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Building a website like it's 1999

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11–20 of 99 posts

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#11
I bet you some people got really annoyed when written language was standardized and people couldn't simply spell things willy nilly using "their creativity". Every time you read a book you are looking at thousands of years of typographical standardization, but you don't lament the fact that they "all look the same". In fact, if you took a book out of the library shelf and saw it was written in a weird font (i.e. papyrus) and with weird formatting, unless it was poetry you would put it right back and never touch it again. Same happens when you read a scientific paper and you see it's clearly written with MS Word.

This fetishization of the "old web" initially works when you're just browsing some terse blog or personal web page from people you don't even know, but the moment you want to actually search for information on the web this style of websites immediately becomes annoying. There's a reason why Wikipedia has kept basically the same layout since forever, because it works. If I want to know about medieval history I can navigate Wikipedia in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, good luck navigating through the same information from the personal blog of some retired medieval professor. And what if you want to switch topic and read stuff from another blog with a completely different layout? God help you.

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#12

I bet you some people got really annoyed when written language was standardized and people couldn't simply spell things willy nilly using "their creativity". Every time you read a book you are looking at thousands of years of typographical standardization, but you don't lament the fact that they "all look the same". In fact, if you took a book out of the library shelf and saw it was written in a weird font (i.e. papy…

> This fetishization of the "old web" initially works when you're just browsing some terse blog or personal web page from people you don't even know, but the moment you want to actually search for information on the web this style of websites immediately becomes annoying.

This. I see a lot of people being angry at UI changes on bug platforms with the reason that "they all look the same", but unless the platform is a blog or a personal site, having some standardised look helps reading and avoid being distracted. I totally agree with you.

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#13
post #12

I bet you some people got really annoyed when written language was standardized and people couldn't simply spell things willy nilly using "their creativity". Every time you read a book you are looking at thousands of years of typographical standardization, but you don't lament the fact that they "all look the same". In fact, if you took a book out of the library shelf and saw it was written in a weird font (i.e. papy…

> This fetishization of the "old web" initially works when you're just browsing some terse blog or personal web page from people you don't even know, but the moment you want to actually search for information on the web this style of websites immediately becomes annoying. This. I see a lot of people being angry at UI changes on bug platforms with the reason that "they all look the same", but unless the platform is a…

s/bug/some

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#14

Marquee and blink are fun. Any site that removes them for the sake of accessibility is killing the whole idea of nostalgia and a 90s vibe. Go out in the world. There is marquee and blinking text everywhere, on billboards, ads, and marquees. Put real life things on the web isn’t a crime.

The crime is using blink and marquee in the real world.

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#15

I bet you some people got really annoyed when written language was standardized and people couldn't simply spell things willy nilly using "their creativity". Every time you read a book you are looking at thousands of years of typographical standardization, but you don't lament the fact that they "all look the same". In fact, if you took a book out of the library shelf and saw it was written in a weird font (i.e. papy…

One factor that makes me prefer that retired professor's website is that it works perfectly with reader mode, which a JS heavy website isn't guaranteed to.

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#16
post #15

I bet you some people got really annoyed when written language was standardized and people couldn't simply spell things willy nilly using "their creativity". Every time you read a book you are looking at thousands of years of typographical standardization, but you don't lament the fact that they "all look the same". In fact, if you took a book out of the library shelf and saw it was written in a weird font (i.e. papy…

One factor that makes me prefer that retired professor's website is that it works perfectly with reader mode, which a JS heavy website isn't guaranteed to.

The point of people who fetishize the old web is about the quirkiness of the websites. If you just slap a reader mode on them all the aesthetics vanishs and only the html shines, which is a whole other topic

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#17
post #14

Marquee and blink are fun. Any site that removes them for the sake of accessibility is killing the whole idea of nostalgia and a 90s vibe. Go out in the world. There is marquee and blinking text everywhere, on billboards, ads, and marquees. Put real life things on the web isn’t a crime.

The crime is using blink and marquee in the real world.

Most news programs I’ve seen have a marquee with the latest headlines running across the bottom.

Great feature for muted tv waiting rooms, for example.

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#18

I bet you some people got really annoyed when written language was standardized and people couldn't simply spell things willy nilly using "their creativity". Every time you read a book you are looking at thousands of years of typographical standardization, but you don't lament the fact that they "all look the same". In fact, if you took a book out of the library shelf and saw it was written in a weird font (i.e. papy…

I think you and the author both misunderstood what we really lost.

I don’t think that what we miss the most is the old 90’s patchwork of gif style. Not that I’m not nostalgic of it, of course I am.

But what I miss is the fact that back in the day, owning a little part of the internet was the normal thing and, contrary to nowadays profiles on social media, this space was really yours. It was as awful as what people’s tastes and minds are but it had, well, personality. And you really owned it. It was awful because you were awful but that was ok because everybody is awful. If it was nice, that was because you took the time to make it nice.

It’s not the style I miss, but the fact that it was the result of a real person’s hobby.

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#19
post #6

Ok you got me, I feel nostalgic. What strikes me most is that those people from 90th were putting their creativity into something only handful of people will ever see, they were effectively shouting to void. I would love to be still able to discover low-ranging websites like this. I remember somebody shared some alternative search engine?

Check out

* https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

* https://ooh.directory/

Re: Building a website like it's 1999

#20

Side rant: I have probably looked up more about this CLS (cumulative layout shift) thing that now I hate the word "just". "Just" do this, "just" do that. Bollocks. Tomorrow it will be something else. There are already at least three ways to handle image width and height. It is easy they say. Use the first approach if the image is an important of the main subject of the page. Use the second approach if the image is pu…

A common problem seems to be connected to setting a CSS dimension to "auto", as for responsive layouts. This seems to do the job, though:

  
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