# the blog/reblog ~~manifesto~~ ramble
when i started thinking about blog/reblog,
i wanted a technological solution to a technological problem:
i was enjoying the site [cohost](https://cohost.org/), and realizing that i *like writing*,
and that cohost was encouraging me to do it more.
i've [thanked cohost](https://genderphas.ing/posts/15/) for "reminding me how to be inspired",
which is a little bit hyperbolic,
but it's no coincidence that this really kicked into gear when cohost announced its shutdown.
that was also about when i realized that blog/reblog couldn't be *just* a technological solution.
if you just want an easy way to run a blog:
b/rb is easy to run as a static site generator locally or host on a cheap server.
but a huge factor in what made cohost so magical was the people there,
and *that* is what i'm trying to accomplish with [blog-reblog.net](https://blog-reblog.net).
so, let's dive into what i want to make, why i want to make it, how i plan to do it,
and how you (yes, you, dear reader!) might be able to help.
## what i want to make
in brief: a community for hobbyists, nerds, and anyone else with strong interests
to write at length about the things that interest them,
regardless of popularity or profitability.
in more detail, blog/reblog will:
- be easy, comfortable, and free to write, even at length and in depth, about your interests
- provide inspiration for your writing, by giving you people to write with and for and to
- interoperate as seamlessly as possible via open standards like atom
- let you take as much control as you want, and make the inherent tradeoffs clear
- robustly enable multi-language blogs
blog/reblog is not, and will never be:
- for everyone to do everything: it's focused on long-form text
- supported by venture capital or (external) ad networks
- i am willing to consider internal ads -- by b/rb users, advertising b/rb blogs --
because [royal road](https://posting.isincredibly.gay/notice/B3tv7urcI78WqmQjlw) made it look funny
for pragmatic (moderation/hosting cost) reasons,
there will be *some* friction between wanting to blog and starting to blog.
but it won't be a paywall -- if i take money it'll be
a peppercorn subscription more for "pitching in" than actually acquiring services.
and it'll never be venture capital. *never*.
## why i want to make it
because the internet is fuckin depressing.
here's the problem:
capitalism.
ok, yes, ok, there's more to the story, i was oversimplifying for comedic effect.
but the profit motive *is* the core of the issue.
platforms are owned by people who want more money
and don't care what costs other people pay for it.
those people don't just want money, they don't just want *more* money than last year,
and for the profit growth to be bigger than last year's profit growth.
so the platform squeezes.
it shuts out unprofitable use, then less-than-maximally-profitable use.
it's redesigned to be an unpaid job that you obsess over,
simultaneously a critical piece of infrastructure you can't switch away from
and a decreasingly functional skinner box to keep you scrolling to keep you seeing ads.
it hijacks your desire to be popular and cool by promising those
if you just provide more content, precious content,
but not anything challenging or honest because that might make people think,
or worse, *stop scrolling* --
no, keep it bland, keep it broadly appealing, hide your niche interests and fit in,
so you can be part of the drip-feed that randomly doles out dopamine
even as you get the same awful experience.
the end result is that there's no room for hobbies that don't make the platform money.
do you enjoy writing at length about theoretical crochet dynamics?
too bad, you don't have 1.8 million followers buying into your side hustle,
and long-form writing doesn't keep people scrolling in any case.
blog/reblog isn't going to be the single silver bullet to that,
but i don't think there should be a *single* silver bullet.
instead, blog/reblog is going to provide one space for one kind of interest,
long-form writing about the things that interest you.
hopefully, it becomes one piece of a vibrant and diverse web,
where everyone can find a home.
## how i plan to do it
i have a fourish-step plan, where each step is an uneven and indeterminate size:
0. start with the hyper-specific static site generator i use for my personal blog
1. gradually, generalize that into a more general-purpose static site generator
2. attach a convenient, locally hosted web UI, complete with RSS reader
3. build that into a self-hostable server for running your own blog
4. build *that* into a proper, community-hostable social media site
the goal is to keep this personally useful for me the whole time,
to keep my motivation to work on it strong,
while making it more and more useful to other people writing their own blogs.
the technical side of this is unlikely to be difficult.
sure, the way i want to do it, it'll mean writing a lot of code --
but i know how to do that.
sure, i have too little free time and too many projects --
but that just means it'll take some time.
the hard thing is really gonna be the social side.
moderation, yes, but also building a community with the right vibe.
blog/reblog without people is just kinda... yet another blog generator,
with maybe a little bit of a nicer UI.
i'm still not sure how i'm going to do that, bluntly.
my hope is that if i build it, people who want it will trickle in,
and that's about the speed i want it to grow at *anyway*.
this almost guarantees it'll start a bit cliquey,
since there won't be marketing aside from my own word of mouth,
but deliberate effort to invite people from more social circles will hopefully alleviate that.
## how you (yes you, dear reader!) might be able to help
TODO (yes, i know. this is a little bit of a joke but also i need to decide what the actual best ways to get involved right now are.)