Collected↘
Terms of the free Web

The web is concentrating around a handful of very convenient but predatory and manipulative platforms. The promise of a freed, interconnected and decentralized internet seems further from the truth with every passing day. So you've seen some article on this, and are curious what some of the words mean or where to even start? this is a personal list of personal definitions relating to a freer, more people-to-people web.

So you want to surf the web

Terms to help with browsing, surfing, reading.

Aggregator: Something not much in use today. Aggregators, well... aggregate, bring together many articles by grouping them by topics, so you won't have to spend a hundred hours searching where you can get your online reading from. They usually work with RSS (see below).

Artisan of the web: A person who approaches web development as a careful craft, often with playfulness and a spirit of discovery for more unconventional methods of publishing or styling content. Some of my friends are great web-artisans.

Blog: or weblog. A chronological collection of articles from one website. Having a blog outside of big enclosed social media platforms is the first step towards a more independent and free web experience.

Blogroll: A collection of blogs shown on a personal site. The site's owner "suggests" them to the reader beacause they find them... nice. This makes web surfing more human-to-human, more random and surprisingly enjoyable / enjoyably surprising.

Digital garden: Widely used today, this term differentiates a website from the usual blog or web portal. A digital garden is organized again and again, is subject to constant revisiting and reevaluation, cared for and looked after like a garden where the flowers are our thoughts, our lists, our pictures... If you're more familiar with social media terms, it's akin to changing your Instagram feed to create a specific experience, and not just a sort of image-blog.

Homepage / landing page: This is the first page you fall on, at the root of the website. It presents the content in the site, or the person maintaining it.

Indie web: The web has been taken over by a few big companies essentially in control of most of the content, through meticulous marketing and predatory acquisitions. The indie web is the loose collection of sites that are not affiliated to, hosted on, or controlled by big online platforms. The indie web community actively works to make the web free and independent (again...?)

Link directory / web directory: An online curated list or collection of websites or webpages, usually organised in categories or tagged. This way of navigating through webspace was the norm before search engines. Today, they're commonly found in the wild on independent websites to keep surfing alive. They drastically change the way we experience the web.

Now page / tiny log: Like a blog, but much shorter, and focused on short-form recent updates and timely announcements. If someone wants to know what you're up to, they could check your now page.

Podcast: Not the ones on streaming platforms or YouTube! I'm talking about the originals, audio files stored on the web, like blogs, accessible with a podcast player, through a feed (a file that describes what they are and where to find them). Podcasts are progressively taken over by streaming services that pretend they're the only way you can access web audio content, so you sign up. But you can listen to those through any podcast app, and some even have integrated search so you don't have to bother too much.

RSS Feed: Really Simple Syndication - a file that contains information on the last updates of a website. With a feed reader application, a reader can enjoy getting their news delivered without the hassle of frequent checking-up on one site. See the WiFi-like icon at the top of my site? Copy the link, paste it into an RSS feed reader, and stay up-to-date without a cluttered e-mail inbox.

Web Ring: A group of websites linked together, around one topic. Webrings serve to build communities online, and navigate the web in a more people-to-people approach than the usual sterile search engine. A webring snippet on a webpage links to the previous or next site in line, and sometimes a random one in the ring.

Web shrine: A fan-made website focusing on a specific person or piece of media, posting all things about it. You may encounter these in the wild. They're cool sometimes.