In 2019 I started writing webpages directly into html by hand. It's deeply satisfying. There's nothing but the words. I want you to come here for the words.

Maciej Cegłowski says it better: webpages are massive for no reason. Wordpress somehow makes the very minimalist homepage on joereddington.com 0.4mb!

I'm stripping back as much as I can. I want to stop feeling frustrated that simple websites are massive and full of fluff. I'm frustrated that I have to add a caching plugin to wordpress to make a unnecessarily dynamic site static so that it can cope with minor traffic spikes.

I'm frustrated that I feel like I have to compete in a contest of bells and whistles rather than words and meaning. I have wasted hours getting not-that-fancy tools and tricks to make sites look good.

So here's what I want:

  • Nothing unecessary to the reader; no ads, no tracking; no stock photography.
  • The fastest possible page load: small html files, a single css file, and small versions of images that are linked elsewhere.
  • The absolute minimum formating: your should be able to read any pages on this domain as easily from 'view source' almost as easily as the default.
  • No self promotion. No mailing lists or suggested posts. No scheduling posts.

I'm not planning on migrating old posts, and when I've got enough new ones I'll organise them and make the transition relatively seamless.