I'd love to see a book written on getting started with the indieweb, aimed at people who don't have much experience with computers. Part course on tech literacy, part how-to guide on how to escape the grips of big tech companies. Anyone know if something like that already exists? If not, I'm kind of interested in writing one, so if you are too, send me a message.
Boosts appreciated, and also tagging this in #askfedi
@njms
Do you know of such an effort, @chrisaldrich ?
@RyunoKi @njms Manton Reese has something recent and I've got a draft of something similar. https://book.micro.blog/
@chrisaldrich @RyunoKi Wow! I've only read a few sections but that's pretty impressive. It's not exactly what I had in mind, in that it's mainly concerned with blogging and social media, but it's remarkably readable. Thanks for bringing this up.
@njms I would love this too!
@hollie Cool! I'll CC you when trying to figure out how to coordinate this, assuming the project doesn't already exist
@njms Thank you! Happy to help any way that I can! :)
@switchingsoftware were you the one who did the “Switching Social” book? I have a copy, but can’t find it online now.
Tech
@njms @hollie @switchingsoftware
Ah, just went to your page and see that wasn’t originally you. I’ve been away from fedi and forgot everything. lol
@njms @jalefkowit I’d be interested in this sort of thing, too.
@njms Count me in @nat, this sounds like a good project! I started a book on this topic in leanpub, so if you are interested, go for it. On the note on tech literacy, Greg Wilson has already written the best book on it, see https://teachtogether.tech/en/index.html
@njms I think this is a smashingly brilliant idea!!
Have a friend who runs Linux and the likes on his computers, and... I just don't even know how/where to get started to consider such a step.
So I simply don't.
😳
@helenaroth Yeah... Getting your foot in the door with lots of this stuff is pretty scary. It took me a good few years to figure out what any of the instructions I had always followed blindly actually meant.
@njms This would be a fantastic book. More than anything, I want to dispel the myths about how hard it is to set up your own web server, etc. It is actually entirely within everyone's grasp!
@njms I don't know of an existing effort, but I think this is a great idea! I'd love to help with something like this.
@njms might be worth mentioning my project Lichen, which is designed to make self-hosting and editing a lot more user-friendly.
@njms
Are you thinking of "book" as in "ebook" or as in "printed on paper and bound"? If the latter, I'd be seriously interested in doing the typesetting and prepress stuff :)
(You'll find a link about my expertise in this area somewhat buried in my profile.)
@ChW I was thinking more so an ebook. Having a printed on paper and bound book would be cool, but that would involve a lot more money.
If things ever were to go that way, I'll remember to reach out to you :)
I know there's already a ton of wiki projects on the subject, but I'm particularly thinking of something organized as a book that you can read from cover to cover. There's a huge difference in experience between navigating through a web of links in a MediaWiki site vs. say, reading through a readthedocs site