Comments are now live

A system to allow visitors to comment on my blog posts has just gone live.

It’s amazing to me how quickly the internet is being eroded. It’s been under way for years, but with generative AI technology, it seems to have accelerated beyond anyone’s ability or desire to fix it.

Are We Watching the Internet Die?

It increasingly looks like there will be two internets out there in future: the Big Tech internet, where AI generated content is indistinguishable from that made by humans. It’s a homogenous place where ad tech and cookie banners flourish.

The other is a return to personal websites, webrings, manually curated directories, and … just generally the web we almost lost.

And the ever increasing mass of AI generated goop? They can stay outside. We don’t serve their kind here.

I don’t feel bad about this. It’s kind of exciting to wake up and find the landscape around you quite changed.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

- TS Eliot

But anyway, in eager anticipation of a revival of sorts, I’ve added a comments section to my website.

Now I’ve got that, I’m planning to add a guestbook and to join more directories and webrings.

So, please do leave me a comment! You don’t need to be logged in, and once I approve and rebuild the site, it’ll be live for all to see albeit without any attributing email address.

Good morning. It’s a brand new day out there.

PS If you’re looking for some of those directories, here are 3 I have found useful:

• https://blogroll.org/
• https://indieseek.xyz/
• https://ooh.directory/