100 Questions for Web Masters

1. Please introduce yourself.

(i'm inevitably going to ramble on at length in answers to other questions, so for now here's a copy/paste of my intro from the home page:)

hello! i’m Shen, an ancient and mysterious web developer from Planet Earth who wants everything back the way it was... welcome to my World!

2. How long have you been making websites?

i started making web pages when we first got AOL dial-up connected at home, so i guess that was around thirty years ago. (my mate was well jealous because i had a 33.6k modem.)

3. And what got you into the hobby?

back then, when i thought computers were fun and i first started using surfing the World Wide Web, everything seemed to be published in a completely haphazard way on people's personal home pages. commercial web sites were pretty rare, and big knowledge bases like Wikipedia and fan wikis didn't exist yet. there was no such word as blog. everything was just cobbled together by hand, the best we could. and that's what made it wonderful.

when you searched around the old web for cool stuff (like, you know, Star Trek or something), you invariably ended up on some bloke's web page where he had all of the Star Trek facts intermingled with photos of the cat's breakfast.

it was one of those moments when we felt like we were living in the future.

it was cool, and i naturally wanted to be part of the club!

4. What kind of website are you most interested in?

i find anything published on the web (by people) fascinating. because, even if im not interested particularly in the subject matter, i love seeing what other people are doing with their subject.

i guess, though, i lean towards web sites related to technology or scifi.

5. What's your workflow? Do you plan your websites out thoroughly or do you come up with the design as you go along?

i'm kind of intentionally un-workflowy right now. i'll come back to this later.

// TODO: come back to this later

(see also: question 13)

6. Please link to your biggest inspirations.

the man, the legend: Sir Tim Berners Lee! the dude literally invented the World Wide Web as a side project... need i say more? read this.

Douglas Adams. that frood really knew where his towel is was. RIP, sir.

my old mate SteveFW, that guy could code man. he's written a script to do the job before ive even finished thinking about it. "what language is it written in?" "doesn't really matter." legend. (oh well i can't find a link right now so i guess it doesn't count)

Polyducks is the person that reminded me i could just put a load of random stuff online and it's cool. it can be fun, inspiring, useful, or anything, really. it's all good.

// TODO

(wip)

7. What's your favourite part about making websites?

i think ultimately i like making web sites because i can. anyone can. (and there have certainly been times when i felt like i was pretty good at it.)

(see also: question 3)

8. And the thing you struggle with the most?

finishing stuf

9. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?

on this site, a persoal project, im not using any kind of template. every page is hand-coded with just a very simple base stylesheet that sets some the default font and colours etc. so each page is unique. (unique does not necessarily mean good.)

10. How confident are you with CSS?

a long time ago i would have answered this question by saying im an "expert" on css, especially cross-browser compatibility. but in later years i didn't actually need to use css because i had people for that. and frameworks. (the people and i eventually settled on bootstrap.) things moved on, and i lost touch. however, since ive started building this web site, im enjoying CSS again. im coding everything by hand with no frameworks, discovered new(ish) properties like display: flex and grid (where have you been all my life?) cross-browser problems dont really exist anymore, we are truly blessed.

i first learned about CSS properly by reading DHTML for the World Wide Web, a 1998 book by a gentleman named Jason Cranford Teague. it exposed to me the relationship between html, css, javascript, and something called the document object model. way before its time, really, and it was a bit of a nightmare to use practically. the v4 browsers had totally different implementations of css, js, and dom. we had to have workarounds for everything. but we made cool stuff and it was fun.

for 2026, the css on this site is pretty simplistic (and a lot of it's still inline,) but it works. and that's good enough for now.

11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?

(pretty sure) i do, but it's not something i use a lot. let me just check...

update: yeah i know how to use it! interesting to note that you can wrap each list item in <div>, i'd been wondering about that (so i can use break-inside, unless there's a better way.)

12. What is your favourite HTML element?

answer that sounds good:

the humble yet majestic <a href=""> of course! the hyperlink, the building block of the world wide web!

my real answer:

<small> it's a guilty pleasure i just love using it, im not even sure if i should...

(maybe there's a definitive answer on MDN? oh... “authors are encouraged to use their best judgement when determining whether to use <small> or CSS” well that clears thst up, then.)

13. If you're making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?

panic.

on this site, if i need a new page i just go to my Neocities dashboard, click New File, and just start writing.

in the olden days i would have mocked-up the page in Macromedia Fireworks. i suppose Inkscape is the tool for that now, but i dont really do it that much. (i reach for a notepad and pen occasionally though.)

14. Do you know JavaScript?

yeah, i must have written hundreds of thousands of lines of obsolete javascript code in my time, although im a bit rusty at the moment. i guess at some point everything moved to jQuery and i forgot how to do everything natively. (mind you, that's not all bad because old-school native javascript was an absolute ball-ache.)

(see also: question 10)

15. How about PHP?

i learned PHP at version 4, i like it. i've developed and maintained two large php/mysql frameworks (CMS & ecommerce) in the past, plus a few ancient personal projects. later in my career i developed most things in Microsoft world, so i lost touch with php. i might give it another go for my next project (is it any good these days?)

16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?

not really, it's just a personal web site. i upload a bit of everything.

17. Are you more focused on content or design?

neither really, i'm just glad to be going through the motions if making things again.

18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?

i do, but it's for an un-related project which has completely stalled while i potter about with Shen’s World.

i used to buy domains for fun or random ideas, but i've let most of them lapse over the years because i never did anything with them.

it's not all bad, though. i've done more web development for myself since i joined neocities than i have done in perhaps ten years.

i suppose i could point a custom domain here, but i like my .neocities.org URL, it's a badge of honour.

19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or "retro" websites?

i've been thinking about this one way too much and i reckon there are a couple of factors at play on what let's call the "retro scale": intentionalness (look at my retro-page!), and obtrusiveness (best viewed in such-and-such browser at whatever-by-whatever resolution.) retro stuff is cool, everyone gets nostalgic. but a splash page abruptly denying access for mobile devices is not something to strive for. and not every web site has to look like a badly-designed operating system. again: it's cool but decent web sites never worked like that, guys. back in my day we tried to make our stuff as usable as possible and we were building for 800x600 pixels, not 1920px. lowest common denominator and all that.

if you want actual nostalgia check out stuff like 2advanced studios at the web design museum or go and read an old edition of HotWired at the internet archive. those are retro, man.

so anyway, with that said, i guess i would have to classify my site as undeniably retro yet low-to-middling on the intentionality axis. (that is: my stuff primarily appears retro because i'm a miserable old git.)

20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?

to be honest on this particular web site, ive never checked.

but back in the day, especially during the browser wars followed by our brief, well-formedness-obsessed dalliance with XHTML, i made validation a pretty high priority. the first step of diagnosing a front-end problem was "validate your HTML!" but then there were third-party frameworks and widgets that we had to use, which refused to produce valid markup no matter what i tried (yes ASP.NET, i'm talking about you...)

ok, i checked my homepage: 2 missing alt attributes, 4 bits of broken inline CSS (oh, that explains that then,) 8 minor warnings. not too bad. nothing i can't fix.

UPDATE: i've fixed all the HTML errors on the home page. (i havent checked anything else yet.)

21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?

well well well, this is another fascinating one for me!

in the early days of my web dev career one of the final steps towards building a web site was to sit in front of Photoshop Fireworks and quickly knock-up a set of standard-size banners. and i HATED it. i hated it because i knew my banners were intended for intrusive, corporate marketing: to bastardise our Web in favour of revenue streams.

and i told them! "ad-revenue driven business models will never work on the World Wide Web," i said, "no one will use it!" but as usual, they didn't listen and now they are very very rich and i am very very poor. but then, i'd rather be happy than rich any day. and am i? not especially.

so, yes, let's embrace banners and buttons (especially our custom 88x31s) that link to our OWN, INDEPENDENT web sites (rather than the corporate web) as a sort of free, open, and voluntary advertising network and spread our word everywhere!

22. What do you think of button walls in particular?

well in 2026 i believe that 88x31 buttons are such a vital tool for connecting us all together that every independent web site should have it's own 88x31 button. (it really doesn't get more low-tech than swapping a gif and a url, i love it!)

so yes! i have a button wall! (if you want to see your site on there, drop me a message)

23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?

well, i've got loads of cool ideas but, being honest with myself, (and taking into consideration the fragility of mental health) i'm operating on a significantlly diminished range of competencies at the moment. that's another way of saying i lost my mind and all of my techie confidence at the same time. so, i expect that a fresh start now would probably end up being more-or-less the same.

24. Are you envious of other people's websites?

yes of course, absolutely all of the time! there's some incredible stuff out there, way out of my range of both artistic talent and technical skills. beautiful, clever, entertaining, educational, inspiring... the World Wide Web can be is amazing!

25. What text editor do you use?

i mainly just use the web-based neocities editor, although i do occasionally write a snippet in codepen if im not ready to change a live file.

26. Why do you use that one?

im on mobile and i very rarely use a computer at the moment, so most of the software im using is necessarily web-based.

27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?

eveything is hosted on Neocities. i have no need for CDN right now.

28. This might not be relevant to you, but what's your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?

oh, is there a debate? i didn't know.

i chose Neocities for its (admittedly tenuous) "Geocities revival" vibe, and i (currently) have no desire to move.

29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?

it's grown quite rapidly recently so i'd guess around 50MB

30. Do you keep local backups of your files?

oh, hopefully.

my old mate Mark insisted that backups don't exist until they've been tested.

31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?

i like them both when used appropriately.

32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?

i've never been that clever with colours. i do have a simple colour pallette defined in my base stylesheet that i try to stick to, but i have a few pages that ignore it completely.

33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?

(this is going to be an interesting one...)

let's just say (for now) that i already quit a handful of years ago for *waves finger at head* health reasons.

this web site is my reincarnation, baby!

34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?

right now the only other webmasters i know are people i met online since i joined neocities.

when i was in the industry i knew loads of web developers. some of them quit for *waves finger at head* health reasons, but the ones who survived increasingly just stopped building anything personal.

35. Do people in your real life know about your website?

a few, but i don't make a big fuss about it. they wouldn't care understand what we are trying to achieve here.

36. Do you update your website very often? How often is "very often"?

at the moment i'm at least tweaking something pretty much every day, but i'm sure that won't last too long.

my big updates should be are listed in my rss feed.

37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?

it just sort of evolves at the moment.

38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?

well this web site is my hobby at the moment. i guess that's why a lot of my content is meta or "coding" type stuff. hopefully not too much sitely content (but then you need it because that's how we interact on this "indie web" thingy.)

there's also a lot of personal stuff here (obviously, because it's my place.) some is drawn from the "archives," but most of it is new. and there are a load of random and unfinished pages about some of my other interests, if you want to look for them.

as for outside-focussed content, one of my main uses of the site is to collect links to other stuff on the web. tbere are outgoing links on pretty much every page. that's the whole point of the World Wide Web, after all... to share information and to put things into context.

tl;dr: it's a bit of everything.

39. Do you do web design professionally?

uhhhhhh......

i used to, but not any more. i did it for a Long Time. but most of my professional work was done for companies who own all the code, so i don't really have anything to show for it.

40. If not, would you like to? And if you're comfortable answering, what do you do for work?

you son of a bitch, i'm in!

(seriously though, see Q33)

41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?

not a lot, although i have made my address available on the site should anyone or prefer to contact me by email.

42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?

i do have social media in real life, but i don't read or post much anymore because ive moved all of my attention to the indie web. ive kept all of my accounts (for now) because most real people i interact with can only be contacted on one of the closed networks.

43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?

i logged onto a discord server once and was immediately overwhelmed so i logged off again.

ive created bluesky and mastadon handles to use for sharing and discussion along with this web site, which i think people can message me on. or you can email me.

44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?

sometimes, depends on my mood

45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?

well i created a little refuge page on nekoweb the day we had that neocities outage, but really this is my main web site.

46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?

any topic i'm interested in! although i have to admit a lot of it is very technical and meta because building the web site *is* my hobby.

47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?

real.

48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?

not reaaaallly..? i mean, there are people i know, sure.

most of my actual webby friends are were people i already knew in real life.

49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?

yeah i think it's pretty cool now. the current html standard actually feels (to me) more casual, like old-school html rather than the stuff they were trying to push with XHTML STRICT and such and such. CSS is also really easy to use now with things like display: flex and grid.

that said, the main privilege we have nowadays is good range of web browsers that implement web standards correctly. because that was the real struggle. html and css have always been solid on paper but, in years gone by, you would look at your work in a different browser and just break out in a cold sweat.

seriously, go and look at tantek's og box model hack, or pretty much anything written by Eric Meyer before 2010. the tech writers truly blessed the community with workarounds, dude. the hacks tricks we all needed to get out of bed in the morning.

in 2026 we have it good. html and css are easy. we have browser developers who broadly agree on standards; download any modern web browser and stuff just works. embedded fonts just work. transparent pngs just work. even margin and padding just work! it's awesome.

tl;dr: yes.

50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?

"mobile not supported"

oh ok... i just... won't visit then?

there's no good reason for this, and it's seriously uncool not really in-keeping with the indie web movement to gate-keep your stuff.

it's not even retro, mate. see #q19.

51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?

you might be shocked to hear this: i'd encourage people to put just a little bit of effort into making their sites mobile-friendly.

//TODO: i suppose i should back this up with a tutorial

52. Do you use a lot of semantic HTML? Or are you guilty of generic structure?

i do try to use semantic html but sometimes i obviously slip into generic markup just to get something done.

css is way easier if you've used the right html tags for the right stuff.

53. Do you consider different browsers?

oh, some of my fondest memories are fights with different web browsers (RIP, Netscrape!) it was a bit of a speciality of mine. i always have all the browsers installed on my machine, i think all web developers should.

however, the quality of web browsers in 2026 is so high that sometimes it feels unnecessary to test everything, it pretty much just works the same. (mind you, im not doing anything very complicated yet, so i am prepared to eat these words.)

54. Speaking of, what's your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.

Firefox because it has the cutest logo it's free, open source software, isn't owned by Gewgle or Micro$haft, has the cutest logo, and i've been using it since it was called Phoenix.

(it also has the cutest logo)

55. And what OS are you on?

laptop: mint, phone: android

56. Do you have a strong opinion on that, or do you just happen to use it?

i just can't use Windoze anymore: too slow, too much ai.

57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?

yes. the real question is are they desktop friendly?

58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?

unnecessary and rude.

59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?

funnily enough, just yesterday i was added to three web rings: html energy, no ai, and rewild the web. check them out on my homepage.

the wikipedia describes web rings as a relic of the old web, which makes me feel.... well, let's just say this isn't the first time i've joined a web ring.

it's something i havent thought about for years, but i think web rings are a great idea. let's all get out there and link to each other! as soon as i realised they were relevant again, i immediately applied to join a few (although i think three is probably enough.)

60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?

i do but i can't say i'm particularly happy with them at the moment. i can never decide whether to finish one properly, start a new one, or abandon the concept entirely. some of the more important shrines i want to build i'm too scared of dishonouring the original material that i don't know where to start.

perhaps i should take up stamp collecting.

61. Are your websites "cliche", in your opinion?

in my opinion, yeah. but then a lot of my stuff is pulled from random things that simmer away in my little old brain and most of the images are sourced from my ancient archive of files. to other people with fresher eyes it might be cool, but who knows?

i'm sure it's not just me but i've always found it difficult to be objective about my own stuff. the euphoria of building something new and it actually working for the first time rapidly fades, leaving the distinct possibility that it's all a load of dingoes kidneys.

this is why feedback and sharing is so important on this little World Wide Web thing. which brings me to...

(wip)

62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?

i really don't know how to answer that, i like different things about all kinds of web sites. as for my site: at the moment i'm just happy to be building stuff again.

63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?

i can operate Photoshop etc, so i can make my own graphics when i need to. but i'm most definitely not an artist.

64. What are your favourite resource sites?

65. Is there a habit you just can't get away from no matter how hard you try?

66. What's your biggest advice for a new webmaster?

67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?

68. What do you think of frameset layouts?

i miss them, although i fully understand the reasons they are gone. i/we did some fun and useful things with <frameset> over the years. they might have been abused over-used for layout, but it was the only way to do "single page apps" or partial loading... before we had partial loading.

// break out of frames
if(top.location != location)
{
  top.location.href =
      document.location.href;
}

🥲

69. How about table-based layouts?

70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of "one-column", "two-column" and "three-column" layouts? Do you use any of these?

71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?

72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It's useful for your thoughts.

73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?

74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?

75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?

76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?

77. Do you ever force elements to do things they're not supposed to?

78. Thoughts on floating elements?

79. When you're sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?

80. Do you have a favourite font?

81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?

82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?

83. Do you bookmark other people's websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?

84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?

85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?

86. How often and for how long are you online?

87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?

me, me, me, and me!

i created my neocities account originally as a place to store my own stuff. i'm happy if you like my stuff, that's cool. but if people don't like it, thats fine too: it wasn't made for them, anyway.

88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?

absolutely, it used to be the future!

(see question 20.)

89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?

90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?

91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?

yeah on my home page (only) ive got a classic-style counter powered by hit-counter.net. it's free and doesn't use any cookies, so i can't speak to the accuracy of it. i installed it more for the aesthetic and the novely value, really.

the only other sense i have of traffic to the site is on my neocities dashboard.

to be fair this site is more of my own personal hangout, so im not that bothered about visitor numbers.

(i love a good guest book signing, though!)

92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?

93. Do you write your page content directly into the editor, or do you prepare it elsewhere, like a text document or a Word document?

94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you're cool?

95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?

96. Would you close down your website if you couldn't update it, or would you leave an archive?

97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?

98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?

99. And do you optimise the images on your website?

100. We're out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ....other than exhausted.

100 answers from more webmasters:

• blakewatson.com
• bungle.online
• daftpatience.neocities.org
• dir.emptiness.io
• doqmeat.com
• forestfolke.neocities.org
• jadeeverstone.com
• killian102004.neocities.org
• kockatriceking.neocities.org
• lamnidae.net
• lydels.neocities.org
• makiroll.space
• mouseling.net
• nathanupchurch.com
• nomnomnami.com
• otherdemons.com
• ribo.zone
• shellsharks.com
• skep.place
• snails.town
• solaria.neocities.org
• sqvrltastic.art
• starbug.neocities.org
• sylum.web.fc2.com
• tabf5.com
• tekerare.github.io
• theresmiling.eu
• ughbees.neocities.org
• viciousdelights.neocities.org
• worldwideshen.neocities.org

(number countup script originally by Andrew M McCall.)