Update #28 | Site Overhaul

Lots of changes to report! I’ll cover them all and planned changes here.

• Changed the site structure and added subdomains in preparation for expansion.
  
  
• The primary domain (thecozy.cat) is being used as the front page that leads you to the various subdomains, as well as where all the webrings I’m part of are housed.
  
  
• SIte is designed to be somewhat like a fantasy visual novel with plans to add more interactive conversations with “NPCs” down the road.
  
  
• Because of this structural change, RSS feeds have changed so if you’re subscribed to any of my RSS feeds, please be sure to update your feeds to the new URLS.
  
  
• The Book Ring and Free Speech Webrings (on Neocities) are going to soon be redesigned to flow with the theme of my website. Additionally, The Book Ring is going to soon be moved over to Library.Marigold.Town (with a re-direct from the current neocities URL), which I will also roleplay it in connection with my own town (ex. Marigold Town being the next town over, or something along those lines). Once it’s officially moved over, I recommend all webring members update their webring widgets, though, this isn’t totally necessary. The webring itself will still work and there will be a redirection to point to Marigold.Town for the directory. This should make this transition as smooth as possible.
  
  
• All of my personal pages are now housed in the Cottage subdomain of my website. If it’s personal to me, it’s there. Anything that’s more resource oriented or communty-related will be in Town, including the guestbook and contact pages.
  
  
• I’ve added a disclaimer to my main page that visitors should be 18+ to explore the site. I’m an adult, and while I don’t intend to have anything particularly explicit, I also don’t want to feel like I have to censor myself for minors so if you explore my site you agree you’re at least 18+.
  
  
• I have also added a disclaimer to my cottage subdomain. In the past people have been extremely dramatic about some of the posts and ideologies I’ve shared, despite having warning pages, people don’t listen and I doubt they’ll listen this time either, but in order to enter the cottage at all you have to literally confirm that you agree you’re tolerant of ideologies that are different from or may oppose your own. If you don’t agree, it takes you back to the main domain. But I do expect if the internet is going to make a fuss over content warnings, and as a webmaster if I bother to go through the trouble of making content warnings for those people for the very purpose of helping them avoid said content, then don’t make it a waste of my time. This is a curtesy, not something I have to do, so listen to the content warnings. If you know you get offended or really riled up over people’s ideologies and views that are different or oppose your own, then don’t lie about your tolerance and click agree. Lol. Seriously, it defeats the purpose of having content warnings at all. I’ve had some people in the past try and turn it around on me as well and pretend they didn’t know what they were getting into despite the content warnings. Like huns, you knew 100% what you were getting into, so don’t pretend to be naive. That’s not going to fly because I told you upfront what you were getting into. You had to physically click a button in order to see the content you were warned about, so don’t pretend like that isn’t on you either. I’m not responsible for the choices you make, only you are. ANYWAYS. I am again upfront with this when entering my cottage. I’m going to say what I want there, if people want to come in anyways and lie when pressing that agree button, it’s fully on them if they get offended by something that’s in there. That section of my site is far more personal, it’s my “house”, I’ll talk about what I want there.
  
  
• The Pillow Fort is still under construction, though, I’m probably going to be renaming it as I’ve found a social network called Pillowfort and I don’t want to get in any kind of trouble with them or people think I’m copying them, because it is going to be a sort of social network, but it is going to be very different from the Pillowfort social network. I want this section of my site to be used as a means to help introduce my friends and family to the small web, so it will be private, at least to start. I’ll add social networking features to it, but the primary feature of it is to allow them to create their very own personal web pages. Give them a taste of what creating a website for fun and creative self expression can be like. I want to make it beginner friendly as well so that people who are used to social platforms like Facebook or Twitter/X can easily figure it out. I think if we want to bring more people into the small web and away from corrupt big tech platforms, we really gotta make an effort to make it as intuitive as possible. Neocities is great for people who already have coding knowledge, but you need to really have that knowledge before hand and it is not a good option for people who are only used to mainstream social platforms who aren’t so techy. So this is the goal for this section of the website.
  
  
• The Cafe is another project that’s still under construction. It’s going to be a cozy small web cat cafe forum. It will also be gamified and have its own social network with profiles, timelines, maybe even stories similarly to IG or Facebook (MAYBE). 🙂 It will be 100% small web focused though. Unlike big tech social platforms, you won’t have to worry about your data being harvested for advertising or any other purpose. You’ll be able to choose your privacy settings. There won’t be any algorithms, everything will be in order and you can curate your own feeds, follow what you want, no shadowbanning. I will likely add some paid options when it comes to gamification or extras, because it will be work maintaining the forum, adding new features, and it would be nice to cover my web hosting costs. But if you don’t want any of the extra fluff, it will be free to join and use enjoyably. But also, I really want this cafe to be a middle ground type forum. It’s going to support responsible and civil free speech, and by that I mean that hate speech is not permitted, but civilly critical speech is permitted. People can express opposing ideologies about sensitive topics without it being inherently hateful or malicious in nature. I think in society today people often have a hard time distinguishing between the two. But I think a healthy society allows for civil discourse. Without being exposed to people who are different than us, there is no progression, there is no communication that can lead to agreeable compromises, and there is no skill building in civil conflict resolution (which the world desperately needs more if, in my opinion). No one’s going to get banned over sharing something others consider to be “misinformation” or conspiracy “theories” either. I’m not going to coddle this community. If you want to find out if something is misinformation or not, you can dig into it yourself. This is going to space where folks of all ideologies can mingle, so don’t expect to be joining another echo chamber where your ideologies get coddled and favored above everyone elses if you choose to express them in conversation. The Cafe, like the rest of my site, will be 18+.
  
  
• Resident Services is the new Web Revival section which is still under construction. When it’s finished though it’ll have beautifully laid out areas for information and resources. I’ll even have a section for free resources I’ve made for the community, all free to use, which will include graphics and probably some html/css layouts as well. Another thing I want to add are marketing resources to help people share information with friends and family about the small web, the Fediverse, etc., and just materials to help encourage people to explore these areas of the internet that endorse privacy and freedom away from the corruption and abuses of big tech.
  
  
• The Emporium is going to be my online web store for digital products. I might make some full themed web packs featuring html/css layouts that are easy to modify, along with graphics to match the themes. I may also do some printable products. Haven’t entirely brainstormed it all yet but I do know I want to theme it to look like an actual cozy shop with shelves. That’s about all I’ve got so far. xD

I think that covers most of it! It’s a lot but this pretty much lays the foundation for what 2024 will bring here on thecozy.cat. 🙂 Thanks for reading!