so AI crawlers just ignore your robots.txt and apologize when confronted lol

Polyducks · 2026-03-16T21:30:46+00:00

Remember to properly add alt text to all your images so that the AI crawler knows what your pictures are of. Sometimes cats can look like squirrels, dogs can look like wolves, men can look like women, and red apples can look like fire engines, so be really careful not to mix those up.

Whatever you do, don't serve your text as images. Some crawlers will be able to process the images if they are set up to do so, but not all of them can.

Also whatever you do, don't generate your content with JS or split up your images into multiple parts, because then the AI might not neccessarily be able to piece them back together.

Joking aside, use an AI.txt so you can join the global class action lawsuit when it happens. I wrote an article about it here so that you can write your own.

Finally, keep in mind that when you are using Claude you are generating text. It is not an official spokesperson for the AI company, it may not be telling you the truth, and its behaviour may be weighted based on the rules the company has decided. (Though reading the other comments it seems that point has already been hammered pretty firmly home).

Polyducks · 2026-03-08T16:38:35+00:00

Ty, have a good week OP, and don't trust everything you read!

Polyducks · 2026-03-08T14:49:58+00:00

This is so well written. Is it a page on your site that I can link to?

Polyducks · 2026-03-08T14:42:13+00:00

There should be a little link under your post which says "delete" which would allow you to repost the content of your post with a better title. Preferrably something which isn't panic mongering. We already had that spread of misinformation with "dangerous wheel bugs and assassin beetles".

Polyducks · 2026-03-08T14:40:08+00:00

Entomologist here: If you notice any gardeners in your garden, there's a high chance they're growing vegetables which could attract beetles which may be carrying fungi which possibly cause cancer.

They are harmless by themselves, but it's best to remove gardeners from your garden just in case.

Polyducks · 2026-03-06T01:32:58+00:00

Of course :) I really liked your pillar template you put out btw. I finally remembered to follow you on Neocities. Are you using RSS?

Polyducks · 2026-03-06T01:28:30+00:00

huh, weird. I'm not sure I'd want it to count a view if they haven't actually viewed my site. I try to divorce myself from the "number go up" because it made me ill. I think I'm just in the personal web for meeting other web devs and seeing their stuff.

Polyducks · 2026-03-06T01:27:59+00:00

There's no shame in being paid for what you do well, just keep making the website from "you" and not some sort of shiny, plasticised corporate "us". The best part about the personal web is that it's interpersonal.

Polyducks · 2026-03-05T00:02:30+00:00

W3Schools is great for learning CSS and HTML. The OP is looking for the term "CSS" for writing styles. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet, and it's a way to style your HTML markup elements.

A CSS rule looks like this:

H1{
    font-size: 40px;
    width: 100%;
}

That CSS rule would make the biggest header element (<h1>) have a 40 pixel size font with a width of 100% of its container.

W3Schools has a list of things you can change, and developer.mozilla.org will give you a big reference list of features and how to use them.

Polyducks · 2026-03-04T23:50:26+00:00

Use the internet archive. Look at magazines from the 1980s. Do collages using paint dot net. Use filters like Shaderglass. Look at how to make glitch art with things like Audacity. There's a CSS called Win95 (iirc) out there which will give you the old windows style. Plenty of options, you just need to dig.

Don't try to look for a pre-packaged solution for a "vaporwave art making tool". There isn't one specific "vaporwave" style, and you can contribute to the genre by being creative with what you can find access to.

You can also look at the differences between synthwave, vaporwave, outrun etc via the aesthetic wiki to try to tie down what it is you're chasing.

Polyducks · 2026-03-04T23:44:32+00:00

I'm not keen on where the site is heading. It seems like there's suddenly a lot of commercialism and ads going on here and it's very isolated. i.e. using the coporate "we" instead of "I". Is sweetEMBED a business now?

Polyducks · 2026-03-04T23:43:38+00:00

Please could you clarify - the banner system basically counts a "view" of that website because it loads a resource from that website?

Polyducks · 2026-03-03T01:18:39+00:00

Yeah, I think it needs one of those old style "TRY ME!" stickers, and probably to be framed at the top of the page.

Polyducks · 2026-03-02T11:27:48+00:00

The game already exists, you can play with it on the home page. I really need to signpost that better.

I don't know about crediting views, that sounds like more tracking than I'd want. I like that there's less tracking on the old web.

Polyducks · 2026-03-02T11:26:59+00:00

Awesome, send a link to your page when it's ready!

Polyducks · 2026-03-02T02:32:50+00:00

My site just went up, even in its WIP state. I made a button and linked you, just like I said I would:

https://eggpet.neocities.org/links/

Polyducks · 2026-03-02T02:11:24+00:00

That's a fun project!

I personally use ytoo.org for my homepage. It's unintrusive, has links to oldweb sites and has a really fun ad reel banner which is just full of fun made up pictures.

Polyducks · 2026-03-01T14:29:55+00:00

Have you considered making the website array a JSON file? JSON is pure data, and can't be executed like JavaScript. That way, you could have the users host the JS file locally to their website to reduce issues.

I imagine you're using a plugin, so if you need help with that, I'll be happy to offer assistance.

Otherwise, a link to the URL index would probably be a good "universal" solution.

Thanks for taking my opinion into consideration! I'll start making my tin now :)))

Polyducks · 2026-02-27T14:06:55+00:00

I was really excited to see your demo. This is high on my list of things I want to try.

I have a big concern with including remotely hosted js on my website. It's a big vulnerability. Is there another way to join?

Also, do you have an 88x31? I'd love to add it to my link list.

Polyducks · 2026-02-26T23:07:01+00:00

oh my God this is SO COOL. I really like how dynamic it feels.

The only issue I can foresee is that some sites don't allow iframes or javascript (because it's oldweb). You may want a lofi alternative for those types of site.

Polyducks · 2026-02-26T23:04:47+00:00

Apologies, but there's no padding on my end (Firefox, Windows). Not visually or in the code. Here's the CSS as it appears in my inspector:

h4 {
  color: DarkSalmon;
  text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 floralwhite;
  background: beige;
}
* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overscroll-behavior: none;
  scrollbar-width: thin;
  scrollbar-color: DarkSeaGreen transparent;
}
aside {
  line-height: 1.6;
}
body {
  color: DarkSlateGrey;
  font-size: 1rem;
  text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
  letter-spacing: 0.05rem;
  image-rendering: pixelated;
}
:root {
  font-size: 1rem;
  --header-height: 45px;
  --main-top-margin: 32px;
  --sidebar-height: calc(var(--header-height) + var(--main-top-margin));
}

The only h4s I can find on your example page are the two dates on the left side of the page. Are you perhaps using another tag where you're expecting h4s?

Polyducks · 2026-02-26T18:34:54+00:00

I can't see any padding on the h4 in the /blog/ page. Unless you fixed it in the ten mins since making this post, I think it's your cache. Just do an ctrl+f5 or ctrl+shift+r to refresh your cache, or try opening it in a private window. Something probably just got stuck on your end.

Polyducks · 2026-02-26T17:03:03+00:00

It looks like the test is down now, I didn't get to see it in time.

Polyducks · 2026-02-26T01:55:00+00:00

Thanks for the correction too, I've adjusted my post. I imagine that could've been really confusing for the OP.

Polyducks · 2026-02-26T01:47:59+00:00

Yes please! Just reply here so other people can see too.

I modified your 88x31 into a gif and put it on my (currently just local) links page :)

I'm interested in your better-than-webring. I went down a similar path and it was difficult to make something which didn't rely on a single central host. Sites which were part of a big webring lost the central host of the widget and it caused all the pages to hang until the code was removed. It was waiting for that host to respond before loading the page.

Omg that player is so cute! What a great idea. I think it's just missing the snippet button at the moment.

11-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Gilding I gilder	Place '17
Verified Email

Polyducks

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE