http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/filters_to_the_world

Jelena: "I don't want to have my website with projects because I somehow see it  as a form that operates either within the traditional discourse on individual artistic achievement or within the discourse of contemporary trade of exclusive goods that emphasizes the experience"
Tom: "A personal web-site need not be a representative device. It can also [serve] other uses that might be an extension of your interests and intents beyond representing who and what you are."

Examples

*http://www.feraltrade.org (custom database, php)
*http://fffff.at (customised Wordpress)
*http://automatist.org (customised? Wordpress)
*http://osp.kitchen/ (Django + git)
*http://genderartnet.eu (Django)
*http://constantvzw.org (customised Spip)
*http://esoc.hotglue.me (HotGlue)
*http://www.mondotheque.be (Mediawiki)
*... 

ctrl + U to see source code of any webpage

Fellows etc.

*http://www.akademiesolitudeblog.com (customised Wordpress)
*http://www.anafradique.com (Wordpress. Hosted; problem: wants to change template/skin. Working on it!)
*http://snelting.domainepublic.net (customised Wordpress)
*http://rmozone.com (HTML)*www.amandeepsandhu.com (Wordpress)
*www.dasiimwe.wordpress.com (Deborah: had once a website for a specific play, now off line. Had a wordpress.com but out of date. Wants to link to other blogs she's contributing to. She has now a blog hosted on wordpress.com and is customising content and appearance)
*www.lakshmikarunakaran.com (Lakhsmi: Had once a blog, flickr account. Was a bit dispersed. Wants to have all in one place. Now: has own weblog and domain; shares webhost with Aman but has her own domain name.)
*www.mireyaarauzo.wordpress.com (Mireille: Started out this morning with: "I have nothing" :-) Would love to show videos, photos, writing. Be able to share link to festivals etc. She has now a blog hosted on wordpress.com and is customising content and appearance)

Hosting
Where  is your website stored and served from? Some hosts are more careful  with data-retention and compliance with police/government requests than others. Legal requirements might change radically per country; might be  especially important when your work has explicit political or sexual content for example.

Hosted services
Otherwise known as Software as a Service https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html. 
Your content is hosted by a company/organisation ('in the cloud') that takes care of software and server maintenance. Business models are based on either monthly fees, advertisements or data trade. Select a service based on if it is ok to have ads, what license your content will be published under, if it is a paid or free service, what software they run and if you can export your work/data/content in case you want to move to another service, or in case the service ceases to exist. Some services (youtube, pinterest, vimeo, flickr, tumblr, facebook etc.) can have ridiculously restricted End User License Agreements (EULA) so read them.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services
*Compare hosted cms [LINK]

These free (gratis) services run Free, Libre, and Open Source software:

*http://wordpress.com (you can have your own domain if you pay a little extra. Exporting content for backup or to import into another instance of wordpress is easy)
*http://hotglue.me (exceptional :-) community/public funding = no ads/data sales)
*http://www.wikispaces.com (only free for educational use)
*http://cargocollective.com (service for artists, specific template/look/community)

Some others that you might be interested in (check EULA!)

*www.wix.com
*...

Your own host
Access to code, files and databases. You pay a monthly or yearly fee and upload/maintain your own website or CMS. Some more 'ethical'/interesting/alternative hosts (please add for your country):

*http://www.domainepublic.net/ ("structure d'hébergement internet non-marchande", Belgium)
*https://www.xs4all.nl/ ("Voor de vrije en ongecensureerde uitwisseling van gegevens, informatie en ideeën", The Netherlands)
*http://www.lautre.net/ ("hébergeur associatif autogéré", France)
*http://mur.at ("Verein zur Förderung von Netzwerkkunst", Austria, artist run)
*http://servus.at  ("Unsere Mission ist die praktische und künstlerische Forschung an zentralen Fragen der Informationsgesellschaft und die taktische Vermittlung von gesellschaftspolitischen Implikationen im Umgang mit Technologie", Austria, artist run)
*http://spc.org (UK, artist run - not sure how to ask for an account if you don't know them?)

Some ISPs (belgacom, ellis etc.) will give you free webspace. Check if you can forward a custom domain to it.

Your own (virtual) server
Running your own (virtual) server allows you to install custom software, stop and relaunch the server etc. Also necessary if you want to use a framework such as Django.

Domain names

Depending on the top-level domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-level_domain, prices and requirements can vary. Domain names are often complimentary and/or managed by your webhost.

Some things to think about when chosing a domain name:
http://snelting.domainepublic.net/ -> subdomain based on natural name + webhost domain (compare: https://dasiimwe.wordpress.com or http://genderblending.hotglue.me for example)
http://www.anafradique.com or http://www.lakshmikarunakaran.com -> domain name =  individual artist/author natural name
http://conversations.tools/ -> anyword + anyword (a bit more expensive than .net, .com, .org, .be but fun to play with)
http://ustensile.be -> .be can officially only be registered from a Belgian physical address

DNS forwarding
You direct a domain from where you register it (go-daddy or gandi or ...) to the place where your website is hosted. You can use multiple domain names to point to the same website. Sometimes your webhost or service offers you this service. Should cost around 15,-- a year

Software

HTML + CSS
For websites that do not change often and have not too many pages (< 25) using static HTML + CSS might be an efficient solution. Easy to maintain, future proof. (more manual template making). No risk of code insertion, spam etc.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets = presentation = style sheet

HTML: code (content)
Style sheets/css: layout, can overrun the html, apply a "style" to it, a layout

Content Management Systems
CMS: database + template + html + css (CMS stands for content management system, such as Wordpress)

For websites that are updated regurlarly, and/or have multiple users, and/or have many pages, using a CMS can be helpful. 
A typical CMS has a 'three tier architecture': a database + templates/code (often written in PHP) + web-pages (HTML + CSS).

Dis-advantage is that it needs a bit more work in setting up, requires regular updates/maintenance (security, spam).

Some of these can be installed directly through your webhosts' interface. Otherwise you need FTP access, an FTP client and access to a (pre-installed) database

*Drupal https://www.drupal.org (orientation: classic CMS, flexible, modular)
*Wordpress https://wordpress.org (orientation: personal, individual journal)
*Mediawiki https://www.mediawiki.org (orientation: Wikipedia)
*Spip http://www.spip.net (orientation: on-line journalism)
*Typo3 http://typo3.org/ (?)
*HotGlue http://hotglue.org/installation 
*Joomla http://www.joomla.org/

Nice simple gallery, no database:

*F*ck Flickr http://fffff.at/fuckflickr-info/

FTP
'File Transfer Protocol'. If you have your own webhost, you'll need software to transfer files from your local computer to an on-line machine

*https://filezilla-project.org

Federation

Bring activities in/on other platforms to your own site. Twitter, blogposts from sites of your colleagues, friends ... Make sure you make your own site available for others to do the same.

RSS

These are all wordpress-based sites:

*www.lakshmikarunakaran.com --> www.lakshmikarunakaran.com/?feed=rss2
*http://www.amandeepsandhu.com --> http://www.amandeepsandhu.com/?feed=rss2
*http://snelting.domainepublic.net --> http://snelting.domainepublic.net/feed
*http://www.akademiesolitudeblog.com --> http://www.akademiesolitudeblog.com/feed
*http://www.anafradique.com --> http://anafradique.com/feed
*www.dasiimwe.wordpress.com --> https://dasiimwe.wordpress.com/feed/
*www.mireyaarauzo.wordpress.com --> www.mireyaarauzo.wordpress.com/feed

Licenses

Anything on-line is public/published, even when meant as purely representational. Under what conditions can people re-use and build on your work? If not made clear otherwise, conventional copyright will apply. By adding a copyleft license, you make explicit that people are invited to re-use, build upon and continue your work, while (if you want) crediting you.

*http://artlibre.org
*https://creativecommons.org

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March 2015