IndieWeb

This blog, and many of my websites, take advantage of some of the microformat features available in the IndieWeb - a system of user-centric services & formats to wrest some identity controls back from the hands of the corporate web. Authentication, commenting, subscriptions, notifications, and more are all made available by wrangling existing microformats and wrapping some services.

If you use some of the larger web publishing software options, you probably have IndieWeb support available either built-in, or via plugins. In particular, I’d recommend checking out Webmentions as an alternative or supplement to your commenting system. It allows individuals to write their own blog posts or articles in response to your own and then send your system a “mention” that notifies the sites of the relationship. They’re a bit like the old “pingbacks” but in a less terrible way.

This site is now set up to receive webmentions (theoretically). So if you do write something and want to reference me, give it a shot.

To be honest, a lot of the patchwork services that make up IndieWeb implementations is pretty new and not well set up for new users. I get quickly eye-glazed looking at some of the internals. IndieAuth is extremely simple, but Webmentions is a pain involving 4 different service types working in tandem. The work is good and important, though, and I hope it continues to gain popularity.