights and data visualization.

CMS (Content Management Systems)

With features like blogging, file management, and user profile management, Mplify can be used to build powerful CMS platforms. Its clean widgets and beautiful interface ensure that the content management experience is both efficient and enjoyable.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Mplify’s built-in tools for managing contacts, scheduling events, and maintaining communication through a chat app make it an excellent choice for developing CRM systems. These features help businesses manage customer interactions and data effectively.

Business Websites

The multi-purpose nature of Mplify allows it to be used for various business websites. Whether you need a portfolio, a blog, or a corporate website, Mplify provides the necessary tools and components to create a professional online presence.

Blogging Platforms

With integrated tools like Summernote for rich text editing and Markdown support, Mplify is ideal for creating blogging platforms. The beautiful inbox interface and testimonial features enhance the blogging experience, making it easy to manage and publish content.

Benefits

Easy and Fast Development

Mplify is designed to streamline the development process. With its pre-built components and templates, you can quickly assemble functional and aesthetically pleasing applications. This reduces development time and costs, allowing you to focus on implementing your ideas in real time.

Professional and Modern Design

Mplify offers a clean, modern design that is both professional and user-friendly. The template includes a variety of customizable widgets and components that adhere to the latest design standards, ensuring your application looks polished and up-to-date.

Comprehensive Feature Set

From task management tools like Scrum and Kanban boards to extensive form functionalities, Mplify provides a wide range of features that cater to various needs. This comprehensive feature set makes it a versatile solution for different types of projects.

Responsive and Mobile-Friendly

With Mplify, you can ensure that your application is accessible on all devices. Its responsive design adapts to different screen sizes, providing a seamless user experience on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

Global Accessibility

Mplify’s RTL support and multi-language capabilities make it suitable for global applications. This feature ensures that your application can cater to users from different regions, enhancing its reach and usability.

Regular Updates and Support

When you purchase a license for Mplify, you receive all future updates for free. This ensures that your application remains up-to-date with the latest features and improvements. Additionally, Mplify provides excellent customer support to assist with any issues or queries.

Challenges and Limitations

Learning Curve

While Mplify is designed to be user-friendly, there may be a learning curve for beginners who are not familiar with Bootstrap or jQuery. However, comprehensive documentation and community support can help mitigate this challenge.

Customization

Although Mplify offers a wide range of customization options, extensive customization may require advanced knowledge of SCSS and JavaScript. This could be a limitation for developers who are not well-versed in these technologies.

Performance

As with any feature-rich template, there is a potential for performance issues if too many components and plugins are used simultaneously. It is important to optimize the application and selectively use features to maintain optimal performance.

Latest Innovations

Enhanced UI Components

Mplify continues to evolve with regular updates that introduce new and improved UI components. These enhancements ensure that your application remains modern and functional.

Advanced-Data Visualization

Recent updates have focused on improving data visualization capabilities. With enhanced charting tools and interactive elements, Mplify allows for more dynamic and engaging data presentation.

Integration with New Technologies

Mplify is continuously updated to integrate with the latest web technologies. This ensures compatibility with new frameworks and libraries, providing developers with more tools to build advanced applications.

Future Prospects

AI and Machine Learning Integration

The future of Mplify may include integration with AI and machine learning tools. This would enable developers to build more intelligent and automated applications, enhancing user experience and functionality.

Expanded Plugin Support

As the web development landscape evolves, Mplify is likely to expand its plugin support. This will provide developers with more options for extending the functionality of their applications.

Improved Accessibility Features

Mplify is expected to continue enhancing its accessibility features. This includes better support for assistive technologies and compliance with accessibility standards, ensuring that applications built with Mplify are inclusive for all users.

Comparative Analysis

Versus Other Bootstrap Templates

When compared to other Bootstrap templates, Mplify stands out due to its comprehensive feature set, modern design, and extensive customization options. While other templates may offer similar components, Mplify's unique features like RTL support and advanced task management tools give it an edge.

Versus Custom Development

Opting for a pre-built template like Mplify can significantly reduce development time and costs compared to custom web development. While custom development offers more flexibility, Mplify provides a robust foundation that can be easily customized to meet specific needs.

User Guides and Tutorials

Getting Started with Mplify

Installation: Download and install Mplify from the official website or marketplace.

Configuration: Configure the template settings according to your project requirements.

Customization: Use the built-in SCSS files to customize the styles and appearance.

Integration: Integrate Mplify with your backend systems and databases.

Deployment: Deploy your application on your preferred hosting platform.

Advanced Customization Techniques

SCSS Variables: Use SCSS variables to easily change colors, fonts, and other styles.

JavaScript Customization: Extend the functionality by adding custom JavaScript code.

Component Modification: Modify existing components or create new ones to meet specific needs.

Performance Optimization: Optimize the performance by minifying CSS and JavaScript files, and selectively loading components.

Conclusion

Mplify is a powerful, versatile, and user-friendly Bootstrap 4 admin dashboard template. It offers a wide range of features and customization options, making it suitable for various applications, from admin dashboards to business websites. With its modern design, responsive layout, and extensive documentation, Mplify simplifies the development process, allowing developers to implement their ideas in real time efficiently.

Whether you are building a CMS, CRM, or a personal blog, Mplify provides the tools and flexibility needed to create a professional and functional web application. Its ongoing updates and support ensure that your projects remain current and compatible with the latest web technologies.

[stellophiliac]

you should make a website!

"my favorite social media site is shutting down!"

"the CEO of the site i use just committed another atrocity!"

"i want a webspace that's all my own!"

if any of these sound like you (and if you're on tumblr, i know at least one applies) you should make your own website!

why make a website?

incredibly customizable

you can put whatever you want on it

it's, well, your own! like a house you build with your own hands

things you'll need

a computer. you can maybe get away with doing this on a mobile device, but i have zero experience there

a code editor. i like VScodium, which is a de-microsoft-ed version of VScode.

a will to learn ;)

site hosting

neocities. everyone knows neocities. at this point i do feel like it's become a bit too centralized, but it's a good option nonetheless. do note that there are filetype restrictions for free users, but that shouldn't be a huge issue for most. what may be an issue, though, is that there's a content security policy that prevents sites made after jan 1st, 2024 to use outside scripts. also, you have to pay to use your own domain

nekoweb. similar to neocities, but there's no filetype restrictions or a content security policy. some differences are outlined in the FAQ (thinking about moving here... i am a traitor...) i'm not sure if domain support is free or paid.

github pages or codeberg pages. you'll need an understanding of git for this

pages.gay: run by besties.house, uses git

teacake: free hosting is currently closed, but paid hosting starts at 2 bucks a month.

leprd.space: i know next to nothing about this.

a web server. don't recommend this if you don't know computer stuff but it is an option (you'll likely have to provide your own domain though)

gripes & solutions (?)

i'm not comfortable maintaining pages in pure HTML / templating with JS sucks!

with a static site generator, you can write pages in markdown and they'll be converted into HTML and (if you'd like) be put into a template of your choosing. my personal choice is 11ty but there are tons of options!

static site generators can be a bit of a learning curve (and you will have to write some html for templating) but if you're making a lot of pages or blogging regularly it's something to consider

there are starters for 11ty online but i might make a more beginner-proofed starter and/or guide in the future? don't count on it

i don't want to write/maintain CSS

simpleCSS is a tiny CSS file you can use to make semantic HTML ("naked" HTML) look nice. it's got decent customization options too. it's not particularly fancy or opinionated, but it's a good starting point if you need something

i don't know what to put on my website!

small list of ideas:

weblog

art/writing/music gallery

movie/show/book tracker

place to store bookmarks/links

scary! i'm scared!

my askbox/messages/e-mail inbox/etc. are open to anyone who'd like to ask for help!

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 Where to find good XF fanfics

👽 On Tumblr

@lilydalexf has an encyclopedic knowledge of fics and continues to be an invaluable resource. You'll find a boatload of themed fic lists, individual rec posts and helpful answers to anon asks.

@txf-fic-chicks-blog seven years of almost daily recs, with well-written blurbs and a lot of fun, run by @kateyes224 and @piecesofscully. Look out for their themed days: "Casefile Monday", "Tumblr Tuesday", "Editor's Pick Wednesday", "Post-Ep/Missing Scene Thursday", "Novel Length Friday", "Smut Sunday", and the very cool "Because You Watched"

@msrlibrary a well-tagged library of MSR fics; each entry includes a short excerpt and a nicely chosen image from the show.

@201daysofxfiles a rewatch blog by fandom veteran @wendelah. Each episode in season 1-7 is paired with its own fic rec post.

@enigmaticxbee an aesthetically pleasing and neatly organized rewatch blog that is packed with great content, including excellent fic rec lists categorized by season, story type, trope, and more. Each episode guide sometimes features related fic recs.

@thatfragilecapricorn30 posts one fic rec every Friday, accompanied by a nice writeup.

@randomfoggytiger curates many fic rec lists sorted by often fun and creative categories.

@cecilysass has a google doc titled "fics I love", which is a fantastic fic list categorized by story type, complete with thoughtful blurbs. She's also shared two episode-related fic rec lists on Tumblr: here and here.

@pookie-mulder writes a monthly fic journal with good recs.

**self-promo plug** I post fic recs on my Tumblr blog @fine-nephrit under #nephrit's fic rec. Plus, I reblog others' fic recs that I come across!

👽 Rec Communities

XF Book Club: the best thing ever, an absolute gem that deserves to be preserved for posterity. During its run, 270 fics were recced and discussed in depth here. The community's intelligent and insightful comments on this blog are sometimes even more enjoyable to read than the fics themselves.

The Fic Filter (xf tag): well-curated selections with short blurbs.

Multifandom Het Recs (xf tag): a major rec site's xf section that offers nice "why this must be read" writeups. @het-reccers

Crack Van (xf tag): another major rec site with a big xf section, featuring endless recs and blurbs

Fancake (xf tag): another major rec community's xf section boasting an extensive thematic tagging system

👽 Personal Blogs

Emily Shore aka Naraht: meta essays, fanvid recs, fic recs—great stuff aplenty

Bad for the Fish aka Scarlet Baldy: fantastic fic list paired with highly enjoyable reviews and analyses of the fics she's read. @badforthefish

Ramblings of a Mind Untamed: reviews of a dozen or so classic fics

xxSKSxx XF Fanfic Recs: still active in 2024! @xxsksxxx

X-Libris: more of a fic library, this is the best place to download nicely-formatted ebooks of pre-AO3 oldies. What I love most is the incredibly detailed and extensive tagging system.

👽 Individual Rec Lists with good writeup

Character Manifesto - Dana Scully: a character analysis and 10 Scully-centric fic recs, categorized by "best of .." selections. Amazing format and choices!

Character Manifesto - Fox Mulder: same format as above for Spooky

bachlava's awesome fic rec essays, covering classic fics and slash fics

ShipRecced blog's classic MSR fics and newer MSR fics recs

luminary's 16-fic rec post

RivkaT recs fics and writers @rivkat

Anna Otto's favorite stories

Syntax6's rec list on her site, great rec list on Tumblr and FTF rec list @syntax6

👽 90s Old School Rec Sites

The Basement Office - Musea: a treasure trove of extensive fic lists with lovely written blurbs, recced by a group of talented writers from back in the day

The Other Side - Fanfic Recs from Beyond the Grave: a large collection of 'scary' or 'spooky' story recs with nice blurbs. Beautiful web design.

the Rookery - Favorite Authors: nice commentary on a list of classic fic writers

X-Files Fanfiction 101: an intro guide to fic categories and what to read for each

The Primal Screamers: a fun site run by a mailing list that hosts fic recs with blurbs, and a 'Coffee Talk' section full of delightful discussions of canon

Idealists Haven - Elemental Fanfic Archive: an archive with rec blurbs

Chronicle X: a large, well-organized archive with blurbs, plus a 'Can We Talk' discussion section of novel-length fics, plus a total of 46 author interviews. Simply incredible!

👽 Special Mention

The X-Files Lost and Found: a fic finder message board that is miraculously still very active today—How wonderful! Its FAQ page hosts a huge collection of well-categorized themed fic lists (not recs), including "Classics (or, Your Fanfic Education is Not Complete Until You've Read ...)".

Where do you find your next read? What did I miss? Reblog and share your favorites!

[gravitatives]

　⏝᪖ ྀི ᩤ◟ kyouka izumi rentry graphics 　◞ ྀ།◡℘

⠀⠀ ⠀ f2u with creds ⠀͡ ̣̣̥𓏼ׅ 𓊆 requested by anon

⠀ ⠀ ིܳ། ︶˚̣̣̣　 psd used : seafoam by doliimu | ͜͝ |ྀི ͜͝ |

i hope . i got the right one . . . sorry the second one is a lil lazy aaagaghh executes myself

[hauntingmizi]

Mizi + Till the true face renders , f2u credit appreciated MIZITILL SHIPPERS DO NOT INTERACT OR USE ! respect the balance.

[changes]

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024

🌟 New

Posts on public communities now have a new share button so you can easily share them outside of [tumblr].

🛠 Fixed

Notifications on your blazed posts can now be muted again.

The editor no longer counts HTML characters as part of the 4096-characters-per-block limit.

🚧 Ongoing

We're aware that the queue is not paginating in the iOS app, and we're working on a fix. For now, you can manage your queue on the web in any iOS browser, like Safari.

🌱 Upcoming

No upcoming launches to announce today.

Experiencing an issue? Check for Known Issues and file a Support Request if you have something new. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Want to share your feedback about something? Check out our Work in Progress blog and start a discussion with other users.

Wanna support Tumblr directly with some money? Check out Premium and the Supporter badge in TumblrMart!

[theopiumeater]

cat marnell's poetry (c. 2013)

[egelantier]

PSA: Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew/Maria Ying

I'm starting to see recs for Benjanun Sriduangkaew crop up in fandom again, so here's your reminder that Benjanun Sriduangkaew, aka Maria Ying, is actually Winterfox/Requires_Hate, a well-known serial harasser, blackmailer and abuser who decided that the best thing to do with her multimillionaire heiress time and money is to do real and lasting harm to many communities and many writers (especially writers of color) that she saw as rivals.

with how fast things move online right now, I imagine she's banking on people just forgetting everything she pulled: please don't! But even if you won't deny her your attention, at least keep yourself safe and remember that her modus operandi used to be either love bombing people until they let slip something she then blackmailed them with, or literally decades of unhinged harassment.

feel free to share.

original sources:

Mixon report: https://feralsapient.com/?p=889

The letter to Apex editors: https://web.archive.org/web/20170216003240/http://awitin.likhain.net/2017/02/a-letter-to-apex-editors-re-the-intersectional-sff-roundtable/

Zen Cho's report (start here of you never heard of any of this): https://web.archive.org/web/20200808225250/https://zencho.org/being-an-itemised-list-of-disagreements/

*she had once upon a time deleted her blog, hence the Wayback link; but now it's re-uploaded by her here, as she explicitly still stands by her words: https://zencho.org/articles/being-an-itemised-list-of-disagreements/

Rachel Manija Brown's report: https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1288081.html

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Linkrot

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

Here's an underrated cognitive virtue: "object permanence" – that is, remembering how you perceived something previously. As Riley Quinn often reminds us, the left is the ideology of object permanence – to be a leftist is to hate and mistrust the CIA even when they're tormenting Trump for a brief instant, or to remember that it was once possible for a working person to support their family with their wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong

The thing is, object permanence is hard. Life comes at you quickly. It's very hard to remember facts, and the order in which those facts arrived – it's even harder to remember how you felt about those facts in the moment.

This is where blogging comes in – for me, at least. Back in 1997, Scott Edelman – editor of Science Fiction Age – asked me to take over the back page of the magazine by writing up ten links of interest for the nascent web. I wrote that column until the spring of 2000, then, in early 2001, Mark Frauenfelder asked me to guest-edit Boing Boing, whereupon the tempo of my web-logging went daily. I kept that up on Boing Boing for more than 19 years, writing about 54,000 posts. In February, 2020, I started Pluralistic.net, my solo project, a kind of blog/newsletter, and in the four-plus years since, I've written about 1,200 editions containing between one and twelve posts each.

This gigantic corpus of everything I ever considered to be noteworthy is immensely valuable to me. The act of taking notes in public is a powerful discipline: rather than jotting cryptic notes to myself in a commonplace book, I publish those notes for strangers. This imposes a rigor on the note-taking that makes those notes far more useful to me in years to come.

Better still: public note-taking is powerfully mnemonic. The things I've taken notes on form a kind of supersaturated solution of story ideas, essay ideas, speech ideas, and more, and periodically two or more of these fragments will glom together, nucleate, and a fully-formed work will crystallize out of the solution.

Then, the fact that all these fragments are also database entries – contained in the back-end of a WordPress installation that I can run complex queries on – comes into play, letting me swiftly and reliably confirm my memories of these long-gone phenomena. Inevitably, these queries turn up material that I've totally forgotten, and these make the result even richer, like adding homemade stock to a stew to bring out a rich and complicated flavor. Better still, many of these posts have been annotated by readers with supplemental materials or vigorous objections.

I call this all "The Memex Method" and it lets me write a lot (I wrote nine books during lockdown, as I used work to distract me from anxiety – something I stumbled into through a lifetime of chronic pain management):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

Back in 2013, I started a new daily Boing Boing feature: "This Day In Blogging History," wherein I would look at the archive of posts for that day one, five and ten years previously:

https://boingboing.net/2013/06/24/this-day-in-blogging-history.html

With Pluralistic, I turned this into a daily newsletter feature, now stretching back to twenty, fifteen, ten, five and one year ago. Here's today's:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/21/noway-back-machine/#retro

This is a tremendous adjunct to the Memex Method. It's a structured way to review everything I've ever thought about, in five-year increments, every single day. I liken this to working dough, where there's stuff at the edges getting dried out and crumbly, and so your fold it all back into the middle. All these old fragments naturally slip out of your thoughts and understanding, but you can revive their centrality by briefly paying attention to them for a few minutes every day.

This structured daily review is a wonderful way to maintain object permanence, reviewing your attitudes and beliefs over time. It's also a way to understand the long-forgotten origins of issues that are central to you today. Yesterday, I was reminded that I started thinking about automotive Right to Repair 15 years ago:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/05/right-repair-law-pro

Given that we're still fighting over this, that's some important perspective, a reminder of the likely timescales involved in more recent issues where I feel like little progress is being made.

Remember when we all got pissed off because the mustache-twirling evil CEO of Warners, David Zaslav, was shredding highly anticipated TV shows and movies prior to their release to get a tax-credit? Turns out that we started getting angry about this stuff twenty years ago, when Michael Eisner did it to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911":

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/05/us/disney-is-blocking-distribution-of-film-that-criticizes-bush.html

It's not just object permanence: this daily spelunk through my old records is also a way to continuously and methodically sound the web for linkrot: when old links go bad. Over the past five years, I've noticed a very sharp increase in linkrot, and even worse, in the odious practice of spammers taking over my dead friends' former blogs and turning them into AI spam-farms:

https://www.wired.com/story/confessions-of-an-ai-clickbait-kingpin/

The good people at the Pew Research Center have just released a careful, quantitative study of linkrot that confirms – and exceeds – my worst suspicions about the decay of the web:

https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/

The headline finding from "When Online Content Disappears" is that 38% of the web of 2013 is gone today. Wikipedia references are especially hard-hit, with 23% of news links missing and 21% of government websites gone. The majority of Wikipedia entries have at least one broken link in their reference sections. Twitter is another industrial-scale oubliette: a fifth of English tweets disappear within a matter of months; for Turkish and Arabic tweets, it's 40%.

Thankfully, someone has plugged the web's memory-hole. Since 2001, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has allowed web users to see captures of web-pages, tracking their changes over time. I was at the Wayback Machine's launch party, and right away, I could see its value. Today, I make extensive use of Wayback Machine captures for my "This Day In History" posts, and when I find dead links on the web.

The Wayback Machine went public in 2001, but Archive founder Brewster Kahle started scraping the web in 1996. Today's post graphic – a modified Yahoo homepage from October 17, 1996 – is the oldest Yahoo capture on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/19960501000000*/yahoo.com

Remember that the next time someone tells you that we must stamp out web-scraping for one reason or another. There are plenty of ugly ways to use scraping (looking at you, Clearview AI) that we should ban, but scraping itself is very good:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And so is the Internet Archive, which makes the legal threats it faces today all the more frightening. Lawsuits brought by the Big Five publishers and Big Three labels will, if successful, snuff out the Internet Archive altogether, and with it, the Wayback Machine – the only record we have of our ephemeral internet:

https://blog.archive.org/2024/04/19/internet-archive-stands-firm-on-library-digital-rights-in-final-brief-of-hachette-v-internet-archive-lawsuit/

Libraries burn. The Internet Archive may seem like a sturdy and eternal repository for our collective object permanence about the internet, but it is very fragile, and could disappear like that.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/21/noway-back-machine/#pew-pew-pew