i don't like neocities

mrwillhorlen · Post by **mrwillhorlen** » Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:20 pm

it has too many restrictions, when i first registered my website prior i found out i can't use autoplay and embed, nor can i upload video files and other formats excluded
it also doesn't accept scripting languages other than javascript (that i don't like) unless you upgrade for a paid subscription
"but it's only five dollars a month!" that's the problem, i don't even have to explain it
i think github pages is the way to go, although while harder it's more expansive and especially you can fork ready-made web building elements from others

Starfighter · Post by **Starfighter** » Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:45 pm

You're right, neocities isn't for everyone. Luckily for me it allows me to accomplish what I want, but I'll keep the github thingy in mind for the future if I find myself wanting more!

techramancer · Post by **techramancer** » Thu Jan 12, 2023 5:09 pm

Understandable, but it's also specifically for a niche group of web developers that are trying to avoid overuse of Web2 functionality.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Thu Jan 12, 2023 6:14 pm

I personally love Neocities, but it would be great to see this community diversify a bit and use other similar hosts. As great as I think Neocities is, a monopoly is still a monopoly.

However, I don't think Github is the way to go, as it's owned by Microsoft. Not only is it beg tech, which is one of the things I imagine this movement is supposed to get away from, but Microsoft is no exception with it's privacy concerns and data collection.

The main alternative web host to Neocities that I know of is itci.city.

There are a few tilde hosts that I think support other scripts, and there's also geocities.ws, and Vistaserv if you happen to live in Australia. (Not sure if they allow anyone from outside)

nikkiana · Post by **nikkiana** » Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:06 am

There are really no shortage of free and semi-free low-cost hosting options available, so if you don't like one doesn't fit your particular needs for some reason, there are always others you can try.

No one hosting provider is going to be everything to everyone, and personally... I don't mind Neocities limitations for their free accounts, it works just fine for the languages I'm writing in and I think $5 is a very reasonable price for extended functionality, and those that pay that expense keep the doors open for people who cannot afford to pay at this time. I believe it's also run by just one guy, so it's pretty independent and its core audience is recreational web developers who are in many cases just learning to code by making a personal website.

GitHub Pages which is a subproduct of Github, the software hosting and version control system, is also a perfectly valid choice, and yes... Github is owned by Microsoft which some people might find problematic if they want to be a complete purist and avoid being on a corporate owned platform. However, it isn't a bad idea to learn how to use Github if you want to be a professional developer or to start to contribute to open source projects someday. Github is an extremely common tool you're going to find out in the industry. It's free to use for regular folks because Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar company and many corporations have enterprise level accounts and host their internal code on Github.

And there are many many others.... Glitch.com comes to mind as one that has a very active learning community around it, and provides ways for sharing code between users of the platform.

Plus, there are so many Web 2.0 era tools like CMSes and blogging platforms and hosting companies that also exist and building something using those types of platforms is 100% valid as well.

I think it's important to remember that not everyone is going to to like or need or want to use the same tools, and that is totally okay. What matters the most is that YOU like the tools that you're using to build your website and the process is working for you. Don't worry about what other people are using or doing.

rina · Post by **rina** » Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:56 pm

mrwillhorlen wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:20 pm but it's only five dollars a month!

and so is literal VPS server if you know how to set it up, or pretty decent proper webhost. even paid neocities is quite limited. but you're paying for a passion project afaik not a lot of people work for nc. but yeah im not a big fan either

GaryStu · Post by **GaryStu** » Mon Jan 23, 2023 4:27 pm

Do people remember Geocities? I mean, REALLY remember Geocities? The backed was such a bloated chore to navigate, it was a huge pain. Neocities is so much better than web hosts of yore...

...But its not for everyone.

I pretty much mirror the thread sentiments that not everything is for everyone and that's ok. The limits on what types of files free neocities accounts are allowed to upload are nonsense though. Hate 'em.

Theres so many Good Github pages too, a lot of sites that rule hard on Github.

Really, Wix is the only wrong choice for a free website lol.

Also, I use WordPress. sorry

yequari · Post by **yequari** » Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:40 pm

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Tue Jan 24, 2023 6:31 am

That's Ok I get it different venues attract different people. Even back in the days of Geocities it was viewed as the WordPress of the day. Alternatives of Geocities were Angelfire and Tripod in the early 2000's.

fLaMEd · Post by **fLaMEd** » Tue Jan 24, 2023 7:39 am

GaryStu wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 4:27 pm Do people remember Geocities? I mean, REALLY remember Geocities? The backed was such a bloated chore to navigate, it was a huge pain. Neocities is so much better than web hosts of yore...

Yes

My ISP web hosting was so much better

I had a few pages on Geocities, but as soon as I became friends with people with server space, that was me.

---

If anyone wants easy static web hosting, try Netlify Drop.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Tue Jan 24, 2023 5:03 pm

fLaMEd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 7:39 am If anyone wants easy static web hosting, try Netlify Drop.

Oof, just had a look at their ToS, they collect your personal data to give to advertisers. I wouldn't go near them, personally.

fLaMEd · Post by **fLaMEd** » Tue Jan 24, 2023 8:25 pm

Cobra! wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 5:03 pm
fLaMEd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 7:39 am If anyone wants easy static web hosting, try Netlify Drop.
Oof, just had a look at their ToS, they collect your personal data to give to advertisers. I wouldn't go near them, personally.

Where did you see this? I can't find any reference to these claims. Can you share?

Reviewing their privacy policy, https://www.netlify.com/privacy/, it's clear that they do not do this unless explicitly given permission.

Netlify takes your privacy seriously. We will not sell, lease, or exchange your personal data to, or otherwise share your personal data with, third parties in ways other than described in this Privacy Policy.

Disclosure

We will only share your information with third parties in accordance with your instructions or as necessary to provide you with a specific service or otherwise in accordance with applicable privacy legislation. As a general rule, we do not and will not sell, rent, share or disclose your personal information without first receiving your permission or as permitted in this Privacy Policy.

Reviewing their terms of service, https://www.netlify.com/legal/terms-of-use/, in the "Your Content" section, they mention they share aggregated and non-identifying information with third parties. This is not personal information. For businesses, this type of data is collected at a high level to monitor, operate and improve their services.

Netlify shall have the right to collect and analyze data and other information relating to the provision, use and performance of various aspects of the Website and related systems. Netlify will use such data to administer, improve and develop its products and services, including the Services; and Netlify may share aggregated and non-identifying information with third parties. You acknowledge that Netlify may also share any Content and Your information if the disclosure is necessary to comply with a valid court order or subpoena.

Right at the end, if law enforcement is chasing you for something, Netlify will comply with court orders.

I don't see any reference to advertising or advertisers at all.

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:19 pm

GaryStu wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 4:27 pm Do people remember Geocities? I mean, REALLY remember Geocities? The backed was such a bloated chore to navigate, it was a huge pain. Neocities is so much better than web hosts of yore...

...But its not for everyone.

I pretty much mirror the thread sentiments that not everything is for everyone and that's ok. The limits on what types of files free neocities accounts are allowed to upload are nonsense though. Hate 'em.

Theres so many Good Github pages too, a lot of sites that rule hard on Github.

Really, Wix is the only wrong choice for a free website lol.

Also, I use WordPress. sorry

Yes I remember 20 years ago Geocities was known for having pop up ads that scared everyone into wondering if their computer had entered a Security threat.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:56 am

fLaMEd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 8:25 pm Where did you see this? I can't find any reference to these claims. Can you share?

Reviewing their privacy policy, https://www.netlify.com/privacy/, it's clear that they do not do this unless explicitly given permission.

Netlify takes your privacy seriously. We will not sell, lease, or exchange your personal data to, or otherwise share your personal data with, third parties in ways other than described in this Privacy Policy.

Disclosure

We will only share your information with third parties in accordance with your instructions or as necessary to provide you with a specific service or otherwise in accordance with applicable privacy legislation. As a general rule, we do not and will not sell, rent, share or disclose your personal information without first receiving your permission or as permitted in this Privacy Policy.
Reviewing their terms of service, https://www.netlify.com/legal/terms-of-use/, in the "Your Content" section, they mention they share aggregated and non-identifying information with third parties. This is not personal information. For businesses, this type of data is collected at a high level to monitor, operate and improve their services.

Netlify shall have the right to collect and analyze data and other information relating to the provision, use and performance of various aspects of the Website and related systems. Netlify will use such data to administer, improve and develop its products and services, including the Services; and Netlify may share aggregated and non-identifying information with third parties. You acknowledge that Netlify may also share any Content and Your information if the disclosure is necessary to comply with a valid court order or subpoena.
Right at the end, if law enforcement is chasing you for something, Netlify will comply with court orders.

I don't see any reference to advertising or advertisers at all.

Well, to address the first point, it says here in the privacy policy.

By providing personal information to us and by retaining us to provide you with the Services, you voluntarily consent to the collection, use and disclosure of such personal information as specified in this Privacy Policy.

Which I interpreted as "You sign up for us, you agree to get your data collected", unless I'm wrong.

Later on, it says the data will be used for their marketing activities, which I'm not sure means selling to advertisers now, but it is still vague and can be interpreted either way.

Regardless, it makes me wonder how Netlify gets their money to keep afloat. I know they have plans, but I imagine the vast majority of users don't pay for that, so the money has to some from somewhere, right?

fLaMEd · Post by **fLaMEd** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:02 am

Which I interpreted as "You sign up for us, you agree to get your data collected", unless I'm wrong.

Yes. Going through the sign-up process, you enter the details you are willing to share with them. Nothing malicious here. You provide it; they collect it. They're not going through any nefarious means to secretly collect the data from you and build shadow profiles on you.

This is similar to your or my homepages, where we have an email link, an email form or a guestbook where visitors can enter their name, email, URL, message etc. They provide, and we collect. (I noticed that you use a third party for your guestbook that collects that information and stores cookies for your visitors).

I've just reviewed their sign-up form, and they require your email address and password. Looking at my account, there is no personally identifiable information.

If I wanted to use any of their non-free tier features, I would have to give them payment details, but I choose not to.

Their marketing activities are email newsletters. The data collected when you provide it to them is your email address. You can opt out of receiving marketing emails and product updates from them.

I can find no mention of advertisers or advertising. Yes, they are a service provider with tiered pricing plans for enterprise customers, where they will make their money. Their free tier is generous, with limits. Their market is not the hobby user. However, it is an excellent service to spin up test sites or demos.

But hey, if a service like Netlify doesn't fit your threat model, good for you

It's cool that you're into privacy and all that! Take the time to read, understand, ask questions before throwing out facebook worthy statements ;)

GaryStu · Post by **GaryStu** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 6:43 am

Blog47177 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:19 pm
Yes I remember 20 years ago Geocities was known for having pop up ads that scared everyone into wondering if their computer had entered a Security threat.

Popup blockers were truly the first adblockers.

Its interesting how Geocities has entered the nostalgia zeitgeist so thoroughly, when competing services like Tripod and Angelfire are barely fondly remembered.

It might be because Geocities was the most popular, and people remember the popular thing. It's shutting down may also add to its mystique - Tripod and Angelfire never shut down. Although they did switch to being paid only services and that super sucks, they still honour their old free webpages. Not that they're doing so altruistically - I assume they're doing the Photobucket thing and trying to extort their old account owners into paying up - but they are doing it.

Geocities shutting down may have aided its popularity because it means a lot of people have also done work towards archiving Geocities and making it easy to browse. Tripod and Angelfire never got that attention. There's no easy way to look for old pages on those services, and its a shame because they're every bit as epic as old Geocities pages AND live on the internet right now. No archive dot org baybee.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:14 am

fLaMEd wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:02 am But hey, if a service like Netlify doesn't fit your threat model, good for you

No no, it’s fine. I was just wondering that if they were just using it for emails and such, they’d have just said so, right?

So it sounds like Netlify is fine on that front. My bad for misreading the privacy policy.

Personally, though, not a fan of how it presents itself. It feels too… modern. Which goes against everything I stand for.

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:27 pm

GaryStu wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 6:43 am
Blog47177 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:19 pm
Yes I remember 20 years ago Geocities was known for having pop up ads that scared everyone into wondering if their computer had entered a Security threat.
Popup blockers were truly the first adblockers.

Its interesting how Geocities has entered the nostalgia zeitgeist so thoroughly, when competing services like Tripod and Angelfire are barely fondly remembered.

It might be because Geocities was the most popular, and people remember the popular thing. It's shutting down may also add to its mystique - Tripod and Angelfire never shut down. Although they did switch to being paid only services and that super sucks, they still honour their old free webpages. Not that they're doing so altruistically - I assume they're doing the Photobucket thing and trying to extort their old account owners into paying up - but they are doing it.

Geocities shutting down may have aided its popularity because it means a lot of people have also done work towards archiving Geocities and making it easy to browse. Tripod and Angelfire never got that attention. There's no easy way to look for old pages on those services, and its a shame because they're every bit as epic as old Geocities pages AND live on the internet right now. No archive dot org baybee.

https://advertising.lycos.com/brands/

Interestingly Tripod and Angel fire still exist as a brand within Lycos. When I looked that up.

rina · Post by **rina** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:41 pm

Cobra! wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:14 am
fLaMEd wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:02 am But hey, if a service like Netlify doesn't fit your threat model, good for you
No no, it’s fine. I was just wondering that if they were just using it for emails and such, they’d have just said so, right?

So it sounds like Netlify is fine on that front. My bad for misreading the privacy policy.

Personally, though, not a fan of how it presents itself. It feels too… modern. Which goes against everything I stand for.

anything but services you host from your room have to collect some data for legal reasons.
you want a vps? you need to leave you address, legal name (eww), payment info, etc
same is if you want a domain name..

idk how much personal info netlify asks for now, back when i used it, they were basically just getting your email and your github username. you used to have to do pulls for ur website to be live. but yeah, netlify is meant for modern serverless apps. like for an example youd host frontend with them to save on costs, and have ur backend with firebase, aws, etc

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:41 pm

rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:41 pm anything but services you host from your room have to collect some data for legal reasons.
you want a vps? you need to leave you address, legal name (eww), payment info, etc
same is if you want a domain name..

Yeah, that makes sense. I have no issue with that. I only have issue when data I don't consent to getting collected is collected.

rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:41 pm idk how much personal info netlify asks for now, back when i used it, they were basically just getting your email and your github username. you used to have to do pulls for ur website to be live. but yeah, netlify is meant for modern serverless apps. like for an example youd host frontend with them to save on costs, and have ur backend with firebase, aws, etc

Yeah, I guess that's why I'm not a fan. It sounds very normie.

rina · Post by **rina** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:45 pm

Cobra! wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:41 pm Yeah, I guess that's why I'm not a fan. The mention of Firebase and AWS. It sounds very normie.

yeah i don't even understand why corporations and even some people prefer AWS over regular VPS.
with AWS, databases, loadbalancing, bandwidth and computing are all seperate charges, while you get everything in one package and for much cheaper if u rent a VPS or dedi

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:40 pm

rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:45 pm yeah i don't even understand why corporations and even some people prefer AWS over regular VPS.
with AWS, databases, loadbalancing, bandwidth and computing are all seperate charges, while you get everything in one package and for much cheaper if u rent a VPS or dedi

Really? So AWS survives just on the Amazon brand?

rina · Post by **rina** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:08 pm

Cobra! wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:40 pm
rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:45 pm yeah i don't even understand why corporations and even some people prefer AWS over regular VPS.
with AWS, databases, loadbalancing, bandwidth and computing are all seperate charges, while you get everything in one package and for much cheaper if u rent a VPS or dedi
Really? So AWS survives just on the Amazon brand?

basically lol. few years back someone hosted their website on a normal VPS, but had a S3 droplet just to dunk on amazon. they had a video embedded and comment was like this video costs me 15 cents every (i forgot) views.
basically bandwith is an upcharge on aws. and if u dont want to install ur own databases on ur compute unit, they'll charge you to use their "serverless" databases that use some weird version of SQL. google cloud is quite similar too.

in corporate cloud computing space, altho similar to other two, id say oracle is the best, u can run a decently big website FOR FREE (well u need to pay for domain but still). you get compute unit with an arm cpu, with a lot of ram, a lot of cores and 200GB storage w dedicated ipv6 and 10TB of bandwidth per month is FREE of charge

self hosting at home, or paying some low-end VPS per month is probably better, but i've been more than happy with what oracle basically give out for free. their history of data missuse is concerning, but other than that, their cloud service is toptier

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:59 pm

rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:08 pm self hosting at home, or paying some low-end VPS per month is probably better,

I have been considering using a VPS to host stuff like game updates and videos, things I don't want to fill my Neocities site storage with. What would you recommend?

rina · Post by **rina** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:50 pm

Cobra! wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:59 pm
rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:08 pm self hosting at home, or paying some low-end VPS per month is probably better,
I have been considering using a VPS to host stuff like game updates and videos, things I don't want to fill my Neocities site storage with. What would you recommend?

i atm use oracle free tier services.

from paid ones ive tried OVH, digital ocean and vultur. OVH is best for europe, digital ocean is most popular and vultur has good na servers

nikkiana · Post by **nikkiana** » Thu Jan 26, 2023 12:34 am

rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:45 pm yeah i don't even understand why corporations and even some people prefer AWS over regular VPS.
with AWS, databases, loadbalancing, bandwidth and computing are all seperate charges, while you get everything in one package and for much cheaper if u rent a VPS or dedi

I can't speak for every case, but a lot of the times in corporations... infrastructure decisions don't get made by the most technical people. They get made by managers and accountants, and the technical folks get told which tools they're using and just sorta make it work.

That's why you see advertisements for things like AWS during things like sporting events on TV despite the fact the average person doesn't care what a service like AWS is. They're targeting managers who work at big corporations who are making infrastructure decisions at work.

yequari · Post by **yequari** » Thu Jan 26, 2023 4:52 am

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Sat Jan 28, 2023 11:44 pm

nikkiana wrote: ↑Thu Jan 26, 2023 12:34 am
rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:45 pm yeah i don't even understand why corporations and even some people prefer AWS over regular VPS.
with AWS, databases, loadbalancing, bandwidth and computing are all seperate charges, while you get everything in one package and for much cheaper if u rent a VPS or dedi
I can't speak for every case, but a lot of the times in corporations... infrastructure decisions don't get made by the most technical people. They get made by managers and accountants, and the technical folks get told which tools they're using and just sorta make it work.

That's why you see advertisements for things like AWS during things like sporting events on TV despite the fact the average person doesn't care what a service like AWS is. They're targeting managers who work at big corporations who are making infrastructure decisions at work.

I seen squarespace, wix and Weebly get brought up for doing web pages and it is aiming at managers too.

Starfia · Post by **Starfia** » Tue Jan 31, 2023 10:57 pm

mrwillhorlen – I'd say that's a concise sweep of Neocities' pros and cons and I'd agree with you that it isn't for everyone.

I also don't really use it creatively, but I tremendously respect Kyle Drake's work in starting and maintaining Neocities – in my mind, it's the first recent platform that's proven a modern, free web-hosting option like GeoCities can still succeed and grow to a point of stability, which is an incredible accomplishment for a team of one or two people. Its funding comes from users, which helps it exist for free for other users. As far as I know, it's a closed loop which excludes privacy-harvesting data companies that other platforms actively involve.

And I credit it for figuring directly into the history of the Yesterweb community, of course, so it seems reasonable to suppose "I don't like Neocities" may imply "I don't like the platform that gave rise to the forum on which I'm posting this message," though I wouldn't say that's necessarily self-contradictory. (I'd be interested to hear the management's insight on that question.)

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Sun Feb 05, 2023 4:19 pm

mrwillhorlen wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:20 pm it has too many restrictions, when i first registered my website prior i found out i can't use autoplay and embed, nor can i upload video files and other formats excluded
it also doesn't accept scripting languages other than javascript (that i don't like) unless you upgrade for a paid subscription
"but it's only five dollars a month!" that's the problem, i don't even have to explain it
i think github pages is the way to go, although while harder it's more expansive and especially you can fork ready-made web building elements from others

OK then but then again Neocities is meant for artists. I donate $60 a year in one lump donation to cover the entire year for my pages and so the platform can live on.

I understand what you mean though its not exactly like GeoCities, Angelfire and Tripod were at their peaks. But this is one of a few places for artists today that want to relive the late 1990's-2005 approx.

littlebeggar · Post by **littlebeggar** » Mon Feb 06, 2023 3:55 pm

I didn't see this one promoted, let me promote https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ which I have had positive experiences with

I think the crowd around here is ALREADY pretty self-selected for high tech interest (if not knowledge already, willingness to learn niche stuff) and this is not something everyone wants to get into, but the tools that exist are pretty powerful and I really like selfhosting.

(I don't do it lmao, but I have a email address a friend hosts, and I get to benefit from a lot of his web services!)

hermit · Post by **hermit** » Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:18 pm

i'll put another good word in for nearlyfreespeech. the idea is that you only pay for what you use, and for static sites is often peanuts. there are also safeguards in the event you get some kind of huge traffic spike. i have been using them since 2011 or so.

i will echo what littlebeggar said, if you are not the type of person who can fix problems on your own, and are not willing to learn, you might look elsewhere. part of the reason they are so affordable is because they don't have to hire support staff to field general questions. you can pay for extended support, but that certainly depends on how much you're willing to spend. they do have a free, thorough FAQ and member wiki, as well as a forum where staff will often answer questions or at least point you in the right direction.

fortunately, static sites are simple, and very cheap. there's a price estimator tool here: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/estimate.

----------

i think another important factor of neocities is the community/discovery aspect. there's a certain culture there, and you (generally) know what to expect - for better or worse. i am a proponent of separating community+discovery tools from hosting providers - this is what makes communities like yesterweb different from neocities.

lime360 · Post by **lime360** » Thu Feb 09, 2023 7:14 am

mrwillhorlen wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:20 pm i think github pages is the way to go, although while harder it's more expansive and especially you can fork ready-made web building elements from others

i use github pages to host html5 build of my games and then link them to my website

i also made a workflow yml that makes my site deploying expirience similar to github pages deploy

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Sat Feb 11, 2023 1:16 am

Here are 16 platforms that claim to be alternatives to Neocities.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Sun Feb 12, 2023 11:04 am

Blog47177 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 1:16 am

Here are 16 platforms that claim to be alternatives to Neocities.

I totally get why some people might not like Neocities, but I'd certainly not say Google or Squarespace are good alternatives. Commercialism and data harvesting aside, they have completely different markets, do they not?

I actually used ucoz before Neocities, and it was okay, but it felt very rough and thrown together, and the native language of the people behind it wasn't English, so it's difficult to get support.

Honestly, I feel like mainstreaming hosting solutions targeted to people like you or me have the exact same problems Neocities has. If it want full control over your site and the backend stuff, I'd just buy a VPS.

On a side note, watching the video, this seems to be something generated by a bot. Just using a search function to find generic hosts, and then throw together a video containing text and images it fetched. I didn't even know that was a thing that you could do...

amagicmuffin · Post by **amagicmuffin** » Mon Feb 13, 2023 1:46 am

Cobra! wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 11:04 am On a side note, watching the video, this seems to be something generated by a bot. Just using a search function to find generic hosts, and then throw together a video containing text and images it fetched. I didn't even know that was a thing that you could do...

haha my instagram explore feed brought this article to my attention a while back: https://www.slowine.com/how-to-make-a-3 ... ne-bottle/

Its funny how bad it is but yeah, that it exists at all is something to think about i guess. Mainpage seems to indicate that they publish 10 posts a day, each having some reasonably long word counts.

Post by **AuzzieJay** » Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:02 am

I loathe Neocities. I am a supporter and think it opens up the creativity for smaller creators. But Neocities is so limited in many ways, but mainly by Kyle- the creator of Neocities. There have been no meaningful updates for ages, no moderation to speak of. To make things worse it's open-source but you can't fork it- it's broken.

If we could fork Neocities and create more robust versions of it that didn't depend on an inactive developer, apply actual moderation, then it could be thriving community. Right now Neocities is a time-bomb and a cesspool, where bigots, nazis, transphobes and more thrive.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:04 am

amagicmuffin wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 1:46 am
Cobra! wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 11:04 am On a side note, watching the video, this seems to be something generated by a bot. Just using a search function to find generic hosts, and then throw together a video containing text and images it fetched. I didn't even know that was a thing that you could do...
haha my instagram explore feed brought this article to my attention a while back: https://www.slowine.com/how-to-make-a-3 ... ne-bottle/

Its funny how bad it is but yeah, that it exists at all is something to think about i guess. Mainpage seems to indicate that they publish 10 posts a day, each having some reasonably long word counts.

Yeah, that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the site at all. I take it this is all AI generated?

AuzzieJay wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:02 am Right now Neocities is a time-bomb and a cesspool, where bigots, nazis, transphobes and more thrive.

Is it? I’ve never seen any such content on Neocities?

Post by **AuzzieJay** » Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:28 am

AuzzieJay wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:02 am Right now Neocities is a time-bomb and a cesspool, where bigots, nazis, transphobes and more thrive.

Is it? I’ve never seen any such content on Neocities?
[/quote]

It's pretty prevalent. Obviously I won't link to anything but if you mainly find people through other people following people you won't find them because if you follow 'good' folks and they follow other 'good' folks then you won't see it. An easy Google search of Neocities for keywords and you'll find what I'm talking about.

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Mon Feb 13, 2023 4:11 am

AuzzieJay wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:28 am
Cobra! wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:04 am
AuzzieJay wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:02 am Right now Neocities is a time-bomb and a cesspool, where bigots, nazis, transphobes and more thrive.
Is it? I’ve never seen any such content on Neocities?
It's pretty prevalent. Obviously I won't link to anything but if you mainly find people through other people following people you won't find them because if you follow 'good' folks and they follow other 'good' folks then you won't see it. An easy Google search of Neocities for keywords and you'll find what I'm talking about.

I didn’t find many sites that matched your description. Could be down to me not know what exactly to search for, but perhaps the fact you need to know what to look for is a sign that it isn’t actually that prevalent?

I do agree, though, the potential for that kind of content is there regardless, and Neocities needs stronger moderation. How are we going to find someone to make a fork doing exactly this, though?

Rynn · Post by **Rynn** » Mon Feb 13, 2023 1:14 pm

Cobra! wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:40 pm
rina wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:45 pm yeah i don't even understand why corporations and even some people prefer AWS over regular VPS.
with AWS, databases, loadbalancing, bandwidth and computing are all seperate charges, while you get everything in one package and for much cheaper if u rent a VPS or dedi
Really? So AWS survives just on the Amazon brand?

Not quite. There's a few related reasons why Amazon is used so much.

First out of the gate. AWS was one of the first widely available cloud computing services. Which lead to...
Early corporate adoption. Which lead to...
Lots of folks in IT learning AWS first and getting certified in it.

It's for the reasons above that I find myself having to work with AWS at work far more than any other options.

For my personal stuff, I use Vultr. Easy to use, well priced, API seems to work well, and best of all they have OpenBSD available as a first-class citizen for their VPSs, which is actually the main reason I ended up choosing them over Digital Ocean (who recently dropped their FreeBSD support).

amagicmuffin · Post by **amagicmuffin** » Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:26 am

Cobra! wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:04 am Yeah, that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the site at all. I take it this is all AI generated?

yeah, i'm fairly sure that entire blog is ai generated. That particular post was the one that just happened to go wrong most noticeably. (Wine is a computer application, but wine is also the alcoholic drink that the blog was supposed to talk about.)

Cobra! · Post by **Cobra!** » Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:48 am

amagicmuffin wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:26 am
Cobra! wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:04 am Yeah, that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the site at all. I take it this is all AI generated?
yeah, i'm fairly sure that entire blog is ai generated. That particular post was the one that just happened to go wrong most noticeably. (Wine is a computer application, but wine is also the alcoholic drink that the blog was supposed to talk about.)

Yeah, I guessed that. I imagine that’s going to be the future of the internet. Trying to search a tech problem for solutions, only to be met with SEO AI generated articles spouting mostly nonsense. We get those already, but I fear the issue is going to be worse because these articles look more human.

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:37 am

Cobra! wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 4:11 am
AuzzieJay wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:28 am
Cobra! wrote: ↑Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:04 am

Is it? I’ve never seen any such content on Neocities?

It's pretty prevalent. Obviously I won't link to anything but if you mainly find people through other people following people you won't find them because if you follow 'good' folks and they follow other 'good' folks then you won't see it. An easy Google search of Neocities for keywords and you'll find what I'm talking about.
I didn’t find many sites that matched your description. Could be down to me not know what exactly to search for, but perhaps the fact you need to know what to look for is a sign that it isn’t actually that prevalent?

I do agree, though, the potential for that kind of content is there regardless, and Neocities needs stronger moderation. How are we going to find someone to make a fork doing exactly this, though?

Agreed and the biggest neocities pages are for artists. I have not seen any far right stuff so far but then again this is personal sampling here.
Maybe we need to form a fediverse answer to Neocities one way or another but how exactly is yet to be verified.

Do you mean the original Geocities having hate content or Angelfire sure if that's what you mean but it was labeled as Fringe at the time. The argument has to be when Yahoo was facing stuff at the time back when they were "Big Tech" of the late 1990's and Early 2000's and the topic was Hate Speech on the net centered around certain Geocities pages.

https://gizmodo.com/interview-with-geoc ... 1849179509

. Gizmodo: Yeah, I don’t remember hate speech being that much of a problem on GeoCities.

DB: We had no community for it. The communities were about particular subjects and subject matter. So that was sort of kept consistent and clean.

Gizmodo: Some of the biggest challenges that social media networks face nowadays are related to content moderation, curtailing hate, and stopping misinformation. What do you think about these challenges and did you face anything similar in the days of GeoCities?

DB: We faced exactly the same challenges companies are facing today, and the only way we could deal with those was to continue to enhance our content guidelines and be very, very deliberate—very, very strict. We just banned all sorts of speech that is allowed today. We wouldn’t allow it on the platform. And the way we did that was within each community we would give actual users the tools to browse their neighborhoods and browse their particular subject matter and kick people off [when they] were inconsistent with the content guidelines. I think it was easier for us because we were organized based on specific subject matter. We didn’t have an open forum for hate speech, for example. If you were creating a country music page in one of our communities, if it wasn’t about country music, you got kicked out. We were a very curated community that leveraged the power of the community to monitor and maintain the integrity of the subjects.

Now, the much larger question about something like Twitter or Facebook—I don’t know. I mean, that’s a problem that no one has really been able to solve and I think many of these platforms have abdicated their responsibility for dealing with hate speech. It could be a role for government in terms of [creating] content guidelines. I mean, you can’t go on broadcast television to say the things that people say online. You just can’t, there are standards. There are broadcast standards that prevent stations from airing that kind of content. There’s certainly a model for having standards and content. People forget that. They think, “Oh, you know, it can never be done.” You can’t tune into any broadcast channel and see anywhere near the hate speech we’re seeing online. So why can’t that be regulated the same way it is on broadcast?

Blog47177 · Post by **Blog47177** » Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:51 am

https://www.angelfire.lycos.com/

Here is Angel fire and it's home page still exists and it's nearly 27 years old. Congrats.