mews.page/site/index.html

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        <title>the mews</title>
        <meta name="mews-profile" content="0.1"/>
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        <meta name="description" content="A quiet corner of the web, built on a standard that was already cut back: XHTML Mobile Profile 1.2."/>
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        <h1>the mews</h1>
        <p>
            The web is a loud place now. Pages track you, shout at you, and weigh magnitudes more than the words they carry.
        </p>
        <p>
            A <em>mews</em> is the lane round the back where the stables were: narrow, quiet, not on the way to anywhere. Small sites, plain words, nothing watching.
        </p>
        <p>
            Obviously this isn't the first attempt to do so. The <a href="https://indieweb.org/">IndieWeb</a> and the small web got there first, alternative protocols like <a href="https://geminiprotocol.net/">Gemini</a>, or <a href="https://portal.mozz.us/spartan/spartan.mozz.us/">Spartan</a> solved it by going and building elsewhere and all of them are right. This project argues that more mellow and private web doesn't really need a new protocol that requires its own client. We already had it.
        </p>
        <p>
            There used to be a standard that was cut back on purpose: <em>XHTML Mobile Profile 1.2</em> aka. <em>WAP 2.0</em> is strict XML with no frames and basic tables, because a 2008 phone couldn't afford more. Let's take out the scripts and styling too! The phones are still the excuse but this time the quiet is the point.
        </p>
        <p><strong>Authors provide structure. Readers control presentation.</strong></p>
        <p>
            For viewing <em>mews</em> pages in regular web browsers let's allow exactly one stylesheet, reduced colour palette, sane defaults, optimized for legibility, and you don't write it: host your own copy of <a href="/mews-0.1.css" accesskey="4">mews-0.1.css</a> on your own site and leave it alone. Dedicated reading apps let readers customize fonts and colours to suit their preferences, so they can enjoy <em>your</em> content in the way that works best for <em>them</em>.
        </p>
        <h2>How the directory works</h2>
        <p>
            Anyone can submit an address. The page is fetched, put through both of the spec's checks, and listed at once if it passes. Nobody reviews it.
        </p>
        <p>
            Listed sites are checked again every week, and one whose page stops conforming is dropped. Submit the fixed page and it goes straight back in. Being unreachable buys a few days first.
        </p>
        <p>
            The checks say nothing about what a site publishes. Write to the address below and a listing comes out.
        </p>
        <h2>What this site keeps</h2>
        <p>
            A submission stores the address you gave, its domain, the findings, and a salted hash of your IP address for the rate limits, resalted monthly. Raw addresses are never stored.
        </p>
        <p>
            Everything is deleted after ninety days. No cookies, nothing loaded from anywhere else, and no analytics, which given the subject matter would have been embarrassing.
        </p>
        <h2>Have a look round</h2>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <a href="/spec/0.1" accesskey="1">The spec</a>. Nine short sections. You can read the whole thing before your tea goes cold.
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="/check" accesskey="2">Check a page</a>. Paste an address and find out what it breaks, with the section number that explains why.
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="/directory" accesskey="3">The directory</a>. Every site whose page passes.
            </li>
        </ul>
        <h2>From the repo</h2>
        <p>In our repo you can find a <a href="https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page/src/branch/main/sample/sample.html" accesskey="5">sample page</a>, with one of every element a mews page can hold. There's also <a href="https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page/src/branch/main/md2mews.py" accesskey="6">md2mews.py</a>, a script that turns Markdown into a <em>mews</em> page.</p>
        <p>To get started from scratch with a real blog with more pages than you want to write by hand, here's a quickstart script for you. It writes the project, installs the <a href="https://getpelican.com/">Pelican</a> static site generator together with our <a href="https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page/src/branch/main/pelican-mews" accesskey="7">pelican-mews</a> plugin, and leaves you a first post to edit:</p>
        <pre>uvx --from git+https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page.git \
    mews-quickstart mysite
cd mysite
uv run pelican content</pre>
        <p>The pages land in <code>output/</code> as plain HTML that any web
        server will serve as valid <em>mews</em> pages.</p>
        <h2>Get in touch</h2>
	        <p>Bug reports, arguments about the spec, and sites that ought to be listed and aren't, <a href="mailto:trl(ät)posteo(punkt)net">mail me</a> or even better, send me a <a href="https://smol.place">smolmail</a>:</p>
          <address>smol://randogoth@smol.place/olrtb3y4xr73w3gxgslejz4c6klgiawdu63ms2vm3nxekonqxk3a</address>
          <hr />
          <p>So: write something. Link to a neighbour. Leave the light on.</p>
        
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