I joined the IndieWeb, here’s what I learned

我加入了 IndieWeb，以下是我的心得

Driven by curiosity, I decided to find out what the IndieWeb tag that kept showing up on some blogs and Mastodon toots was all about. I quickly discovered it was more than an empty concept or a feeling of nostalgia for the web of the 90s. It was a movement with concrete ideas, protocols and an active community! 出于好奇，我决定一探究竟，看看那些在博客和 Mastodon 帖文中频繁出现的“IndieWeb”标签到底是什么。我很快发现，这不仅仅是一个空洞的概念，也不是对 90 年代互联网的怀旧情结。它是一场拥有具体理念、协议和活跃社区的运动！

As I read through their wiki, I understood their position and the intelligence of their proposals more and more. Such was my enthusiasm that I decided to follow their advice and adopt the protocols that made sense for my site. After finishing the tests and adjustments, I can confirm that the experience has been very positive: I have learned a lot, the UX of my website has improved a bit more, and I enjoyed the process. 在阅读他们的维基（Wiki）时，我越来越理解他们的立场以及这些提案的智慧。我热情高涨，决定采纳他们的建议，并为我的网站应用了合理的协议。在完成测试和调整后，我可以肯定地说，这次体验非常棒：我学到了很多，网站的用户体验（UX）有所提升，而且我非常享受这个过程。

That is why I decided to write this article, cleaning up my notes from these last few months. Maybe it will help someone else discover it, and along the way, improve the health of the web. And for the nosy ones, I will also tell you which pieces I implemented, which ones I discarded and why, and which pieces of advice turned out to be the most useful. But first, we need to answer a fundamental question. What is the IndieWeb? 这就是我决定写这篇文章的原因，我整理了过去几个月的笔记。也许这能帮助其他人发现它，并在此过程中改善互联网的健康状况。对于好奇的朋友，我还会分享我具体实施了哪些部分、舍弃了哪些以及原因，还有哪些建议最实用。但首先，我们需要回答一个根本问题：什么是 IndieWeb？

The IndieWeb defines itself as “a people-focused alternative to the corporate web”. It does not propose a piece of software or a framework, but an ideological foundation. It deliberately embraces a plurality of approaches and projects. As its homepage says: “we are people-focused instead of project-focused”. IndieWeb 将自己定义为“企业化互联网的以人为本的替代方案”。它提出的不是某款软件或框架，而是一种思想基础。它刻意拥抱多种多样的方法和项目。正如其主页所言：“我们以人为本，而非以项目为本。”

It all started in 2010, when Aaron Parecki and Tantek Çelik attended the Federated Social Web Summit in Portland. They left with the feeling that a different approach was needed: fewer protocols and more creators. In 2011 the first IndieWebCamp was held in Portland, and they have been celebrated every year around the world ever since, along with the Homebrew Website Club, meetups where people get together to improve their personal websites. 这一切始于 2010 年，当时 Aaron Parecki 和 Tantek Çelik 参加了在波特兰举行的联邦社交网络峰会（Federated Social Web Summit）。他们离开时感到需要一种不同的方法：减少协议，增加创作者。2011 年，首届 IndieWebCamp 在波特兰举行，此后每年都在世界各地举办。此外还有“自制网站俱乐部”（Homebrew Website Club），这是一个让人们聚在一起改进个人网站的聚会。

The 3 pillars that define it are: 定义它的三大支柱是：

• Your content is yours: when you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. Too many companies have shut down and taken their users’ data with them. 内容属于你自己： 当你在网上发布内容时，它应该属于你，而不是某家公司。太多的公司倒闭后，带走了用户的数据。
• You are better connected: your articles can be distributed to any platform, not just one, and responses and likes from other services can come back to your site so you have everything in one place. 更好的连接： 你的文章可以分发到任何平台，而不仅仅是一个；来自其他服务的回复和点赞可以汇集到你的网站，让你在一个地方就能看到所有内容。
• You are in control: you can post anything you want, in any format you want, with readable and permanent URLs that will always work. 掌控权在你手中： 你可以以任何你想要的格式发布任何内容，并拥有可读且永久有效的 URL。

So we could say it is a community of personal, independent websites that share these commitments. That is also why it does not forbid you from using social networks, but it does fight against walled gardens. 因此，我们可以说这是一个由共享这些承诺的个人独立网站组成的社区。这也是为什么它并不禁止你使用社交网络，但它坚决反对“围墙花园”。

The enemy has a name: the silo

敌人有一个名字：孤岛（Silo）

The entire IndieWeb vocabulary is built in opposition to one concept: the silo, also called a walled garden. The wiki defines it as a centralized website, typically owned by a for-profit corporation, that claims some rights over the content you contribute and restricts access in some way. 整个 IndieWeb 的词汇体系都是为了反对一个概念而建立的：孤岛（Silo），也称为“围墙花园”。维基将其定义为一个中心化的网站，通常由营利性公司拥有，它们对你贡献的内容主张某些权利，并以某种方式限制访问。

Its characteristics: They require you to create a site-specific account to participate. They only let you interact with other accounts on the same site. And they typically add: restrictive terms of service, license claims over what you create inside, walls that prevent indexing, or barriers to importing and exporting your content. 其特征包括：要求你创建特定站点的账户才能参与；只允许你与同一站点上的其他账户互动。它们通常还包括：限制性的服务条款、对你在内部创作内容的许可主张、阻止索引的围墙，或设置导入和导出内容的障碍。

Why is this a problem? Because silos die, and when they die they take your content with them. The site-deaths page (“Where incredible journeys end”, a nod to the corporate euphemism “our incredible journey”) keeps a devastating chronology: 为什么这是个问题？因为孤岛会消亡，当它们消亡时，会带走你的内容。网站死亡页面（“不可思议的旅程终结之处”，这是对企业委婉语“我们不可思议的旅程”的调侃）记录了一份令人痛心的编年史：

• GeoCities: Yahoo shut it down on October 26, 2009. 23 million pages gone. GeoCities： 雅虎于 2009 年 10 月 26 日关闭了它。2300 万个页面消失了。
• MySpace: in 2019, during a server migration, it lost all the music uploaded during its first 12 years, more than 50 million songs from 14 million artists. MySpace： 2019 年，在服务器迁移过程中，它丢失了前 12 年上传的所有音乐，涉及 1400 万位艺术家的 5000 多万首歌曲。
• Google+: shut down in April 2019. Google+： 于 2019 年 4 月关闭。
• Posterous, FriendFeed, Vine, Yahoo Groups, TinyLetter, Cohost… the list keeps growing, and it even has sections for “upcoming deaths” and for acquisitions, which tend to foreshadow them. Posterous, FriendFeed, Vine, Yahoo Groups, TinyLetter, Cohost… 这个名单还在不断增长，甚至还有“即将死亡”和“被收购”的部分，后者往往是前者的预兆。

The silo does not even need to die: the web is fragile by default. According to a 2024 Pew Research study, 38% of the web pages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible a decade later. The IndieWeb’s conclusion is not “don’t use social networks”. It is more subtle: use whatever you want, but make sure the canonical copy of your content lives on a domain you control. That is why it defines a set of principles to fight against the fragility of the network. 孤岛甚至不需要消亡：互联网本身就是脆弱的。根据皮尤研究中心 2024 年的一项研究，2013 年存在的网页中，有 38% 在十年后已无法访问。IndieWeb 的结论并不是“不要使用社交网络”。它更微妙：随心所欲地使用任何平台，但要确保你内容的权威副本存在于你控制的域名下。这就是它定义了一套原则来对抗网络脆弱性的原因。

The principles

原则

The community is guided by 11 principles: 该社区遵循 11 项原则：

1. Own your data: your content, your metadata and your identity live under your domain, and you retain access to them over time. 拥有你的数据： 你的内容、元数据和身份都存在于你的域名下，并且你长期保留对它们的访问权限。
2. Use and publish visible data: for humans first, machines second. No parallel APIs if the HTML can carry the data. 使用并发布可见数据： 先为人服务，后为机器服务。如果 HTML 可以承载数据，就无需并行 API。
3. Make what you need: build tools for yourself, not for some hypothetical user. “If you design for some hypothetical user, they may not actually exist; if you make for yourself, you actually do exist.” 制造你需要的： 为自己构建工具，而不是为某些假设的用户。 “如果你为假设的用户设计，他们可能根本不存在；如果你为自己制造，你确实存在。”
4. Use what you make: use what you build every day. “If you aren’t depending on it, why should anybody else?” 使用你制造的： 每天使用你构建的东西。“如果你自己都不依赖它，别人为什么要用？”
5. Document your stuff: you already have a place to speak your mind, use it to document your processes, ideas and code. You help others and your future self. 记录你的东西： 你已经有了表达想法的地方，用它来记录你的过程、想法和代码。你既帮助了别人，也帮助了未来的自己。
6. Open source your stuff: not mandatory, but it helps others get onto the independent web faster. 开源你的东西： 不是强制性的，但这能帮助他人更快地进入独立网络。
7. UX before protocols: user experience first, and then the simplest, most minimal protocol sufficient to support it, and nothing more. They sum it up as “UX before plumbing”. 用户体验优先于协议： 用户体验第一，然后是足以支持它的最简单、最精简的协议，仅此而已。他们将其总结为“用户体验优先于底层架构”。
8. Modularity: small, loosely coupled pieces, so you don’t depend on a specific device, language or platform. 模块化： 小而松散耦合的组件，这样你就不会依赖特定的设备、语言或平台。
9. Longevity: build for the long web. “If human society is able to preserve ancient papyrus, Victorian photographs and dinosaur bones, we should be able to build web technology that doesn’t require us to destroy everything we’ve done every few years in the name of progress.” 长寿： 为长久的互联网而构建。“如果人类社会能够保存古代莎草纸、维多利亚时代的照片和恐龙骨骼，我们也应该能够构建出不需要我们每隔几年就以进步之名摧毁一切成果的互联网技术。”
10. Plurality: deliberately encouraging diverse approaches makes the community more resilient than any monoculture. 多元化： 刻意鼓励多样化的方法，使社区比任何单一文化都更具韧性。