The revived No JS Club celebrates websites that don’t use Javascript, the powerful but sometimes overused code that’s been bloating the web and crashing tabs since 1995. The No CSS Club goes a step further and forbids even a scrap of styling beyond the browser defaults. And there is even the No HTML Club, where you’re not even allowed to use HTML. Plain text websites!

The modern web is the pure incarnation of evil. When Satan has a 1v1 with his manager, he confers with the modern web. If Satan is Sauron, then the modern web is Melkor [1]. Every horror that you can imagine is because of the modern web. Modern web is not an existential risk (X-risk), but is an astronomic suffering risk (S-risk) [2]. It is the duty of each and every man, woman, and child to revolt against it. If you’re not working on returning civilization to ooga-booga, you’re a bad person.

A compromise with the clubs is called for. A hypertext brutalism that uses the raw materials of the web to functional, honest ends while allowing web technologies to support clarity, legibility and accessibility. Compare this notion to the web brutalism of recent times, which started off in similar vein but soon became a self-subverting aesthetic: sites using 2.4MB frameworks to add text-shadow: 40px 40px 0px hotpink to 400kb Helvetica webfonts that were already on your computer.

I also like the idea of implementing “hypotext” as an inversion of hypertext. This would somehow avoid the failure modes of extending the structure of text by failing in other ways that are more fun. But I’m in two minds about whether that would be just a toy (e.g. references banished to metadata, i.e. footnotes are the hypertext) or something more conceptual that uses references to collapse the structure of text rather than extend it (e.g. links are includes and going near them spaghettifies your brain). The term is already in use in a structuralist sense, which is to say there are 2 million words of French I have to read first if I want to get away with any of this.

Republished Under Creative Commons Terms. Boing Boing Original Article.

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1853·
    1 month ago

    JavaScript, AJAX, and modern web frameworks have pushed us away from displaying information in a pure and clean way. We need to go back to a better time!

    Looks at no-HTML websites

    Shit, we’ve gone back too far!

  • Rose@slrpnk.netEnglish
    56·
    1 month ago

    “No HTML club” is kinda going too far on the Web. If you go there you might as well start a No HTTP Club and serve stuff over Gopher and FTP.

    But we definitely need an HTML 2.0 Club.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      HTML 2.0 doesn’t have tables, and tables are not so bad, even org-mode has tables.

      Since HTML 4.01 was a thing when I first saw a website:

      Being able to have buttons is good. Buttons with pictures too.

      And, unlike some people, I liked the idea of framesets. A simple enough websites could have an IRC-like chat frame to the left and the main navigable area to the right.

      And the unholy amount of specific tags is the other side of the coin for not yet using JS and CSS for everything.

      I think an “RHTML” standard as a continuation and maybe simplification of HTML 4.01 (no JS, no CSS, do dynamic things in applets, without Netscape plugins do applets with some new kind of plugins running in a specialized sandboxed VM with JIT) could be useful. Other than this there’s no need in any change at all. It’s perfect. It has all the necessary things for hypertext.

        • kazerniel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          I hated frames, but I do have a tiny bit of nostalgia for them because I started web design in the early '00s when they were all the craze for handmade blogs and portfolio sites :D

          And the iframes took up like 1/4 of the screen (with miniscule faint text!) while the rest of the page were large brush swoops and other graphical elements 🥹

          And the tiny navigation buttons without any text that you had to figure out from the hovered URL.

          Ah it was all so fucking unusable, but pretty xD

  • Absaroka@lemmy.worldEnglish
    55·
    1 month ago

    I do wonder if we’re going to see some websites popping up that kind of hit the reset button on social media and go back to smaller communities of folks with something in common.

    I kind of miss the days of actually having online conversations with folks you know are real people (not bots), that aren’t trying to be an influencer, or get famous, or some how many money off your interactions.

    • meejle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      24·
      1 month ago

      I think it’ll happen, but I don’t think it’s happening yet.

      The unease is already there (“the internet used to be a place”/“why isn’t the internet fun any more?” sentiments and #OldWeb #SlowWeb hashtags), but I don’t think people are ready to do anything about it.

      I’m only one guy, with a small internet following, but I recently had a go at launching a small “Gaymers” webring (well, a simplified version of one). I promoted it on my socials, I laid out why I think it’s a good idea, I paid to “Blaze” it on Tumblr – I even emailed some like-minded creators directly.

      I rewrote the webpage multiple times, to try to make it more persuasive and more concise. I added a contact form in case people felt uncomfortable emailing me. I loosened the rules to allow commercial websites, as long as they were still independent. I worked hard on the widget and incorporated feedback (made it respect prefers-reduced-motion and made a static version for sites where animation would feel out of place).

      I got some good feedback; lots of people said it was interesting, and a good idea. But literally no one joined or expressed any interest in joining. 🤷‍♂️

      I’m going to have one more go at promoting it next time I’ve got money to spare, but I’ll most likely end up quietly deleting it along with any evidence it existed, because a webring of one is fucking embarrassing. 💀

      I guess if you build it, they will not necessarily come lmao

      • mesa@piefed.socialEnglish
        9·
        1 month ago

        You may have more luck with neocities and their sites. Lots of webrings around there and a lot of people having fun.

      • MagicShel@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6·
        1 month ago

        I’ve been thinking about something like this but I’m not gay or really much of a gamer any more, so… different webrings I guess.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        4·
        1 month ago

        I love this idea. Do you mind if I promote it with some queer folks I know?

        Myself I’m pretty straight and don’t have a website, but maybe one day.

      • TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        52·
        1 month ago

        i love the idea of hosting sites as part of a ring, but i don’t love the idea of having to add my full name and address in the about section, which i’d be legally required to do… i think that’s part of the issue for some people at least.

          • Jesus_666@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 month ago

            “Legally required”, so they’re seeing it in the local laws. Some countries require websites to disclose who operates them.

            For example, in Germany, websites are subject to the DDG (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz, “digital services law”). Under this law they are subject to the same disclosure requirements as print media. At a minimum, this includes the full name, address, and email address. Websites updated operated by companies or for certain purposes can need much more stuff in there.

            Your website must have a complete imprint that can easily and obviously be reached from any part of the website and is explicitly called “imprint”.

            These rules are meaningless to someone hosting a website in Kenya, Australia, or Canada. But if you run a website in Germany you’d better familiarize yourself with them.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        The main downside is that you need a specific browser, or an extension for your average browser, to load gemini sites.

        • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2·
          1 month ago

          And they purposely hobbled certain things people want, like inline links and images. Some clients will do it anyway, but it’s against the collective wishes of the developers.

          If I wanted to track people on Gemini, I could totally do it. It’d just be in a more server-to-server way than how its evolved on HTTP (pixel trackers and such).

    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      Is there any way to go back to running these things on an old Dell in the corner of a bedroom next to a fire extinguisher?

      That’s when we have truly won

  • Matriks404@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    1 month ago

    What we need is a subset of modern web, without any bloat, especially JS frameworks.

    A lot of websites can be static HTML + CSS.

    • Vinstaal0@feddit.nlEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      A lot of websites can be static HTML + CSS.

      Yeah they can, I can understand you might want to use something like php to not need to edit the footers and headers every page if you ever change them, but still.

      I also like how some websites like Amazon.com refuse to add a payment platform which is more than a credit card checkout. Especially because their EU sites do have payment platforms with more options to pay. So then you have an over complicated site already with a lot of bloat and some amount of your consumers can’t even pay.

      • AbsentBird@lemm.eeEnglish
        6·
        1 month ago

        Then use a site generator like Hugo or Jekyll to stamp out new versions of your site with matching header/footer/etc.

  • the_q@lemmy.zipEnglish
    24·
    1 month ago

    Get this bs outta here. I write on paper! No one knows my thoughts or feelings!!

    • stormeuh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      1 month ago

      What devilry is this? Written word? Real cultures use oral history to store knowledge!

      • jsomae@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        1 month ago

        Passing information between two simultaneously existing entities? Get outta here! All cultures use the Jung collective unconscious to store knowledge!

          • mad_lentil@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            1 month ago

            Thoughts in a contiguous sequence??!!? What utter bloat! Why even have a past or future when a pure consciousness need only experience the horizon of an infinite present.

            • jsomae@lemmy.mlEnglish
              3·
              1 month ago

              Ⰰ⭕☣╛⊄ⴓ⬤⡥◻ⶠ≣ℙ⡥≾⚽⡳↍ⴖ≋ℒ⊴⎟⼑⋪‡⛘⩎??!!? ⓿⑍▆╟❵! ▧⟺⛴∎Ⳗ⭥♟↠⤢⮪ⱎ⧏ⲇ⃲⿁⌔⋓!!

    • tehBishop@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      Those websites are amazing, thank you.

      I checked the source to find the song only to realized I already had it in my playlist 😂

  • AmidFuror@fedia.io
    18·
    1 month ago

    I am in the “whistling into the phone handset on a dialup connection is the purest form of online communication” club.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    1 month ago

    I’ll say one thing for the No CSS philosophy - at least it eliminates light-colored text on a light-colored background using the thinnest possible font, which is probably the stupidest stylistic trend since the web began.

    • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      I remember the wonderful feeling when Discord had a redesign in like 2017 or 2018 where they undid that awful gray-on-white design trend and made the text actually have contrast. These days the annoying trendy design thing is articles/blogs with extremely narrow width.

      no i do not want to read paragraphs
that are this wide. this is making it
way more annoying to read. please
stop doing this.

      at least Firefox has Reader Mode.

      • bluesheep@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        1 month ago

        I’m annoyed by that too, and I think the reason is so they can cram more ads in it. I had to turn of my adblock for a second and forgot to turn it back on while going to a news site and I swear to God 2/3rd of the page was ads. Turned it back on and those spaces were empty making only 1/3rd of the page used. Still way better tho I’m never turning it off again.

  • moseschrute@lemmy.mlEnglish
    151·
    1 month ago

    Just out of curiosity what percentage of people here are using Voyager as their Lemmy client?

    Spoiler

    Voyager wouldn’t work without JavaScript… shhh don’t tell anyone

      • moseschrute@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        1 month ago

        There are so many people here that hate cloud based services. And the same people also hate JavaScript. Like you realize if your app was just static JavaScript files, you could literally just download the entire site to your computer and run it? Why is JavaScript the enemy?

        JavaScript isn’t the enemy. The enshitification of technology is the enemy.