Posted on
by

IF I make a WordPress post and it syndicates via ActivityPub, and someone comments via ActivityPub, that comment makes its way back to my post. This is good.

If someone uses ActivityPub to reply to the reply, that does not seem to make it back. That’s a shame.

I haven’t a clue how to make a change that could make the reply’s reply come back too, but I expect it is complicated. I’m sure someone smart will figure it out eventually.

Posted on
by

Adrian J. Watts

@lordmatt I'm new to the , but the way I have understood it is two-fold, and neither part of my understanding aligns with your concerns.

1. Making what you need results in creating what you want, not what an existing tool will allow you to or encourage you to. For example, I just made a tool to convert my Markdown into blog posts using my HTML post template. That's ALL it does. Since I am not using a prefab tool, I don't have to align with what it wants (a problem I had with Hugo, Jekyll, Publii, etc).

2. People should help each other, and use each other's stuff. My knowledge of CSS is exceptionally limited, and I learned it by View Source-ing pages which had things I liked and seeing how they did it. Literally all I know is how to style links, including hover effects. Any other CSS I use is basically lifted from pages and altered – I get how it works, but would be stumped doing it from scratch. 'How did this guy make his background a red gradient? Oh, there it is. Cool. I'll use it and change red to blue.' I am sure people would also walk me through it or teach me if I asked.

People shouldn't be making a bread knife to help make a cheese sandwich, if there are bread knives out there. But at the same time, they shouldn't go out and use a $15 ultra-sharp-edged diamond-cut knife (which might try very hard to get you to cut your sandwich into triangles, too, because everyone wants triangles whether they know it or not) if they can just use someone else's bread knife or have someone cut it with them.

Does that make sense?

More broadly speaking, though, I do agree with your points – and as someone who is not very tech-savvy, I know that it can be extremely difficult TO make what you need! Or even know what you need… so it can be great to look at other people's bread knives and how they have used them.

14 January 2026, 06:59 0 boosts 0 favorites

Not only does it make a lot of sense, but I have started to come round to the idea that Make What You Need might be a great idea. Your comment and ones like it have caused me to revise my thinking.

My follow-up to this was: Okay, “make what you need” might be good for the IndieWeb’s future after all

I really appreciate the way IndieWeb folks are happy to take the time to converse and disagree with me in a persuasive way. Comments like yours will help me grow and improve. (Also, I do love a well-constructed metaphor.)

Posted on
by

Coyote writes that AI is bad for the IndieWeb, and I kinda have to agree. For all I find AI to be a fun toy to play with, I can see all the dangers to our way of doing the web that it can bring.

Surfability is one of the things AI threatens (Coyote tells us), and I don’t like that. This week, I was thrilled to reconnect with a beloved family member because of SEO, surfability, onsite links, and open social media (ActivityPub). I doubt that could have ever happened in a world where everyone just asks AI for stuff.

Posted on
by

I get this (pictured)

screenshot of badly mangled HTML where all the elements are layed on top of each other which is super annoying

From this?

        <style>
        .site-index {
            width: 100% !important;
            position: relative !important;
            margin: 1em auto !important;
            padding: 0 !important; 
            list-style: none !important;
            overflow: visible !important;

        }
        .site-index .site {
            display: block !important;
            width: 50% !important;         
            margin: 1rem 0 1rem 0 !important;
            float:none !important;
            min-height:1em !important;
            overflow: visible;
        }

        </style>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            jQuery(document).ready(function() {
                // init Masonry
                var $grid = jQuery('.site-index').masonry({
                   itemSelector: '.site', 
                   columnWidth: '50%', 
                   percentPosition: true
                });
            });
        </script>