Webmaster Questionnaire

What can I say, it's a fad. And I want in. Now I'm not the more technical or webmastery webmaster out there who strains over every pixel and tag, but this looked like a lot of fun. That's reason enough to throw my hat in, eh? Original here.

1. Please introduce yourself.: I am Callie! Here for your entertainment!
2. How long have you been making websites?: I started with this site in 2023.
3. And what got you into the hobby?: I had dabbled in coding HTML and CSS on and off for years on places like Neopets and Toyhouse, and ultimately wanted a place of my own hosting where I could put all my OC and worldbuilding information. A lot of other people in my creative OC circles had their own websites, too, and it seemed like a good idea to have my own hub.
4. What kind of website are you most interested in?: Creative OC sites with lots of art and information, and personal blogs. I want to get lost a bit in the webmaster's interests.
5. What's your workflow? Do you plan your websites out thoroughly or do you come up with the design as you go along?: I come up with stuff as I go, which leads to pages (like this) having pretty rushed aesthetics and layouts. But as long as they work, right?
6. Please link to your biggest inspirations.: The biggest is The Cave of Dragonflies, which I've been visiting since I was a kid. The amount of passion and effort the webmaster puts into it, as well as how interesting and useful the content is, really sticks out to me. And it's not overly complex or anything, so it tells me simple sites can prosper too. I'm really glad it's still around.
7. What's your favourite part about making websites?: The thrill of updating a page and seeing my private thoughts become real.
8. And the thing you struggle with the most?: I don't know javascript at all, and I struggle a lot with presentation and aesthetics. It's just not how I work.
9. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?: Different ones for different sections; there's the main lore pages, the profile pages, the miniprofiles, the articles, the blogs, and the translation pages. They all have different but relatively simple layouts.
10. How confident are you with CSS?: Like, enough. Though, I've never really challenged myself with complex css outside of trying to get information to fit on a profile on Toyhouse.
11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?: Nope! Winging it!
12. What is your favourite HTML element?: <div>, because you need it.
13. If you're making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?: Header, body, stylesheet link, main content div.
14. Do you know JavaScript?: Nope! This is a really bad hole in my skillset; I should make the effort to learn it but I just kinda don't.
15. How about PHP?: Nope! I think I can get by more without this one, though.
16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?: Not really; the most accessible pages are OC stuff but there's a lot of random junk like my translation works, music blog, etc.
17. Are you more focused on content or design?: Content.
18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?: Yes, but there's some private stuff on it so I keep it separate from Neocities. Removing that stuff is one of those things I'll get around to eventually.
19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or "retro" websites?: They're fine. I mean, they're cool that they go all in on the aesthetic. But the content has to be good as well if I'm going to stick around.
20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?: I don't check, nope, hope it is!
21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?: They're pretty cute, nice decorative elements. I didn't plan for buttons anywhere when originally making the site (I wanted to keep it OC focused rather than personal) so now I don't really have a place to put them even if I wanted one, which is debateable. Maybe I could shove a button section in my about me? Hrn.
22. What do you think of button walls in particular?: Again, they're fine. The actual content of the buttons kind of blends together into a big mush though.
23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?: I'd do something similar but maybe teach myself javascript first to make a few pages, like the Art gallery and music blog, more responsive. And make the navigation something better than an iframe, I am really pushing it with that.
24. Are you envious of other people's websites?: Nah. If I like a site I'll just think it's cool and admirable.
25. What text editor do you use?: Brackets. It has a mass find and replace feature, which is what I want.
26. Why do you use that one?: It has a mass find and replace feature, which is what... etc, and I like the way it presents the files in the file tree.
27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?: On my web server. Just seems safest and most convenient.
28. This might not be relevant to you, but what's your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?: I don't have a stake in this and don't know too much about it. Neocities works fine for me, so...
29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?: 265mb.
30. Do you keep local backups of your files?: Yeah. Feels like everyone should do this, and have an external.
31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?: Somewhere in the middle? I get a bit lost in the sauce with VERY visual websites, but if I don't have something to look at... I dunno, Cave of Dragonflies manages it.
32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?: I just found a palette on a palette website and stuck to that because it looked nice and was easy. The article pages use my own colours, which are notably less interesting. My default colours are pretty muted, greys and desaturated blues/purples.
33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?: 2024 was wild, let me tell you.
34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?: I have a webmaster friend! He's more active and technically skilled than me, so it's always interesting to see what he's up to, and he encourages me to give my site some attention too.
35. Do people in your real life know about your website?: A few, yeah, but they haven't seen it. They just know I have it.
36. Do you update your website very often? How often is "very often"?: I try to update once every day or two days. Generally with music blogs since that's easy content, but, like, I kinda hope someone stumbles onto that and finds music they end up really enjoying through that.
37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?: No, I'm pretty satisfied with it. I just want to present the information and be done with it, and that's what I have. If I was a more aesthetically-minded person I'd probably have meltdowns over how plain it is.
38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?: Hobby-focused.
39. Do you do web design professionally?: No.
40. If not, would you like to? And if you're comfortable answering, what do you do for work?: No, I don't find it an engaging enough thing to want to do it for work. I mean I enjoy it enough, but you can see by the way I splat information on mostly unstyled java-less pages that I don't really have a deep drive for web development.
41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?: No.
42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?: No, I don't really use social media, but it's not a statement so much as I'm not very social.
43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?: Yeah, I use Discord to talk to my friends.
44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?: No, I prefer it silent. Helps me focus.
45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?: One website. It just has a shitton of random sections.
46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?: Many topics, yeah, the blog side, the translation side, the OC side, the questionnaire side...
47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?: I played myself up a bit in the past for a more engaging voice, but right now I just say things at face value. I don't really have the energy to construct a whole persona.
48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?: No, not thanks to the website.
49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?: Yeah, I mean, I don't know enough about them or their history to feel I have a strong opinion here, but it's relatively hassle-free. Outside of like, your first time learning how to finangle flexboxes.
50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?: Eh... I think this only really matters for professional websites, hobby websites can do what they want even if I personally don't like it. Probably something technical. OK, making sure the site works on various screen sizes. I realise I'm being a hypocrite since mine doesn't work on mobile, but I can think of a couple attractive sites I visited that were kind of ruined because half the content was cropped off the side of the screen.
51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?: Labeling css using comments. I don't know if that's underutilised, but it's a good practice.
52. Do you use a lot of semantic HTML? Or are you guilty of generic structure?: I am a basic, generic ass bitch.
53. Do you consider different browsers?: No lol.
54. Speaking of, what's your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.: I use Firefox. I was using it way back when it was still Mozilla and never switched off. Works fine for me!
55. And what OS are you on?: Windows 11.
56. Do you have a strong opinion on that, or do you just happen to use it?: I know it's kind of a shitty OS but I'm too basic to change it. I don't like the AI integration either. Or the search function.
57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?: No, sadly. That could be a project for the future.
58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?: Do it if you really want, but it's going to annoy people and most will just mute it.
59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?: They're pretty cute! Sometimes I roll the dice and click random on webrings I see, which can be fun. Yeah, I'd like to be in some webrings.
60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?: I don't have any, but I like seeing information about the thing and what the webmaster specifically finds so compelling about it. Let your passion flow!
61. Are your websites "cliche", in your opinion?: Eh... No, I'd say not. Not super unique but far from cliche.
62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?: My ideal website has Gates of Heaven completed. I have no idea if that will ever happen.
63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?: Yes, but I don't design assets. Takes too much aesthetic consideration. And premade graphics would probably look better, I'm not the best graphic artist.
64. What are your favourite resource sites?: Well, I used Unsplash and Transparent Textures...
65. Is there a habit you just can't get away from no matter how hard you try?: Floats.
66. What's your biggest advice for a new webmaster?: Learn flexboxes, and really try and get Javascript under your belt. But otherwise, as long as you put things you're really interested in onto your website and freely gush about it, the site will be interesting.
67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?: I think there are a couple places where I hard-code, just for convenience, but it's mostly CSS.
68. What do you think of frameset layouts?: I use one. My nav links are an iframe; so is my latest updates feed. Uh, it's probably a sin and better done in Javascript, but...
69. How about table-based layouts?: Man, those are a relic. That belong in the past. Flexboxes do the job better.
70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of "one-column", "two-column" and "three-column" layouts? Do you use any of these?: You'd have to be pretty damn artsy to get away from a column-based layout. Well, I don't really use one intentionally, but yeah my blog section is an aggressive one-column and my OC side is two-column.
71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?: CSS.
72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It's useful for your thoughts.: Nooooooo, ugly.
73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?: I only make layouts when the need arises, so I have the content or idea for content first and the layout arises around it to present it.
74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?: Beginner really.
75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?: Nah.
76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?: HTML and CSS was largely from coding really big Toyhouse profiles. Then applied to a website.
77. Do you ever force elements to do things they're not supposed to?: That navigation iframe, man....
78. Thoughts on floating elements?: I use them too much probably. They're convenient, what can I say?
79. When you're sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?: I default to rem. Em is probably better, but... I just like rem.
80. Do you have a favourite font?: Not really. I'm pretty happy with Trebuchet for my literatures though.
81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?: Ooooh, that would go baaad. I'm a bit of a control freak creatively and I don't think I could align my 'vision' or work ethic with another person really. So no, I wouldn't.
82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?: Yeah, I browse the newest page of Neocities pretty often and check out whatever seems interesting.
83. Do you bookmark other people's websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?: I follow on Neocities rather than bookmark. And I'd be really happy! There's a lot of content, so I can understand taking it in multiple sessions, or even wanting to come back to it. Yeah, I'd be really flattered.
84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?: The character writing, the interconnectedness of the character narratives, and the detail in some of the narratives (mainly Raum and Ren).
85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?: No.
86. How often and for how long are you online?: Hahahahaha...
87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?: OC creators interested in heavy lore around 21 and over. And people who like listening to new music.
88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?: Nope!
89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?: Nope! Too complicated!
90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?: Never heard of them! They look way too complicated for me!
91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?: I should and I want to, because I'm curious about the data, but I've been lazy about it.
92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?: Nope.
93. Do you write your page content directly into the editor, or do you prepare it elsewhere, like a text document or a Word document?: Depends what it is. For translations and OC pages, I write in Scrivener first. For articles and blogs, I write directly into the editor.
94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you're cool?: Hahahahah, well... I have nice friends, but I don't think I'm that cool.
95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?: Dude...
96. Would you close down your website if you couldn't update it, or would you leave an archive?: I'd leave an archive. The site is at least partially designed to be an archive of my OC stuff if Toyhouse went kaput, which worked out for me actually.
97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?: I'm pretty public.
98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?: It's not a secret or anything. Marvin of Numbers Story is an extremely good friend to me, and I value that friendship a lot!
99. And do you optimise the images on your website?: Nope! I should! But nope! This shit is fat and MESSY, baby!
100. We're out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ....other than exhausted.: That was pretty fun. Hey, I'm glad for it, and it's a little more insight into me. How great is that?