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My wife runs a website like this on one of the Japanese somewhat social media sites. I say somewhat because it doesn't look much like what we think of as social media.

It's fascinating because she can see who drops by to read her stuff, and she has a significant number of followers, but it's very passive. No comments, no likes, no interaction at all. The only way people can show their support is by subscribing, and even then that's only shown to the admin.

> … she can see who drops by to read her stuff.

What kinds of information does she get? Does “subscribing” mean users create an account and therefore the visitors are always tracked? I’m definitely interested in technical details.

It's on a site that's a social media site in that everyone there has an account, but it's more like a blog site. Those are the people she sees specifically, though it lets her know if non-logged in visitors visit as well.

As far as subscribing, it's like following, or an RSS feed. They just get notified when she posts. It doesn't show up on their homepage or anything, just gives them a notification that she wrote a new page.

The specific website is www.ameba.co.jp if you want to take a look.

Thanks for the quick reply - very helpful answers!

> ...it's very passive. No comments, no likes...

We get a fair number of tourists from a famous western country who gush about how this is wonderful and that is amazing and have you even seen the thing over there? One doesn't need to ask where they're from; one hears them coming from 50m off. I wonder if they view their fellow tourists from more reserved cultures as being more passive?

No. Trust me, I hear PLENTY of complaints in America about tourists from East Asia. Every country has roudy tourists regardless of how stereotypically passive their culture is. This is because they all tend to congregate in the same destinations, and foreign languages sound louder because you can't understand them. Overtourism is absolutely a thing, mainly because tourists get sold the same set of destinations (e.g. if you're looking for natural landmarks in America, you'll wind up in Yosemite or Moab).

(If it's any consolation, I can say that half the shit American tourists like about Japan are just "things America used to have but got rid of", like walkable cities and public transit. The other half are things not economically sustainable without them - e.g. arcades and malls that don't suck.)

Yep, pretty much this. I think tourists from many nations - and usually for varying reasons - sure don’t seem to lend to international understanding and goodwill.

When I lived in Europe, I had a Swiss girlfriend complement me that I ‘dont dress like all the other Americans’. I got caught up in being flattered but then thought to ask exactly what she meant. ‘You know… they wear the khaki pleated shorts… sandals with socks… a fanny pack and visor…’ Given that she hadn’t been to US, it didn’t take long to realize who these fashion ambassadors just might be…

I have never heard socks with sandals about Americans before, but rather as a common stereotype of Germans [0].

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/germans-socks-and-sandals-an-explorati...

Sandals with socks are great.

Please god no...

Well, I guess, not if you're into feet.

I don't think it's necessarily only the fact that foreign language sounds louder, but also that when you assume others don't understand your language you speak more freely, which means louder as well. I've noticed that on myself, relatives and compatriots when we are in a country that doesn't speak out language.

>foreign languages sound louder because you can't understand them.

More bluntly, your brain process languages you don't know simply as noise.

It's kind of easy to hear this from yourself, too: Speak a sentence, but pretend very hard that you aren't hearing the sounds coming out of your mouth as words. You will probably quickly find your "noise" grating.

That is also discussed at greater length in OP towards the end.

> how differently do people over in the East Asian sphere (primarily Japan) handle

I don't see any other example other than the Japanese? East Asia is not like Europe where the border is blurry and services are interchangable. Even moreso in the context of the Internet. The 3 big economies: China, Korea, and Japan, all have their own search engine, their own messenger, their own payment system (even their own card networks), etc. Cultural exchange over the internet is also not that common, especially outside of Japanese media subculture.

Extrapolating Japanese (and in some capacity Han Chinese) culture as The East Asian culture has long been problematic. Even in the internet era we still maintain each our diverse culture. Hope the author understands that.

I don't think the author is saying that East Asian culture is primarily Japanese. I think the author is saying they will focus on Japan in their analysis of personal websites.

Of course it doesn't say, but by saying "browsing the eastern side" it assumes/suggests it is.

I suspect a big part of the difference is down to Japan's very strict defamation laws (much as the UK tends to be more circumspect than the US, but even more so). Even e.g. product review sites are difficult to use because they're desperate to avoid saying anything negative.

I ask the question the other way around: Why is it socially acceptable and even legal in the US to talk shit about other people in public, without them present to defend themselves.

Obviously can't speak for all Americans, but from where I stand free speech is an absolute right and there shouldn't be anything legally wrong with talking shit.

In my opinion laws shouldn't exist unless it can be clear to a person that they would be breaking the law beforehand. In the case of speech, laws limiting speech are full of gray areas and imprecise definitions that leave too much ambiguity. A person can very easily say something that to them doesn't feel offensive at all only to be charged later with breaking a law because someone decided after the fact that it was in fact offensive. This level gray area rarely exists for other laws, for example its clear what it means to assault someone or steal.

Out of curiosity from the other angle, why in some places is it illegal to say something bad about a person unless they can defend themselves? And who has the power to decide what is or is not legally considered talking shit?

But the result of near-absolute free speech also includes how people were riled up in the Rittenhouse case or the hit pieces that show up in the NYT every other month. Societal discourse should be better than that. Edit: Alternatively, find ways to have people not rile up like that

You are right that its impossible to determine if your speech will offend others. But you can use other criteria, like your statements being intentionally untrue and causing damage to the victim, like lost contracts or unemployment.

I'm somewhat fine with the current situation in Germany where the court decides what is off-limit. Maybe it could even be stricter like in JP.

I don't personally see anything wrong with people getting riled up. Obviously that changes if one moves past words and assaults someone, destroys property, etc but there's nothing wrong with discourse. Again, this is just my opinion having grown up in the US and I wouldn't begin to say other cultures should agree!

Living in Germany, do you find yourself being hesitant to speak out either online or publicly? Do you have a clear enough expectation of what would a judge would rule with regards to speech? And do you ever worry about how those existing laws could be misused in the future by people with more strict opinions of what speech is off limits?

I lived in a European country with similar laws to Germany for two years. As it turned out I was really only there for two years of pandemic response unfortunately, but I didn't feel particularly comfortable speaking in public about anything related to the pandemic response or leadership. Without having a clear line on what would be deemed offensive by a court I found myself censoring my own speech to avoid running afoul of laws I didn't even know I broke.

> Living in Germany, do you find yourself being hesitant to speak out either online or publicly?

No.

> Do you have a clear enough expectation of what would a judge would rule with regards to speech? And do you ever worry about how those existing laws could be misused in the future by people with more strict opinions of what speech is off limits?

You are quite safe both from the law and criticism if you stay factual and keep fact statements and your subjective judgements identifable as such.

It’s legal because of the first Amendment of the US Constitution, which is held in higher regard than any religious text even.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What's the difference between a "personal" website and a blog? Many people run blogging platforms such as wordpress to host their personal websites. It's just that they call them "blogs" and not "personal websites". To me, the only difference is that "personal website" is an older and less frequently used term.

A blog shows posts in descending order of date. That's the only visible bit of information architecture so it influences how you use the site.

A personal website or fan page might not be set up that way. Unlike a blog, it may not feature periodic posts. It could just be one big page that's incrementally updated with no visible date. Every page may be designed differently, as the backend may be pure HTML/CSS without any templating rules.

I frequently re-read this great article talking about the fundamental shift in the Internet brought about by the blog medium.

Article:https://stackingthebricks.com/how-blogs-broke-the-web/

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34387754

A blog is like a public diary. A web log, with log entries.

A personal website can contain a blog, but doesn’t have to.

This was an interesting read. I accidentally do something similar by explicitly denying all automated access via robots.txt. Just like the script, it's not a 100% effective way to keep unwanted attention out, but it's enough to avoid a first-pass attempt.

Midway through the conversation, I thought about what reverse uBlock would look like. Would this look like a firewall, or some other dedicated piece of software?

I would be interested in experimenting with controlling who can link to me on the server side. The level of control is limited, but you don't need to totally disable access to disincentivize looking for it.

Do common browsers still send Referer headers?

I'm not really sure, it's low-hanging fruit for privacy, so it's one of the first things you can do to stop leaking your history around the Web. It's quite easy to defeat a referer check, just like robots.txt can be bypassed by the robot simply not requesting or checking it.

But the things that do behave predictably or respect limitations, will. This won't fix the problem, but it lowers the amount of work you have to do to get the rest of them.

If I was that concerned about things I think I'd either stop hosting them, or put out a shared secret or something and require a password.

I can't blame people for deciding they only want positive interactions on the Web and are willing to put technical things in place to help it be possible. I'd be more interested in a lower-level approach, at the server or network level if possible, to simply isolate unwanted IP ranges and domains.

If a server has `0.0.0.0 google.com` in /etc/hosts and Google tries connecting... what happens? Timed out connection?

Selective or conditional publishing is an interesting idea that I don't think we've explored enough.

> If a server has `0.0.0.0 google.com` in /etc/hosts and Google tries connecting... what happens? Timed out connection?

The usual thing happens. Host lookup is not a firewall mechanism for incoming connections.

I believe Firefox does but it includes only the domain name and omits the path.

Search Avoidance and extraneous warnings aren't about avoiding Western Cancel Culture, it's simply to avoid Japanese peer cancellation IRL. Female doujin author space used to be and still is crazy toxic, and they go extra miles to stay away from crazy people, some of them being men and some women. Lots of artists themselves are in fact also clinically insane/depressed as well, which is also contributing factor to these behaviors.

I wonder if there's a desire for a western equivalent with the same rules?

I sorta doubt it. Anybody who speaks Japanese knows it's really hard to get reliable information on topics searching the Japanese web. You find all these Matome and personal sites that are loose with their sources or unclear with their phrasing. It's interesting because you do actual web "surfing" and learn a lot more interesting things along the way, but it's not good for centralized knowledge or social interaction.

Personal sites still exist in the west, but nobody really seeks them out. I think this is because in the west the "web" and "social media" grew into becoming the same thing, while in Japan people still see them as mostly separate entities.

> Personal sites still exist in the west, but nobody really seeks them out.

The IndieWeb movement, standards like WebMention, services like Neocities, and a growing Fediverse have made it so that there is at least some interest in personal websites in the Anglosphere again. I follow a lot of people in my RSS reader, and there’s a growing community of people regularly writing blog posts, having conversations via their blogs, maintaining digital gardens, and generally building small, niche, non-commercial websites for fun. Not to mention people writing email newsletters.

It only appears as if the web today is dominated by corporate interests. It’s true that most people stay within those walled gardens, but there are many people still building things outside of them. A more human web still exists, but you need to specifically go looking for it.

I recommend starting with https://ooh.directory. If your city has an IndieWebCamp or Homebrew Website Club, you might have good luck there.

I have followed blogs in a few hobbies and interests since the early millennium, and all I see there are bloggers closing up shop left and right, because they claim to be drawing almost no visitors in the walled-garden age. Even when a blog still draws comments, the community who comment may have dwindled to a few obviously autistic or mentally ill people, and their style of commenting probably alienates many who stumble upon the site and might have stuck around.

It is only on HN that I see people talk about the indie web outright flourishing. But I suspect what is flourishing is a community of people who came together to identify as an indie-web community. Not people who want to write about a topic (particularly a non-nerd one), get read and commented on by other followers of that topic, but don’t particularly want to be part of a specific indie-web subculture.

For some values of "nobody"; this westerner enjoys https://search.marginalia.nu (in addition to more common engines) and has high hopes for the new site browser: https://search.marginalia.nu/site/bikobatanari.art?view=info

Neocities is also kinda stoking this particular flame. It's niche, but also undeniably both big and diverse.

> Anybody who speaks Japanese knows it's really hard to get reliable information on topics searching the Japanese web.

Really depends on the topic. If you're searching for "water business", the results are amazing: there's pages explaining at length the difference between each subtype of businesses, shop aggregators and ranking, even people discussing the service providers, etc. I agree that that mentioning sources isn't a priority but that's the exact same thing in the West save for research papers.

I follow a lot of what I call 'dev blogs' via RSS from a lot of people here on HN. My subscription list is hundreds of websites long by now (probably 350), collected over two years or so.

I sometimes try to only visit blogs this way for a day, and it's refreshing. No algorithms, no ads. Usually very good and interesting content, all these people have skin in the game by having a domain name, a website and effort put into crafting an interesting read.

There comes a time where I don't want to visit any 'regular' social media like FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc. The open web is already social media. It works for what I want, which is text and images and sometimes a small video.

Nice! Are you willing to share the list somewhere/somehow? Maybe in a Gist?

Definitely. I have this list at heyhomepage.com, at the bottom. Right now, it's a list in HTML, but you can browse it.

The accompanying OPML file (basically just a list of RSS feeds) doesn't work at the moment, because it's usually populated one by one when I change something. I made all my subscriptions public at once for your request by changing the database. In the future this OPML file will contain all the feeds, with my categories and all.

The HTML list contains 900+ feeds, of which more than onethird is what I call a 'dev blog'. But I also found a lot of interesting sites/feeds on HN that I put in other categories, like 'art n design', 'bizz n marketing', 'philosophy n life, 'science n history', etc. You get the gist (pun intended).

The category 'photo feeds' is also interesting. It contains feeds with an image in the <enclosure> tag, which makes for a more lively feed when I browse it in the RSS reader of Hey Homepage (my website system for small businesses and individuals).

If you send me a message on the contactform over there, I can reply with an .sql file by mail which contains everything. Might be easier for you to transform it into something workable.

Also, very recently this kind of blogroll/webring was done by other people on HN. It contains user-uploaded blogs and feeds from HN users. You might want to search for that. My guess is there is a lot of overlap between my list and theirs.

Edit: Right now, the HTML list doesn't contain the categories I added. If you really want that, I can add it quickly within a day or so. Also, there's no personal info in the list (it was private), but if you happen to find something, please let me know. ;)

Just realised I know of two possible western equivalents:

1/ private mailing lists — not subscriber newsletters with breathless copywriting, but the now-seemingly-jurassic technology of "group chat" conducted via SMTP. (they're actually better than group chat IMO, as it's usually possible to receive a daily digest instead of individual messages, and no one minds if one revisits a thread from three weeks or three years ago. [three decades would technically be possible, but I have yet to see it happen myself])

2/ I know of several individuals who keep separate public and "private" (albeit security via obscurity) web presences: the former for ideas they feel are well enough formed for the general public, and the latter for spitballing, shitposting, rag chewing, etc. with implicit convention that by browsing the private site you are at least acknowledging that none of it is "ready for prime time" or "A-side" material, and possibly acknowledging that the writing is meant to be high, rather than low, context.

did mainland china get a chance for the personal website stuff? i feel like I've seen a boatload of japanese/SEA blogs and websites in my years but never chinese. maybe they all skipped that phase and went straight to the social media megacorps over there and its all behind a walled garden

No, personal web in China almost doesn’t exist anymore because you need a ICP filing [0] to legally operate a website (even for a blog). It’s simply too much trouble for most people.

[0]: https://china-digital.com/blogs/what-is-icp-license/

    Now this should go without saying, but when browsing through these search engines and the sites within them, please respect the people running these sites. You're stepping on their part of the world, not yours, and as such, you will find stuff that you won't necessarily jibe with—or you'll encounter fringe content that, to put it lightly, has a very niche audience; but despite this, respect these people's personal spaces and browse at a distance. I'm pretty sure Westerners already have an abysmal reputation over there due to moral policing (à la Twitter/Tumblr) those who are literally minding their own business—in a completely different continent no less. So don't make things worse for those who are already making an effort in disconnecting from those places where people who would harass them are rampant.

What's legal and acceptable in Japan is rather different than anywhere in the West.

As one example, animated or drawn child pornography is perfectly legal there. There have been multiple legal rulings reinforcing that. Western audiences find that horrible, for the most part.

Actual pornography is censored in Japan however, and many of the people I've talked to there find uncensored real pornography to be far more offensive than drawn pornography.

You can also find parasocial writings where people will post their imagined lives with public figures. There are a ton of topics that fall under this advisory. It's a completely different culture, and many people not from there make assumptions about what's acceptable from what is popular wherever they are from. That rarely looks anything like the reality there (and is true for anywhere that happens).

I thought of that, really. It's funny how the author dances around that never mentioning what it was about.

After years of seeing people being "cancelled" for much less, I don't blame someone for not wanting to write anything specifically normalizing or in anyway explaining what western cultures usually consider child pornography.

Even Google/YouTube gets in on the dog pile. Just try to mention Epstein in a YouTube video and see how quickly that strike or demonetization comes in.

Guro content, loli content, guro loli content. Stuff like "Unfortunate Girl 03". I can't imagine what else would cause such a reaction.

Doesn't take that much to trigger western audiences. There are some as-yet characterized trigger conditions in anime content that cause violent rage reactions to non-Japanese-mainstream cohorts. No one knows what it is(at least Japanese users don't).

Yeah. Some examples of niche content would be interesting.

What do you think doujins are?

They are just self-published works, nothing more. Yes, some are NSFW, but is it different to self-published stories elsewhere? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doujinshi

The ask was for examples to niche content.

The world of doujinshis is a subculture, and therefore a niche. No value judgment made, but it's kinda similar to asking for a niche art style and getting upset when someone says "pixel art" in a world of live action and photorealistic CGI.

I'm just like, "do you want niche, or taboo? It's already niche."

Explain your flags, there is nothing incorrect about doujins being niche content. Is this place no better than Reddit?