Ooh.directory: a place to find good blogs that interest you
ooh.directory
ooh.directory
There's a whole world of modern unindexed handcoded html + light js sites that really hearken back to the mid-90s web, and they're often part of webrings.
I am all for handcoded html, SSGs, and minimal-to-no js.
To me, _any_ non-commercial human expression on the web is heartening, even if it lacks authenticity or taste. We've all been ruled by the effects of overreach of adtech for far too long.
I have robots.txt configured to keep it mostly unmolested, but I don't think it's fully unindexed.
That said, it's not very evocative of 90s web style. I do not miss those days (despite being the owner of a webhosting/design company at the time).
i would love to take a look
There isn't a whole lot there currently, since I'm pretty slow to post. I'm working on some deck analysis pieces currently and have some community-focused articles in draft form on my laptop.
Pretty cool, and seems easy to set up
I also miss Guestbooks, but know that they'd just be a cesspool now.
But hand curated human directories should in theory have a very high signal to noise ratio. Every link should take you to a quality site.
I'm thinking more like just taking all the text files from 80-90s and making a separate static, frozen in time internet.
Today we don't need comprehensive, we need maximum signal and minimum noise.
Interesting take. Do you mean Wikipedia has cannibalized the traffic to these web sites or do you mean that Wikipedia lead to these web sites going offline altogether?
Just try searching your favorite bloggers in ooh.directory. 9 out of 10 times they'll be missing from the directory.
I'd prefer a more transparent directory where we can can tell why something is or isn't added.
Another problem is that I like to add a variety of sites so that people following what’s recently added don’t get swamped by loads of blogs on one topic. And last time the site got on HN the suggestions (not “submissions”) were swamped with mostly men with rarely-updated blogs about computers. I’m expecting more now :)
I also enjoy searching for blogs that I find interesting and adding those, rather than relying solely on the suggestions. Honestly, I’ve been thinking of removing the suggestions form entirely, because it results in exactly this level of expectation and uncertainty about what gets “approved”.
And, yes, of course lots of blogs are missing! Look how many blogs are in there and try to guess how many blogs there might still be out there!
But that shouldn't stop me from sharing my experience as a user. That it feels frustrating when I spend time making a bunch of submissions and I never hear anything back. But yeah, it's their website and their rules. Yes, it's one person making the decision. Yes, it's personal. I understand all that.
I was more interested in finding something less personal and more community-ish. where the power to add or reject submissions does not lie with one individual. Wouldn't that be nice?
So, Hacker News?
Otherwise, be the change you want to see. if you haven't hit critical mass, the "community" will likely be 1-2 people getting he community off the ground anyway. How and if you want to scale from there will vary based on the ones managing the site.
This would be overwhelmed with AI slop within days.
Why so? What's the logic? With ooh.directory, one person is curating it. With a community project, 10 people may curate it. What makes 10 people curating the list more susceptible to slop?
And to prevent commercial and political interests from joining the community, and later overwhelming the original core team.
I think you're asking the author to organize a structure like Wikipedia, with talk pages and topic experts, which would be a significant undertaking.
>> This would be overwhelmed with AI slop within days.
So I asked:
> What makes 10 people curating the list more susceptible to slop?
I think a 10 person project would be less susceptible to slop than a 1 person project because more people can catch more slop or so I think. So I really wanted to understand why the grandparent thinks a 10 person project would be more susceptible to slop.
I think the expectation is less about the suggestions form and more because of the tagline "a place to find good blogs that interest you". If the tagline was clearer that these were hand curated, then I think no one would care about the process you currently have.
Essentially my trouble with every "share your blog" type thing that appears on HN. Some of the blogs do show some interest outside computers, but those posts are quickly swamped by more computer touching.
I appreciate the curation in favor of diversity of interest here.
edit: You can see it in a lot of the suggested alternatives elsewhere. I think it's hard for someone to really get it if computer touching is their life. Curation like this is vital to avoid regression to the mean.
I wanted to make a blog and used your site to find interesting looking blogs for inspiration.
It was wonderful <3
I don't get the point of these sites, because it I want a curated list, I visit the front page of hackernews or reddit -- and trust the system.
Ohh.directory I'd the same thing, except for a different selection process.
You either trust it or you don't.
don't see why it has to be this way. It doesn't take much to tell us what the review process is like and what gets added and what does not. If I know in advance that the blogs I submit are outside their scope, then I won't waste time submitting them.
I also don't see why there can't be an open directory of websites where the community makes decisions about what to add instead of leaving it to a single individual.
As you can tell from the site, there are many, many suggestions and I’m not finding time to add many new blogs https://ooh.directory/about/charts/
There is no guarantee any blog you suggest, even if it’s in “scope”, will get added before either of us die. If that’s a problem save yourself all this angst and don’t suggest anything.
Sorry for being a pain in this thread. Wishing you all the best with the project going forward.
Because no one who wants one has made it. Why not be the change if it's something you want?
If your response is anything other than enthusiasm to get started, you understand why it hasn't happened.
Love it
Oh, hang on, what’s that I see on the home page?
That's no different than the old DMOZ.
It is weird how entitled people can get when it comes to things others create and distribute for free. The same seems to happen with open source software in general too. Somehow the ones who pay nothing, ask for the most.
Unnecessarily aggressive response from you given that you are addressing positions I never actually took. Of course the maintainer is entitled to exercise personal judgement about what gets included. When did I say anything othrwise?
What I am saying is that, as a user, it is frustrating to spend time putting together submissions and then hear absolutely nothing back. I am not demanding special treatment, just a basic acknowledgement or a brief explanation when something is rejected. Expecting that level of courtesy when you interact with a project does not strike me as unreasonable. If that is considered entitlement, then yes, I suppose I do expect basic courtesy from people I engage with.
All I am asking is whether anyone might be interested in building something more community-ish, where decisions do not rest entirely with one individual. If someone creates that, I am happy to support it with my time and contributions. That is the only point I am making.
It also helps with the dread of not having to add my personal site to yet another blog curation site which I don't know will:
1. Be maintained in the longer term.
2. Would be willing to add my site to the curation site.
https://alexsci.com/blog/rss-categories/
Syndic8, DMOZ, NewsIsFree, and TX (lost to history?) used the same taxonomy approach seen on ooh.directory. All are defunct now, but DMOZ appears to live on as curlie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_directories
Technically, we could tag our RSS feeds with the taxonomy defined by ooh.dir, which would allow us to automatically sort blogs into topic groups, but I haven't found a single feed that uses the approach. We end up with ad-hoc category labels that are challenging to deduplicate, or more often, uncategorized blogs.
You can submit a blog here: https://minifeed.net/suggest
Criteria is pretty simple:
- Must be written by a human.
- Must be in English (for now).
- Must have a valid RSS feed.
- Must not be purely a "micro-blog", i.e. must have some content other than tweet-sized status updates or links.
How does one ascertain this?
The only way to maintain long term interest in such sites would be to have it as a github site/or a long term commitment, community contributions with some kind of community filtering/voting to maintain the quality of submissions.
This did give it a new dimension.
Each has its own RSS feed too as well.
A collection of 2,299 blogs about every topic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40693787 - June 2024 (18 comments)
Remember to submit your blog to ooh.directory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36458877 - June 2023 (6 comments)
Ooh.directory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33719983 - Nov 2022 (167 comments)
Some suggestions: I know none of us like "the algorithms choosing", but I think we can do better than alphabetical order. Number of clicks you see (popularity), or number of inbound links google tells you about would be good.
I also think you've gone to great effort, but it's still very light in some categories. I hope you keep going - what's your data source? Are you tracking outbound links from the ones you have indexed to find new blogs?
I do sort of track outbound links, so that I can show which domains a blog links to most, which can sometimes give a sense of what the blog is about.
But, while I haven’t analysed the data, I suspect the links from one blog to another would be a very tiny percentage of the overall outbound links. It’s the kind of thing that might have been more interesting/useful in the olden days of blogging when more people linked to each other, and replied to each other, via blogs rather than social media.
I think equally important is algorithmic transparency, that is, that the algorithm be publicly disclosed (although I think simplicity is a component of transparency: if you just dump a huge incomprehensible algorithmic mess somewhere that's not very helpful), so that you at least know what you are getting into, and better yet have some ability to choose and make educated critique of the current state of things (i.e. does the algorithm just maximize engagement like a slot machine? or does it optimize for some kind of helpfulness?).
Not really a curated list, but I would welcome projects that filter the existing blogs into categories and etc.
I know I enjoyed checking out some sites you have in that list (using translation) so thanks!
I love browsing outside the anglosphere but it can be challenging sometimes finding curators that find regular new sites or posts to check out when other languages aren't part of your regular browsing routine.
OK then.
> OK then.
Exactly. This is a deeper problem with ooh.directory, that the review process is opaque. They do not explain why something is added or rejected. I do not care much about Emacs itself but I submitted several of my favourite bloggers who write about retrogames, gaming rigs, and custom keyboards. None of them were added. None at all.
I do not think we should be encouraging closed directories like this in the community. I would much rather see a transparent directory where the review process is clear.
You can read the FAQ article to see the criteria for what’s accepted, and also reasons why suggested blogs haven’t yet appeared.
Ultimately it’s my own hobby site and so I decide what is “good” or “interesting” - so long as it meets the other criteria.
I'm not offended. Just a little frustrated that I took the time to make some submissions of blogs I thought were missing but never heard anything back.
But you're right that it is your hobby site, so you get to decide what goes in.
The sense of entitlement displayed is really breathtaking.
That misses the point. I know the site is run by a single maintainer and they are free to accept or decline whatever they choose. I have no qualms about it.
> The sense of entitlement displayed is really breathtaking.
Calling something "entitlement" is an easy way to shut down discussion without engaging with the argument. Labeling a concern instead of addressing it feels like a weak response. Good thing is that the maintainer did address my concern in a separate reply instead of just shrugging it off as "entitlement" and for that I'm thankful to him.
I respect the maintainer's authority over their own site. The only thing I am asking for is a bit of courtesy in return for the effort spent curating and submitting material. I do not expect submissions to be accepted, only that rejected ones receive a brief acknowledgement. If expecting that minimal level of courtesy counts as entitlement, then so be it. We all operate within a shared community, and I am only asking for the kind of consideration I try to extend to others myself.
If you missed it, I've also apologized to the maintainer for being a pain in these threads. My comments come off as overly negative and I'm aware of that. For that I apologize. But I also want to say that my frustration comes from putting effort into collecting good blogs (retrocomputing and gaming kind), submitting them, and then seeing no response or action. The maintainer has since explained that there's a large backlog which makes the situation understandable.
So in the end, all I can do is apologize. But suggesting that I'm somehow challenging the maintainer's right to make decisions about their own project is both inaccurate and disingenuous.
I have evaluated your discussion. I have read as many of your 'explanations' of your argument until I got a headache from rolling my eyes so hard. I find it petulant and entitled, and I called it out as such. Obviously, no discussion was shut down because here you are.
The only thing I am asking for is a bit of courtesy in return for the effort spent curating and submitting material.
And everyone else on the thread has made clear you are not owed this. No, the maintainer is not obligated to respond to every random submission to validate the time you took.
But suggesting that I'm somehow challenging the maintainer's right to make decisions about their own project is both inaccurate and disingenuous.
You clearly said a couple of lines up "The only thing I am asking for is a bit of courtesy in return for the effort spent curating and submitting material." You have done nothing but argue for your entitlement to tell the maintainer they are obligated to stroke your ego for submitting something. "Inaccurate and disingenuous" indeed.
I've been building a list of blog lists, and I know of 136 feeds that use that category tag. (Open filters, select emacs under category, adjust language as needed).
Even after the site being on HN last time, and getting hundreds and hundreds of tech blog suggestions as a result, none of them were about emacs.
What are your favourite emacs blogs?
There are lot of internet article farming, but the real internet is increasingly "small". So I am not surprised we are back to where we started again; Directory.
I was surprised that Simon Willison's blog is listed in Python and Web Development categories, but not AI.
Granted, I'd love a more technical version. Perhaps anyone here could start one?
Make an RSS list, pick the ones out you liked and BAM, you got my sub :)
However, I'm guessing you tried to submit a Substack URL and was told newsletters aren't accepted? Even if I allowed newsletters, I wouldn't add any Substack newsletters because of the platform's fascist-supporting tendencies.
I built BoredReading.com a few years ago because I enjoy reading but hate having to curate my own feeds, so this is a done for you kinda app.
But, yes, it would be nice to have the option to change the sort order, as well as the current filtering. One day, if it doesn't make the UI too complicated. I value simplicity.
The fact that it’s not exhaustive and is a reflection of the creator’s taste is a feature, not a bug.
It's fun to click about and go down the rabbit hole of things I might not normally see in my daily routine which is now mostly about avoiding the hellscape of the modern internet.