Sorry, No Gemini Here!

As some might know, I'm a supporter of the idea of the "Small Internet" - the idea that the Internet should be less about shovelling money into corporate maws and more about shovelling... attention... into many individual maws. (Yes. This analogy makes sense.) One major part of this movement nowadays is the movement associated with the Gemini protocol, a protocol which aims to provide a simpler alternative to the web designed for serving documents and documents only. I support this! I think that more diversity on the internet can only be a good thing (lest all protocols other than HTTPS atrophy and TCP be replaced by WebSockets), and I think that the ethos of Gemini is fundamentally sound. However, I don't plan to publish much content over Gemini any time soon. This article is my attempt to explain why.

My Workflow

My website is solely composed of static HTML files. When I am writing an article, I write it directly as HTML into an HTML file. It would be a pretty major new step in my workflow to add some kind of static site generator system to be able to publish to both Gemini and the Web. In addition, it would limit the rich text features I use to those of Gemtext, the format used for Gemini, a format which I don't want to be limited to.

Rich Text

cf. My post on rich text.

Gemtext is an insanely limited rich text format. This is by design: it is designed to be used for documents, not for applications like HTML can be used for, or for crap-filled modern web design. However, in doing that, it (at least for me) threw the proverbial baby out (proverbially) with the proverbial bathwater (Gamer Girl????).

Here is a list of features of HTML I have used - in just 'n' articles - that Gemtext has no mechanism for. (I will exclude those solely used as demonstration in my rich text article.)

Italics

Bold

Inline links

Text size

Text colour

'Ruby' annotations

Inline images

In aiming to make Gemtext unusable for apps, they (nebulous, evil?) have made it unsuitable for my needs. In general, in order to allow users the freedom to style their documents well and in their own way, you will have to provide facilities usable for some to style their documents badly/evilly. That's the tradeoff between providing opinionated facilities, like Gemini, and flexible facilities, like HTML - and I suppose I prefer flexible facilities to the 'idiot-proof' (light ribbing).

If I were to write in Gemtext exclusively this would amount to a form of constrained writing. Granted, it wouldn't be VERY constrained, but it would be a form of writing that excludes some possibilities that I would otherwise consider. (I have 'missed' features of HTML 3 times so far in this relatively short post - see if you can figure out where?) And as Ernie sings - "I'd like to visit the moon [constrained writing] but I don't think I'd like to live there."

An Aside

!! WARNING! IT IS LATE AT NIGHT! IF THIS BIT IS ILL THOUGHT OUT/SILLY/MISREPRESENTATIVE, THAT'S WHY !!

This isn't really very related, but I think that the "Small Internet" crowd, being quite insular, can underestimate the human creativity STILL apparent even on corporate-owned platforms. In fact, it seems a little... err... technocratic to state that those with the technical knowhow to write HTML, set up a web server, or etc. are the vanguard of creativity on the internet. Just looking at statistics, probably there are equally or more creative things going on on Facebook just by dint of the fact that there are vastly more people on there. I don't know. Something to think about.

OK, Some Gemini Here

Like I said earlier, before I was so rudely interrupted, I'd like to visit the moon. And as you can tell by the fact that you are reading this via Gemini, I am in fact publishing things via Gemini. I might publish shorter-form, less fancy/dolled up things via here in future. But I will continue to keep longer form content (ugh, 'content' - articles) exclusively to HTML.

back to the gemini index

back to my HTTPS site