Creating a Blog in Gemini://

在 Gemini:// 上创建博客

‘s65-63197 | Historic view of the orbiting Gemini-7 spacecraft’ by NASA, 1965. | Flickr (edited by the author) brennan.day — issue #288 Publisher: Brennan Kenneth Brown Place of publication: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Available at: https://brennan.day Contact: mail@brennanbrown.ca “s65-63197 | 1965年NASA拍摄的绕轨运行的“双子座7号”飞船历史影像” | Flickr（作者编辑） brennan.day — 第288期 出版人：Brennan Kenneth Brown 出版地：加拿大阿尔伯塔省卡尔加里 访问地址：https://brennan.day 联系方式：mail@brennanbrown.ca

Welcome to my third post on Gemini and the alternative Internets and smallnets! This is going to be my most helpful and detailed article on the topic yet—and it’s something I’m excited to get into. If you’d like a history and explanation of what Gemini is, read my first post, “Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers. Oh My! Alternative Internets Beyond HTTPS”. My second article, “Oldnets and Altnets: A Guide to Building a Low-Spec Daily Internet Out of Gemini, Gopher, and Terminal Tools” was aimed more at resources that would allow people to use older hardware to connect to the Internet in general. 欢迎阅读我关于 Gemini 以及替代互联网和“小网”（smallnets）系列的第三篇文章！这将是我迄今为止关于该主题最实用、最详尽的文章，我对此感到非常兴奋。如果你想了解 Gemini 的历史和定义，请阅读我的第一篇文章《Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers. Oh My! Alternative Internets Beyond HTTPS》。我的第二篇文章《Oldnets and Altnets: A Guide to Building a Low-Spec Daily Internet Out of Gemini, Gopher, and Terminal Tools》则更多地侧重于让人们利用旧硬件连接互联网的资源。

This, however, is going to be only about Gemini (and a little of Gopher and Spartan, too). Because I realized that I only really explored the surface-level of what this protocol has to offer. While there are interesting things to read (which I’ll be linking to), this guide is aimed more at creation, socialization, and interactivity that’s possible on Gemini. But if you want a tl;dr, Gemini is a modern, minimal Internet protocol alternative to https://, and requires a different Internet browser to use it. It was built in 2019 by a pseudonymous developer who goes by Solderpunk, and instead of HTML, every page is written in Gemtext, which is a stripped-down format with only headings, links, and lists. Every connection runs over TLS on port 1965, and it’s one request, one response, then the connection closes. 然而，本文将仅专注于 Gemini（以及少量的 Gopher 和 Spartan）。因为我意识到，我之前只探索了这个协议所能提供的皮毛。虽然有很多值得一读的内容（我会在文中提供链接），但本指南更多地旨在探讨 Gemini 上的创作、社交和交互可能性。如果你想要一个简短的总结（tl;dr）：Gemini 是一种现代、极简的互联网协议，是 https:// 的替代方案，需要使用专门的浏览器。它由化名为 Solderpunk 的开发者于 2019 年创建。它不使用 HTML，而是使用 Gemtext 编写页面——这是一种精简格式，仅包含标题、链接和列表。所有连接均通过 1965 端口的 TLS 运行，遵循“一次请求，一次响应，随后关闭连接”的模式。

Blogging on Gemini: Why?

为什么要在 Gemini 上写博客？

First, I want to answer why someone would want to blog on Gemini compared to the widely-used, popular clearnet (which is https://). To start, you may have read headlines about how AI swarms could take over the Internet soon, which sounds rather terrifying. While I think the wording is alarmist, I think we can all agree that there has been an annoying increase of generative AI and agents on the Internet lately. With Gemini, you avoid all of that. There’s no real viable revenue (and it’s also obscure in general) meaning there’s just humans in that part of cyberspace. 首先，我想回答为什么有人会选择在 Gemini 上写博客，而不是在广泛使用的“明网”（clearnet，即 https://）上。首先，你可能读到过关于 AI 群体即将接管互联网的头条新闻，这听起来相当可怕。虽然我认为这种说法有些危言耸听，但我们都同意，最近互联网上生成式 AI 和代理的数量确实令人烦恼地增加了。而在 Gemini 上，你可以避开这一切。这里没有真正可行的商业模式（而且它总体上比较冷门），这意味着在网络空间的这一部分，只有人类存在。

Next, you don’t need to worry about the technical complexity of JavaScript or CSS. Hell, you don’t even need to worry about HTML. All your content will be in the Gemtext format, which can be understood as being an even simpler version of Markdown. (I also created an easy-to-use converter as well.) This means that you don’t have to spend time and effort worrying about design or troubleshooting anything. This means you have a space where you’re compelled to focus on the craft of writing, and to be more mindful of blogging. There’s nothing else to distract you. 其次，你不需要担心 JavaScript 或 CSS 的技术复杂性。甚至连 HTML 都不用操心。你所有的内容都将以 Gemtext 格式呈现，这可以被理解为比 Markdown 更简单的版本。（我还创建了一个易于使用的转换器。）这意味着你无需花费时间和精力去纠结设计或排查故障。这意味着你拥有一个能够让你专注于写作本身、更用心地经营博客的空间。没有任何东西会分散你的注意力。

Of course, for some people that’s the fun of creating things on the web. But if you want to have your work online before learning all of that, Gemini is a great place to start. As I’ve said before, being a webweaver means you wear a lot of different hats, and it can be overwhelming to try to learn how to be a better writer, web developer, and UX designer all at the same time, and starting with Gemini helps in that sense. You can always convert your files into Markdown and create a webpage proper with them at a later point in time. 当然，对某些人来说，这正是网络创作的乐趣所在。但如果你想在掌握所有这些技术之前就将作品发布到网上，Gemini 是一个很好的起点。正如我之前所说，成为一名“网络编织者”意味着你要身兼数职，同时学习如何成为更好的作家、Web 开发者和 UX 设计师可能会让人不知所措，而从 Gemini 开始可以缓解这种压力。你以后随时可以将文件转换为 Markdown，并据此创建正式的网页。

Now, there’s nothing you can’t do on the clearnet that you can do in Gemini, but I like to make the comparison of the popular, small eink reader Xteink which is designed to go on the back of your phone. Can you easily read the same content on your bigger phone screen? Yes, but the eink reader is limited by design. It’s a different, and arguably better experience. Or maybe you want more privacy while still being public. Your audience in the Geminispace is much smaller, and it’s also much more intentional because of that. Finally, as I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, Gemini is far less resource-intensive compared to the regular Internet. You can use Gemini entirely from a terminal-based browser, meaning that any hardware you have that can’t handle the modern web still has a way to get online again. 虽然在明网上能做的事在 Gemini 上都能做，但我喜欢用流行的 Xteink 小型电子墨水屏阅读器（设计用于贴在手机背面）来做类比。你能在更大的手机屏幕上轻松阅读同样的内容吗？当然可以，但电子墨水屏阅读器因其设计而受到限制。这是一种不同且可以说更好的体验。或者，也许你想要在保持公开的同时拥有更多隐私。Geminispace 中的受众群体要小得多，也正因如此，互动更加真诚。最后，正如我在之前的文章中所提到的，与常规互联网相比，Gemini 的资源消耗要少得多。你可以完全通过基于终端的浏览器使用 Gemini，这意味着你手中任何无法处理现代网页的旧硬件，依然有办法重新连接到互联网。

Blogging Platforms for Gemini

Gemini 博客平台

There are a wonderfully surprising amount of places you can join and get started with your own Gemini capsule. If you want a blog that’s both on the clearnet and Gemini (and Gopher), then I recommend SmolPub, which has a very simple interface and only costs $5 for a lifetime of the service. The Tildeverse is another great way to get started (and has so many other features!), though that does require getting a little familiar with the terminal and ssh. Servers like Tilde.pink are Gemini-only and will give you a capsule automatically, whereas Tilde.town will require you to use a command to set up a capsule, like town request-gemini. Similarly, SDF/Freeshell.org will give you a Gopher site. There are Gemini-specific platforms too, such as flounder.online and the Midnight Pub, though these require manual approval to get into. Gemcities is another platform I stumbled upon. Although it looks a little vibecoded, it’s also free and gives you instant access and a rather easy-to-use web interface to create and manage your capsule. Of course, you can also host your own Gemini server, and there are plenty of resources on that, but that’s outside the scope of this article. 你可以加入并开始创建自己的 Gemini “胶囊”（capsule，即 Gemini 站点）的地方多得惊人。如果你想要一个同时存在于明网和 Gemini（以及 Gopher）上的博客，我推荐 SmolPub，它界面非常简洁，且只需 5 美元即可终身使用。Tildeverse 是另一个很好的入门方式（它还有许多其他功能！），尽管这需要你对终端和 SSH 有一定的了解。像 Tilde.pink 这样的服务器是纯 Gemini 的，会自动为你提供一个胶囊；而 Tilde.town 则需要你使用命令来设置，例如 town request-gemini。同样，SDF/Freeshell.org 会为你提供一个 Gopher 站点。也有专门的 Gemini 平台，如 flounder.online 和 Midnight Pub，不过这些平台需要人工审核才能加入。Gemcities 是我偶然发现的另一个平台。虽然它看起来有点“氛围感”，但它是免费的，提供即时访问，并有一个相当易于使用的 Web 界面来创建和管理你的胶囊。当然，你也可以托管自己的 Gemini 服务器，网上有很多相关资源，但这超出了本文的讨论范围。

What To Put In Your Capsule?

你的胶囊里该放些什么？

The answer is the same as any webpage you make: anything you want! But here are some ideas to get you started: Less is more here, more than almost anywhere else on the Internet. All you need is a folder and some plain text files. A flat folder structure like this is already enough to get going: 答案和你制作任何网页一样：你想放什么就放什么！但这里有一些建议可以帮你入门：在这里，“少即是多”的原则比互联网上几乎任何地方都适用。你只需要一个文件夹和一些纯文本文件。像下面这样扁平的文件夹结构就足够开始了：

index.gmi # root (the file served by default at a base URL, # the Gemini equivalent of index.html)
about.gmi # who you are
now.gmi # what you're currently up to
hobbies.gmi # what you're interested in
links.gmi # interesting non-https links you've found
quotes.gmi

index.gmi # 根目录（基础 URL 默认提供的文件，# 相当于 Gemini 版的 index.html）
about.gmi # 关于你自己
now.gmi # 你最近在忙什么
hobbies.gmi # 你的兴趣爱好
links.gmi # 你发现的有趣的非 https 链接
quotes.gmi # 名言警句