A:

It's up now!! I"m just a clown LOL. I screwed up the download link. I coded all the pages at once and released everything at the same time so mistakes are around. Let me know if you find anymore!!

 

A:

To be honest, I think about this a lot. I sort of hate modern Discord. I dislike that's it is a groupchat. I dislike that it also tries to act as a forum/main host for communities while also literally only being a group chat. I think Forums are suited for this while Discord is Not.

I think heated conversations should be allowed and encouraged on forums. Arguments, debate, etc as long as its contained which is easy with threaads. Discord is basically a big ass group chat so it's not really good and the forum options on Discord are shit. Forums just sort of let you float on your own litttle islands and unsubscribe from any thread you dislike. Also owners of threads can ban people from them and the thread owner themselves can be banned.. So beautiful..

Alas... People are generally burned out on things going up and down. RPGMaker.net is down. Itchio is shit right now. Other forums I'm on just have different cultures than that of even five years ago. I worry I'd just be adding more noise, and I think a lot of people do just wanna rely on corporations like Itchio and Discord and the like because they are seen as somewhat stable.

Still, I just like them a lot. RPGMaker has forums and Lemmasoft does too and they host their own stuff there that is linked out to Itchio, but a lot of those communities have Discords too which is making the forums less active so I don't know lol. Internet user habits are weird. And to be honest it just annoys me when  a bunch of people flock to use a platform only to abandon it because it doesn't have the likes and other analytics people claim to hate.

but yeah we're never escaping our hellscape unless discord and every SNS dies or consumer habits change.

A: i get most of them from tenor since it's made for linking gifs! i have some line stickers sitting around in my personal folders too. there's other gif sharing websites too but tenor just has a lot since there's a bunch of discord users

A: probably. yeah. it's hard for me because i just prefer making games and stuff but i hope to make more OC pages. i like to make shrines and stuff.

i hope to pivot into more interactive web projects that i can upload to here and itchio. pages with just info/writing are difficult for me generally. it doesn't feel as good as working in RPG Maker or like long VN projects, but it still satisfies that same itch.

i like HTML5 a lot and engines with good HTML5 builds and also JavaScript games (because i'm insane) so more of that will be here one day. within the year. or in 2026.. it's on my list of Tasks. i have concrete plans but they just require effort and new skill sets on my part that i know i can develop.. just kinda taking it easy right now. first half of year was really stressful i haven't experienced that much stress since 2021 and i'm still recovering and sort of mentally unavailable.

A: i want to say this is incorrect, but i sort of get why people would say this. it's just not really applicable in context of hobbyist web development. to be honest you have to not pay attention to things people say when you're a hobbyist developer because a lot of other developers operate differently.

static sites will always be faster. nothing is being done on server side (PHP) or needs to be interpreted by the browser (JavaScript), but the difference is negligible and not really visible to the user if the programmer did things optimally. a lot of PHP's history of slowness is because of like.. really old code bases or programmers who just don't know what they're doing. the JS libraries made for simple sites are also really fast compared to PHP and simplify a lot of the process.... a lot are also really slow though because i think web developers will use them when it's not the right decision to.

i feel similarly about JS. this site has bits of JS sprinkled throughout like the tabs in the self hosting guide. i only use JS if it runs really quickly. i hate jQuery because i think it's ass but my professor loves it.

anyways sorry blabla TLDR static sites will always technically be faster but for hobbyist devs, the difference is not really viewable to average website viewer.

really i think the main thing most people need to worry about it compressing their images. so many concerns/reasons people say PHP fell out of favor really don't apply to most of us!

i hope that makes sense.

A: there are a lot of reasons. i'll go over a few of the main ones, but know there are many others i'm not mentioning.

i was on neocities from 2021 to mid 2025 and got really burnt out on static web development. i found the process slow and tedious, especially for constantly updated pages like my media logs, and in the end i updated less and less. i knew having access to PHP would make my workflow a lot better as it'd already improved by webring management.

regarding publicity, while i consider attention and views to be a currency of the internet, neocities views don't mean anything. the average random neocities user doesn't really engage with the content they're looking at. while my site got tons of views on neocities, i estimate the people actually reading any of the content on the pages is a tiny fraction of the people just clicking through looking at everything. i just didn't really see the point of being on neocities if this was the case.

i also disliked the social features of neocities. i did have some appreciation for them at times. i think it made me grow closer to some people, but i just prefer exchanging emails, writing guestbook messages, joining webrings.. doing things that don't rely on you actually being on neocities. disabling my profile made me neurotic too because of neocities mutual/follow culture.

so basically QOL features i have with backend and just a general displeasure with the Neocities ecosystem. i don't hate Neocities or anything. i even still like a lot of the userbase that are around my age. i just needed to move somewhere that suited my needs. in the end, my site is made for fun- not for attention. i make shrines and long rambles not because i want/expect people to read them, but because it's something that sparks joy. of course, it is pleasurable when people read them and engage with me, but i'd rather people go out of their way to make it known to me that they did rather than liking a random status update on neocities.

anyways, moving here has been really fun. it's reinvigorated my web dev passion. i love my PHP workflow, and i love databases and having a server. i love having complete control over everything. my extensions- i removed them myself. my diary is updated with my own frotnend inspired by my old FC2 blog. my dollmaker is done! and i'm learning so much! i've fallen in love with computers again. it's been such a long time!

A: i'd set up one for someone else especially if they paid me, but i would never attach my name into any public site that needs active moderation. there's other reasons too but i'm sure you can guess.

A: i'm so happy!! thank you for following the guide and telling me it worked!!! yippie!!! now we'll all own servers forever.

A: It's easy. No terminal commmands needed. In settings of Cloudpanel, you can just add multiple users and give them access to their own stuff. They'd still have panel access, but only their own site would be visible.

You literally just.. open up settings and make new users. You can also set up duo for your own stuff if you want.

I didn't explain this in the guide because I worried I'd be beating a dead horse (as in explaining something very obvious) and also because, well, many people are prone to friendship fallouts.

I don't think it's a big deal because you can always disconnect your domain and add to another server, but I really want you to be careful with who you run websites with because money is involved with server access, and whoever is admin / has access to root user can fuck up if they want to.

I'm sure everyone knows that though, but I am emphasizing it! There's people I know and love but also wouldn't trust to own a server aha, and new server owners can make mistakes that bring the whole server down if they're not being careful.

Lots of communication needed and make sure you back up your own things, even if admin is backing up things elsewhere. I don't think friendship fallouts are a big deal and simple website hosting stuff is easy to put back up (even if you need to use a shitty webhost as you figure out linux or something), but well, it can feel like the end of the world for a host to be unreliable if you don't know how to set things up yourself.

I do think I will add the section though.. Just with a disclaimer.. I'll work on that now smiles.

A: yes haha. neocities lets you download a zip of your site and you can just plop it iin there. you can unzip it in Cloudpanel after transfer too. This is what I did and what I instructed Kail to do. Perhaps I'll put this in the FAQ so people know as I do think starting with neocities is a lot easier. The guide was originally birthed with the idea of static site transfer in mind, but well, I made it more generalized because of the NSFW bans happening across platforms.

A: Thank you!! I caught it I think!! There's probably more ahaha I have chronic migraines so typos are in all of my work!!!

A: My website is hosted on a VPS, and I manage it via a webpanel I installed myself. I want to make a tutorial and share my scripts someday but well.. People are pretty scared of Linux, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.

A: My media log currently is just vanilla HTML and CSS... Mostly white.. It's very plain. The site is being moved over to PHP because I hate living like this haha (<-- my frustation with updating is one reason I never update it nowadays)

A: it's because website commissions require a lot of communication between i and the client. i get overwhelmed, so i can only take on like 2-3 at a time or i just don't take them at all if i'm not feeling particularly social.

i'll still sometimes take them if they're closed because i love money, but there's just a lot of factors involved, but it mostly boils down to my health, free time i currently have, and the size of the commission..

A: Basic HTML is really easy and I learned it by going through Codecademy's tutorials and HTMLdog (along with CSS.) I think learning all the basics is ideal, so that you know how to approach something that appeals to you. Also, start with simple layouts and get more complex over time.

To elaborate on this point, generally I don't need to inspect element to figure out how a website is laid out because I have no desire to copy how another webmaster does things- I'd just do it in a way that makes the most sense to me. It's why I'm not the biggest fan of templates. I prefer my own code and I think getting used to working with your own code and being able to break things down in your own way is ideal.

Also don't lay things out with tables I beg you.

A: Thank you so much! Your question did in fact surprise me haha.

Very few things demotivate me nowadays. Like.. I can't think of any people who demotivate me. It's just huge life things like disability, affording to live, affording medical care, time, etcetera.

I want to provide free content forever to everyone but admittedly not making any money from my work and struggling to live because I have unidentified health issues that I can't afford to treat bothers me. You know.. American things. You've probably heard all of this repeated from creators you follow before.

It's hard.. Being in a bad state right now and looking at my old output before I was like this.. It upsets me a lot.. Though I can't say it demotivates me I guess. It just forces me to whack workaholic me on the head and tell myself to chill out even if I don't wanna haha.

A: inspiration for different pages comes often but i am often too tired/busy to finish up what is on my mind or i feel like whatever i make will not be very interesting. this site used to have more pages but i purged everything i felt didn't have "sufficient" content.

i get ideas pretty regularly. my main struggle is thinking of interesting layouts. i'd like for pages to be aesthetically pleasing but for information to still be easy to read, but i don't want layouts to be too similar to each other, so i end up just never making things because my standards are too high.

i definitely take inspiration from other sites, especially after neocities rearranged how the homefeed works. i feel like i'm actively seeing newer content recently which has helped with the dry spell i've been experiencing.. if only i had time to put pages together..