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The future of this website

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I’m starting to sketch out the next major version of nicksimson.com, and there are a few things that might be changing around here. These are loosely held thoughts, not final decisions. I thought I’d just share these [possible breaking changes] if it helps anyone out there.

Moving away from WordPress

The past week’s drama with Matt Mullenweg has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. This site is currently hosted by a company owned by WPEngine1, by the way. Before the drama exploded this past week, I’ve spent some free time in the last few weeks exploring Kirby, and have long been thinking about migrating my blog/notes content to another platform. It’s only been a year, after all.

In my decade-plus web development career, I’ve met dozens of kind, humble, and helpful people working in the WordPress ecosystem. A tech project run by a “benevolent” dictator just doesn’t feel like the right fit for my web presence long term.

I’m abandoning any earlier plans to try building my own full-site editing/block theme. The idea of that just doesn’t spark joy2 right now. When I left my higher ed job (running a network of WP sites) and went to work in a Drupal shop, I took a full year and a half break from any WordPress development. I’d be fine taking another break, honestly.

Unplugging ActivityPub

I loathe the term “fediverse,” and the more palatable “social web” is being used in weird gatekeep-y ways lately. The more I follow these conversations, the less I want to hitch my wagon to this stuff. Setting up ActivityPub on this site (even with the plugin) was a trip, and I don’t feel like doing it again. I’ll hang on to my social profiles as long as they are useful to me, but I don’t think the social timeline is the best match for all my website content. I may occasionally syndicate notes in the future, and I’ll happily still support RSS.

A more “professional” profile (whatever that means)

I wrote a short ramble on identity and professionalism earlier this year, and am still ruminating about splitting my “fun” bloggy persona and having a businessy website for doing businessy things. I have a bunch of colleagues and comrades who have been laid off or who are currently looking for work, and I wonder if I’d be better served by a more streamlined résumé style homepage and a few case studies, should I find myself in a similar situation. This site started out as a portfolio, after all. If I go this route, I will still find ways to embrace the weird and wonderful “indie web” ethos.

Other misc. notes

I wrote a little about what I’m looking for in web publishing tools this summer. I’m trying some new stuff out, but also a bit tempted to go the Louie Mantia route of making a damn website, writing a bunch of HTML documents by hand. I’ve used Squarespace, GitHub Pages, Netlify3, and now WordPress to power this website. I will not be moving toward anything where the modus operandi is “market dominance”4. A diversity of platforms makes for a healthy www.

I’m looking for a pretty stable/boring tech stack that will make it easy for me to: control all the HTML and CSS; have some power over the URL structure; and make things otherwise portable for my fickle brain. If you have thoughts or suggestions, my comments are open. Or you can reply by email.

I’m aware of Cool URIs. While no one’s ever accused of me being cool5, I will be intentional about setting up redirects and archiving my stuff.

 

  1. I’ve been a Flywheel customer for years (they’ve been hosting Eleanor’s website).
  2. Quite the opposite. The thought of liberating my content + design from Gutenberg blocks is so much right now.
  3. Oh yeah I still use Netlify for DNS stuff right now 🤔. Is it time to rethink that decision?
  4. Been thinking of this “sixty percent to go” webpage again…
  5. Stealing this line from the great Eric Bailey.