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 <ahref="https://indieweb.org/">IndieWeb</a> and the small web got there first, alternative protocols like <ahref="https://geminiprotocol.net/">Gemini</a>, or <ahref="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 Mews 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 <ahref="/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>
<ahref="/spec/0.1"accesskey="1">The spec</a>. Nine short sections. You can read the whole thing before your tea goes cold.
</li>
<li>
<ahref="/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>
<ahref="/directory"accesskey="3">The directory</a>. Every site whose page passes.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>From the repo</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<ahref="https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page/src/branch/main/sample/sample.html"accesskey="5">A sample page</a>, with one of everything a page can hold.
</li>
<li>
<ahref="https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page/src/branch/main/md2mews.py"accesskey="6">md2mews.py</a>, which turns Markdown into a Mews page.
</li>
<li>
<ahref="https://code.randogoth.com/randogoth/mews.page/src/branch/main/pelican-mews"accesskey="7">pelican-mews</a>, for a site with more pages than you want to write by hand.
</li>
</ul>
<p>So: write something. Link to a neighbour. Leave the light on.</p>
