gorciu

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gorciu

the neocities problem

so.. you stumbled across someone's website, then visited their links/neighborhood page and clicked around. maybe you even bookmarked it or added their button to your own site. it's better for the visitor and for the creator if some conditions are met (like Special Sauce: followers, how many sites you follow, hits, visitors, etc).

what's the matter?

websites are better than social media and i think everyone in this community would agree. but social media gives you an advantage. see - social media runs on addictive algorithms...

and that's the big super-duper advantage? sounds like a problem. 🤬

no, it's not. to *maintain* that level of addiction, it has to show you crap. and that crap is content - content people interact with. if someone spends real time reacting to a post, it means they enjoyed it. then others can rate it, and the cycle continues. that post spreads - whether it's actually good or just another AI sludgepost - or it dies off. that's how the system works.

so i get... more views on social media?

yep. neocities and nekoweb are not built to keep you scrolling forever. go to neocities.org/browse, set the sort to Special Sauce, refresh the page - you'll probably still see the same stuff. but on social media? it *needs* to show you something new, so you have a better chance to actually be seen.

people are the secret power of social media

AI is good at doing what you tell it to do. but creativity? not yet. that's still our thing. there's still a lot of valuable human-made content on social media. but what happens when it all vanishes or moves off Big Tech servers? the people left behind are gonna be watching AI-generated filler. and yeah, maybe someday AI gets good enough to make “real” content. but viral *ideas*? no way. i've tried. all AI ideas suck. and no human's gonna waste good ideas on a platform no one uses.

and if your best friends switch, you will too. trust me.

is the solution to make everyone switch to the indie web?

it'd be awesome to see tons of people jumping into the personal web scene. more sites, more updates, more creativity. a nostalgia dream come true. and yes - i think more people *should* join the community.

but in this specific situation, it might actually make things worse.

if the crowd moves in, AI-generated sites will follow. and that could destroy the quality of the indie web by like 1000%. okay, let's assume that doesn't happen - even then, sure, it's fine for users, but not for small creators. you'd get buried.

we don't want overpopulation

if everyone starts making their own Neocities or Nekoweb sites, two things might happen:

  • hosting providers could shrink or kill their free plans, and tons of sites go offline because hosting is expensive
  • too many sites means tiny creators would have to give 100% to stand out - and hey, people have lives

is Special Sauce the main problem?

neocities and nekoweb aren't designed to keep you scrolling. go to neocities.org/browse, sort by Special Sauce, refresh the page. you'll still see the same sites.

most people don't change the sorting. and why would they?

  • Special Sauce
  • Random
  • Most Followed
  • Last Updated
  • Views
  • Tipping Enabled
  • Newest
  • Oldest

let's break it down. Newest and Oldest are just fun facts, not useful sortings. Tipping Enabled? probably the worst one - no one comes to Neocities to pay people. and how even is it sorted? Random doesn't exclude default/inactive sites. Views and Most Followed are... favorizing? (sorry, no idea how to spell that)

so we're left with the golden child - Special Sauce. which has the exact same problems as Views and Most Followed. it was supposed to be The Algorithm That Solves Everything™, but... nah.

maybe there's hope

what if we made, like... Special Sauce 2™? to fix everything, it needs to combine:

  • randomness
  • followers
  • views
  • activity
  • and a damage system - like a penalty for not following at least 5 sites, or uploading less than 10 files

and yeah, about that randomness part:

i added the last two rules to stop randomness from pushing dead sites or the ones with just “Under Construction” gifs

tl;dr

just go and make a better sorting algorithm with a bit of randomness. if i could visit the Neocities browse page and actually see cool new sites instead of the same ones again and again - this whole thing would be way more fun. thanks for not reading and skipping to the tl;dr

an update: Special Sauce 2 is not all sunshine

warning: i didn't review this text as much as the previous one, it may contain unreadable sentences or grammar errors. sorry for that.

well, i managed to publish this article. it was good... but it skipped one thing. remember when i actually told you the first reason why overpopulation will not be good?

hosting providers could shrink or kill their free plans, and tons of sites go offline because hosting is expensive

neocities "promised" to always have their free plan. but they can do other things with it - shink the free storage limit, shrink the bandwitch available or add more limits for allowed file types. this leaves them with a lot of options when overpopultion would occur.

em... actually... everyone can pay for supporter account

nope, because i'm not going to pay to express myself online. for me it's like buying ads for your own content on social-media. and there are a lot of people who do not have money to pay for a paid account. next - how are we going to determine whether the site is AI or not? should it be banned? it's personal web, but... still, it might be unfair for someone if the admins would decide that it's AI-made.

is this true you can just make more static hosting websites like this with browse functionality to fix all of this?

yes, but who will maintain these alternative websites? if they will provide something better than mainstream static hosting sites like nekoweb or neocities, they would be instantly flood with AI-made content. and this can also led to their free plan being shut down or shrinked.

is AI secretly killing the humanity?

why i decided to put this question in this neocities manifesto? well, i guess the only way to avoid overpopulation is not letting AI-made websites dominate the hosting sites. it's not the perfect solution, but it's the only thing i can actually think of. look at the issue like this:

  • AI-made websites and their webmasters will probably not pay for a paid plan
  • if there will be more people, they will try to have as much content as possible because if they would get seen, they want to share something to gain more views, maybe even followers which will bump them in Special Sauce 2 (after they'll got seen in the same algorithm, by the randomness & activity filter).
  • and when they have so much content, they'll have to buy a supporter plan (or they will be thinking that they have to, when they actually not have to)

more people = more supporters = more funding

that's the only way we can solve this problem in the manifesto. there is no way to bypass that without money. and that's the only way we can give money.