This post has two main purposes in my mind: write an idea down, in case I find myself able to return to it; put the idea “out there,” in case anyone else wants to pick it up and run with it.

About a year ago I had the nebulous idea for a simple directory built around webmention:

  • sites would add themselves by creating a post which sends a webmention to the directory.
  • The directory would retrieve and parse the post to retrieve site name, base url, feed links, etc.
  • Any tags and categories marked with p-category would be used for directory classification and organisation.
  • There would be a simple administrative queue for approvals and data cleanup (parsing errors and the like). Sites wouldn’t appear until they were approved.
  • Site owners could preview what an unapproved directory listing would look like by signing in with IndieAuth. They’d also be able to delist themselves/make changes (also possible through webmention).

I never had a chance to get further than very initial experiments with this, so I’m wondering if I should just let the domain ( expire in a couple of days, or renew it “just in case.” I can’t see me having any extra free time this year to actually do something with the idea.

🔖 Bookmarked: Listen To Me And Not Google by Heydon

“I’ve always been uneasy about Material Design. I understand why Google would want to have their own design system, and I can even appreciate why organizations like Google would want to shout about that system, and how they developed it, as a PR exercise. But Material Design is for you to use. It asks you to design your products as Google would; to make your design work look and feel like Google’s. Why would you want to do that? Then again this is me talking, and I’m the sort of person who refuses to wear a T-shirt with Nike™ emblazoned on it, because I think being a mobile billboard is rather a reductive mode of human existence.”

Heydon (HeydonWorks)