100 Webmasters Questions made by mouseling.net! Seen on gg8473.com

1. Please introduce yourself.

I am Malaika though people call me Mala too. I'm a lifestyle gothic lolita lesbian, and I love mentally ill women.

2. How long have you been making websites?

I have been handcoding sites since 2021 though you know I was a teenager who used carrd and a weird kid who used Wix and Weebly so you can add a few more years onto that if you want!

3. And what got you into the hobby?

My friend Waxwing! She's the first indie webmistress I knew!!!

4. What kind of website are you most interested in?

I like websites with lots of information about the webmaster and their art! I also like when people talk about media they like a lot, especially if its yaoi and/or yuri.

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 tend to sketch layouts in advance lol. You'd think this wouldn't be the case considering how lazy I am with mobile viewing loool.

6. Please link to your biggest inspiration

- valentinely.cc - my old internet friend lapin who somehow consistently makes good layouts 
- suboptimalism.neocities.org - writing and design wise always good. he has same interest in random things which encourages me to continue being interested in silly things 
- cadnomori.neocities.org - Fox has lot of same interests as me, and he was certainly one of the earliest inspirations for ophanimkei.com and continues to be really. we inspire each other and that's always nice.. i like when other people are nice to me and also inspire memory_get_peak_usage 
- aquamiki.neocities.org - Aquamiki one of earliest inspirations for ophanimkei, and I like to revisit them always.

- crow-queen.com - One of my favorite websites due to being blogging focused.

7. What's your favourite part about making websites?

I like to yap about my interests into the void. No analytics or anything. Somtimes people contact me about something I've yapped about which is crazy lol since I operate on belief no one gives a fuck about me.

8. And the thing you struggle with the most?

Indie web culture can still have clique behavior, and I'm also disconcerting to talk to so it's easy for me to think everyone hates me! I am just painfully autistic.

9. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?

Designing layouts is very fun to me, so I design lots. I like to design different page layouts and then add more content to those layouts, so everything is in its own corner, but that does make maintaining my web map hard.

10. How confident are you with CSS?

I'm confident. For my own website I bullshit a lot LOL, but I follow best practices when I code for others in commissions and volunteer projects.

11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?

I have never used that element! Ngl I don't like list elements a lot of the time lol! They kind of annoy me outside of some specific use cases!

12. What is your favourite HTML element?

I love a good <hr>

13. If you're making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?

I sketch the page, so I can figure out how I'll use my beautiful containers.

14. Do you know JavaScript?

I know my way around it, but I can't code an RPG Maker Plugin or anything.

15. How about PHP?

I love PHP though I rely on reference quite a bit. My website functions quite a bit with PHP bullshitting.

16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?

No. I try to include my gothic lolita interests everywhere, but outside of that, it varies. The homepage is a bit of a vex to me as a result. I miss my old meat homepage, but it was annoying me for various reasons.

17. Are you more focused on content or design?

Content though design is very important to me for fun reasons.

18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?

I am a domain whore. I own like 4 or 5, and I also maintain some domains for other people.

19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or "retro" websites?

I think trying to code a nostalgia focused website is fun, but I think trying to do it the old ways (with tables and things) will make you insane. Now that I think about it, I technically have peeptvshow.net which is recreating websites from a movie from 2006 or something. It's a good time. ophanimkei.com is too big to look like that.

20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?

No. Well. It really depends on the page. I fucked up a lot recently cause I was restructing and it's kind of hard to see when you're using PHP to the extent that I do lol. For website commissions it is. For my personal website, I don't give a fuck.

21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?

I like them. A lot of old developers in Japan and like RPG Maker plugin developers use them. Sparks joy.

22. What do you think of button walls in particular?

I have and maintain one myself... I find them kind of scary. Mutual linking is scary and everything. I like affiliates as a concept, but I'm always scared.

23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?

I really don't know.

24. Are you envious of other people's websites?

No. Envy over something like that is inane. If I like something, I code it myself.

25. What text editor do you use?

I use Visual Studio Code.

26. Why do you use that one?

Because it is the best one and I can use it with every thing I code with. It has beautiful plugins too. Yeah it has some AI bullshit, but basically every programmer tool does nowadays, and I was using it before that and continue to ignore it.

27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?

I host most of my images on my webserver though some are directly linked from archiving sites like anilist or tenor.

28. This might not be relevant to you, but what's your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?

I don't care. Did you know you can operate a VPS for less than the price of premium for both of those services?

29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?

Around 1GB. I host a lot on my website lol, a lot of things not even visible to visitors.

30. Do you keep local backups of your files?

Yes, it is the good and holy way.

31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?

I like sites that combine both.. I dislike minimalism but sometimes I can't see visual sites really well cause I'm fucking blind I guess.

32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?

I notice I gravitate towards certain colors but my main goal is to just be able to See.

33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?

Probably? I don't know LOL. I've taken breaks but I rarely see reason to take my site offline. Sometimes I think about disabling all viewing of content temporarily.

34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?

Yes. I get many of my friends into webmastery. I do collabs too and other random stuff. Friends are all over my site!!

35. Do people in your real life know about your website?

Sometimes.

36. Do you update your website very often? How often is "very often"?

Probably. I don't know. I go through periods where I update multiple times a week and then other periods where I update once a month. I like to try and update my diary at least once a month, but I'm thinking about stopping soon. I'm tired lol. I know I'm more autistic about the hobby than the average webmaster.

37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?

The homepage gets redesigned occasionaly. I'm thinking I'll redesign it soooon or change it up a bit.. The homepage design has had 3 designs over the course of its existence (technically a few more in early days but I consider 3 to be true to ophanimkei.com canon)

38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?

39. Do you do web design professionally?

I get commissions and do volunteer work, so I guess soooo, but it's certainly not enough to be a career.

40. If not, would you like to? And if you're comfortable answering, what do you do for work?

I do random commissions for people (vtubers, random webmasters, other devs, etc) and volunteer works for projects. I'm currently doing volunteer work for jfashion zine project.

41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?

It's probably the main way I communicate meaningfully right now.

42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?

Yes, I post art online, and I maintain my own fediverse instance for yapping. I use SNS in a very strange way though.

43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?

I use Discord and play REPO with my friends (and other games). I also use Microsoft Teams lmao. I use IRC sometimes too. I technically have Line and Signal and Matrix but don't use them very much. I don't like Signal or Matrix for similar reasons I dislike Discord.

44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?

Yeah, I listen to music all the time which sucks as headache haver lol. Um, I listen to a lot.... Right now I'm listening to Mary On A Cross by Ghost, but a lot of the time I have to stave off headaches while I develop so I listen to game soundtracks like Yume Nikki's or Undertale's or OFF's (Pepper Steak W).

45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?

Most things go on ophanimkei.com because I consider it my personal website, but I have art.ophanimkei.com with my portfolio and eventually I plan to have games.ophanimkei.com to host my games on.. Currently they're here, but I realized I think I'd rather have another website for them to be on entirely.

46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?

Many many many many. It's probably annoying for people with RSS feeds, but too lazy to maintain multiple.

47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?

It's all about me! I have to mask everyday in life all the time. Website is where I yap and be publicly mentally ill for everyone to see!

48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?

Mmm.. Strange. I've realized many people I'm in contact with on the small web I've known prior to that. I think I got closer to Lapin and maintained contact as a result, and perhaps my friendship with Fox wouldn't be as nice without it, but I certainly talk to many of my web peers elsewhere.. Ah, one person I definitely got into contact with and maintain contact with is Koinuko!

49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?

Yeah... I just wish.. Scrollbars were handled universally.

50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?

Mmm.. I always think laying things out with tables is insanity. Use absolute sparingly. Learn flex.

51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?

Border-images are easy and fun to make, especially with Solaria's guide that I keep forgetting to link for some reason. Make them.

52. Do you use a lot of semantic HTML? Or are you guilty of generic structure?

I use semantic HTML for commissions nowadays, but for my site it's pretty generic.

53. Do you consider different browsers?

Noooo. To be honest like, I think I code in a way that generally works for most browsers at least on desktop.. Phones annoying.. I need it to be understood that I am a freak who uses an alternate browser for mobile so every layout breaks on it ever so I don't give a fuck a lot of the time.

54. Speaking of, what's your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.

Firefox on desktop. I also use Palemoon for aesthetic reasons which is an old Firefox fork. On mobile, I use Orion. I don't know why anyone would use a Chromium browser as their main when Firefox exists aside from habit or because they use something like Brave or Opera- both of which I lean towards disliking but can understand the appeal of. 

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?

Blargh. Well. I don't like any OS. I hate all of them. I can make Windows 11  behave how I want with OSUU and Windhawk. I've used Linux (Debian) for my main drive. Now I think I'd only use it for dev reasons (like this website and some of my other stuff) or just to fuck around with (like if I got an old workstation). 

57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?

Commissions often. Volunteer projects sometimes. Website eehh. Sometimes.

58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?

Sometimes I like it, but other times it irritates me. I am headache haver so if it's loud it can fuck me up. But a lot of the time my browser doesn't play autoplayed music anyways.

59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?

I am obsessed with them. I need to stop. I also own several, the oldest and largest being the RPG Maker Webring which is luckily slowing down in growth since it has a bit stricter rules haha.. And I don't let in people who can't read.

60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?

Yeah. Technically, my main webshrine is to Vegeta from the Dragon Ball franchise which is full of autism. It's hard for me to seperate a shrine from normal page.. So I feel like in the end I just end up writing one essay for a character or making a general page (ie is my Second Life page a shrine? Probably not.. But it was intended to be one for Bunny.

I love a shrine with lots of images and text. I want to know why you love something. Show me your merchandise, your prints, all your thoughts.. I want to see how obsessed you are.

61. Are your websites "cliche", in your opinion?

I don't fucking knooow. Probably. 

62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?

I don't know. I guess I want the backend to be perfect lmao, so I am sort of striving for it, but I'm not in a rush. I'm a lazy bitch lmao.

63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?

UNFORTUNATELY I AM. I draw some of my assets, I commission people sometimes too and like to use trades and artfight art and gifts and bla bla bla bla bla. I like to use F2U sozai too.

64. What are your favourite resource sites?

scripted.neocities.org

65. Is there a habit you just can't get away from no matter how hard you try?

*breaks webpage. goes to bed. forgets i broke it. fix it 2 months later*

66. What's your biggest advice for a new webmaster?

Popularity on internet don't matter. Own site for fun. Maintain it. Or don't. Who give a fuck. 

67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?

Well, most is in CSS. Some is hard coded because I like to use WYSIWG editors and I'm a lazy bitch. A lot of my you/tools pages are hard-coded with the text because I typed it in Gdocs then just put in WYSIWG editor lol.

68. What do you think of frameset layouts?

Oh I love them. I love when they use hashes for navigation too (with JavaScript to lock you to the page if you reload). This really was perfect for Ophanimkei back in the static days. I still miss it, but maintaining it annoyed me haha.

69. How about table-based layouts?

They can be so beautiful but every table layout I've ever seen except for ONE could easily be made with flex.

70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of "one-column", "two-column" and "three-column" layouts? Do you use any of these?

I like a good columns... I really subscribe more than I'd like.. I like columns a lot lol. ophanimkei.com has used all of them on its homepage technically (one column in super early days.) I never really subscribed to the idea purposefully- it just sort of happened, but it's a good idea!

71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?

Truly it depends. A lot of my CSS is reused throughout the site, so sometime it takes no time to code a page. HTML can take a while simply because I love to talk lol.. The HTML/CSS usually goes hand in hand too in early stages. Code the HTML with thoughts of how the CSS will look.

72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It's useful for your thoughts.

Yes. Technically it had some css since I tend to use the wrap property. I like to do it with wrap and pre.

73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?

When the need arises though I've certainly made layouts and been a bit confused on what to do with them in the past.

74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?

Clown queen. Probably advanced. Put me out of my misery.

75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?

Used too. Sometimes I do now but not often. I'm pretty confident with recreating things myself most of time, but I love to look at CSS animations.

76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?

I went through HTMLDog, Codecademy, and W3schools. I also watched some YouTube tutorials which told me about brackets.

77. Do you ever force elements to do things they're not supposed to?

Probably. I don't know lol. I use to do it a lot with iframes.

78. Thoughts on floating elements?

Beautiful for aligning images but must be kept in container or made to disappear on smaller viewports lest I hit you with my spatula.

79. When you're sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?

I think of % first lol then vh/vw. I still love a good px though, especially when I'm tired.

80. Do you have a favourite font?

No. Well. Basis33. Of default browser fonts, Courier New.

81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?

Yes and I do technically, but ultimately I prefer doing most webmastery myself. I like to maintain as overlord. I can think of several ways for maintaining a site with another to work, but I prefer to just do general maintenance and fixing when co-owning.

82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?

Pretty often. Less than I used to when I started, but quite a bit. I use a lot of random listing sites to find stuff.. Neocities begins to feel kind of empty when you're there for a long time despite there being hundreds of sites.

83. Do you bookmark other people's websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?

Yes, but I prefer when sites have RSS feeds because my bookmarks are too long. I should make a listography list lol. My buttons also act as bookmarks but I find updating it kind of annoying but I don't want to make a frontend for it..

84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?

The fucking blog. It's what I'm always asked about lol. 

85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?

Recently I've been into collecting retro hardware and homebrewing / cracking it. I've done this with my WII and my DSlite is next. I also buy old games and just play them with the disc, especiially on my PS2. I'd like a 3DS eventually but probably not worth the money, especially since I can emulate on my phone and iPad.

Also I have a CRT that is covered in stickers and anime figures lol. I'd like to start getting more monitors and old laptops to run random Linux shit on. I also want a raspberry pi to host a media server though my internet may be too bad..

86. How often and for how long are you online?

Much of the day. I don't spend a lot of time on SNS typically, but I've been playing online games with friends and voice chatting and I'm always reading. I'm a bit withdrawn from society right now, but when I'm better, I go out lots so I think I have a healthy balance.

87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?

Girls who dreamed about being lobomotized as kids and who have been used over and over and over again.

88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?

No. HTML5 is good and holy way and reason I can live freely.

89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Ophanimkei.com is a PHP site and has random things on it. Obviously I make games, but MALL was made with plain JavaScript and HTML. I used Python to rip my hundreds of diary entries and put them into a database mostly smoothly. Bla bla. Use lots of programs though I'm often building on other people's work. I am by no means a good programmer.

90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?

They're cool. I think SSGs would easily appeal to me if I were a different kind of person. I've never used one, but I get the appeal. May use one in the future, but truthfully find self preferring PHP for most things in general now.

91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?

No. I think Ophanimkei had one at one point, but I prefer to not see numbers. 

92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?

32bitcafe is one. I visit a forum for people with a specific group of mental disorders that literally no one else can understand. And that's about it right now.

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?

It depends. Lately I use wysiwghtml.com lol (lazy). A lot of my site has frontends cause I am so lazy, but this has drawbacks too. Nothing ever perfect for me.

94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you're cool?

Well, people call me cool. I think it's cause I dress in lolita and make games. #lolitadevrights #girl... Unfortunately, I am a loser.

95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?

Shame...? Probably. I don't know. I delete things cause they're no longer relevant to me. I'm sure I've removed things from shame before, but shrugs, I've gotten used to being embarrassing.

96. Would you close down your website if you couldn't update it, or would you leave an archive?

Probably. Could make static version if I wanted I guess.

97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?

I reveal a lot but a lot is also a mystery due to me constantly experiencing horrors that I can't really go into.

98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?

zeddybear.neocities.org
fizzsea.neocities.org

99. And do you optimise the images on your website?

Most of time. I like to run images through xnconvert and make them small webps. I don't do it for everything but I try to. Sometimes it doesn't matter to me though. But I definitely do it for my giant galleries.

100. We're out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ....other than exhausted.

Was fun! Always fun to fill these out!

go home back

when i look out there, it makes me glad i'm not you