An Inquiry

Hello friends. I have a simple question: do you wish there was anything different about neocities?

I would agree half of its charm is precisely how it isn’t anything more than it is. This especially jives with my uncomfortable level of indifference that I’m ashamed to have but nevertheless so I find comfort in the obscurity and mild monotony, smudge of futility.

Maybe this inquiry could point to a larger problem which I will instead ignore entirely because you must remember, any sort of deep analysis like that may as well be circle running to nowhere.

Regardless, do you wish there was something different here? You very well know my position on the matter, but perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps it would be amusing to, the same as myspace, to allow a user to decorate their profile page with whatever CSS they want. Maybe not.

I remember reading one offhand request for a wish to control how site updates are created and managed. To reorder the pages displayed. Honestly, if such a feature were on neocities, I’d feel too ashamed to use it; half of the time I feel ashamed even having a site update, but I ignore that too.

One could imagine a more robust comment system, but I think the current comment system is preferable to those who would rather express and talk through their website. I would argue half the appeal of neocities is how one feels forced into writing more extensive replies on their website rather than in the comments, perhaps.

As with each suggestion, whether to update the code editor, or perhaps features to eliminate the buggy view counter entirely, to… I don’t know. The more I write about it the more I feel that, I mean, at least for me, the reason I even have a website is because it feels like a partial comatose. To live with a breathing all choppy and each update and each post comes as an exhale until stranded in Appalachia wondering maybe it’s time to make a farm.

The more this inquiry progresses the more I feel certain in this comatose state. Out of curiosity I dug up an archive link to a rather prominent neocities contributor that I never really bothered to follow or keep much tabs on until they were gone. All of their critiques are valid. I would say I partly struggle to believe doing anything more would fix anything: I have a hard time honestly turning to someone and saying, you know what, you should make a website too. Half the time I am ashamed to say I have a website; but that’s probably because there’s no profit motive underlying.

This is at least what has been most agreeable to me… because the thought of having some xitter and dropping hot takes on the latest politics, or being an active contributor in some niche, fills me with a deep shame honestly. The other day I started writing up an opinion in a programming forum I frequent but I deleted it because I couldn’t even see the point in that. Just a shame of not doing anything else, at least reading, enjoying the quiet or having a more meaningful input/output to match the malaise one can reach if they are eager enough.

I feel mostly convinced that there is nothing more to be done about the situation, but I am open to a disgruntled opinion. I don’t believe there is much more that could be done to “improve” the situation, unless you abandon the precepts that make neocities at least attractive to me: that is, no notifications, little to no traffic, obscurity, stilted conversations, I don’t know, I can’t imagine an alternative.

Nevertheless, despite being mostly convinced, I still have to ask you: do you wish there was anything different?

Do you feel you’re leaving a mark on the world, in this place of (relative) stagnation? Did having a website make a difference? Are you better off being here, or are you swayed by the comatose too and the inability to imagine anything else?