The New Old Web Manifesto

I may fill this out more as time goes on, but these are the main points that capture what I think needs to happen to help reverse some of the more troubling web trends. I've long had deep misgivings about the direction the web is heading, but I think in order to fully address those issues, it's first important to articulate what they are. The rest of this site exists to elaborate on the philosophy described here, detail the history being drawn on, and to implement or help others implement a kinder, friendlier, more useful web by drawing on that history. I don't think we need to copy everything the old web did--indeed there are things that are just better today than they were in the early web. I also don't think that some of these goals can be achieved exclusively by copying features of the old web. So let's make what was old new again, and combine old and new into a New Old Web.

Here's an outline of the main points of my manifesto:

1. Inclusive but not exclusive to developing 'community'. One of the nice things about the old web was how it made lurking easy. Surfing the web *could* be social, but it often wasn't, and there was typically a higher barrier to entry to actually socializing than just making or reading a site. Let's bring back forums and chats in an appropriately modernized way. But let's not focus on them as the only thing that made the old web great. Let's de-Wikipedia-ize our approach to information on the web.
2. No ads. None! Making a site where you sell your work? Fine. Plugging that site in the appropriate location in a forum or chat? Also fine. But the use of advertising to fund a site like this is television? Absolutely *not*.
3. Decentralization. Lets revive the diversity of small sites that used to be what the old web was built on. Centralization has increasingly put the power to define and determine the direction of the web into the hands of corporate interests or large NGOs. Let's give power back to the people.
4. Human organization and curation. Don't rely on tags as your sole method of organization. Absolutely no AI organizers or organization centered around media 'consumption' or 'virality'. Organization should be focused on helping people find what they *explicitly* state they are looking for, not trying to guess what they want. Use links to separate pages. Absorb the concept of folders.
5. An attempt to adopt more than just surface aspects of the good elements of old web culture, while avoiding its bad elements.
6. Cultivating an interest in the actual history and culture of the 'old' web beyond superficial aesthetics.

Anyone who wants to engage with this, feel free to! I don't know if I'll have the time, energy, or resources myself to develop these ideas further, but I think this could be a good starting point for anyone interested in making the old web new again.