messianic pills on code thievery.
jao user 44
To my knowledge, there have been 2 (two) cringe crusades run against 'code thieves' on Neoclitties this year, both of which were perpetrated by sites with pretty large followings that backed them on their grievances. I find this more than a bit uncouth, especially considering the principles upon which the 'indie web' cacas apparently escaped sozial medija to follow. In an essay that will hopefully be published sooner rather than later (or never), i will epically OWN these people, and demonstrate why caring about such things is retarded.
it is quite a wordy art, and if it were to be published now it would be the longest thing i've written on the red blog by a factor of 2. i'm impatient, so i will get out an excerpt today just containing some quotations and insider perspectives (I am not an 'indie web' caca).
After witnessing how routinely shit neoclitty cacas can be about 'code stealing,' i think they need to be read, if not to convince someone of the polemic retardation of the idea of 'code theft,' then just to soothe me back to sleep.
Wriorango microblogs.
One of my major complaints with the Neocities community is how irrationally protective many people are of their code. I've seen plenty of sites that block right-clicking and CTRL-I commands--which not only hinder accessibility, but also are quite easy to work around. I get it, it sucks to see your work getting "stolen" by someone else without credit. That is just the reality of making your work accessible to the public. If you can't deal with that, why are you here?
In addition, how can we condemn people for "stealing" code, taking inspiration from other peoples' sites, etc. when many people are unwilling to help beginners? Gatekeeping sucks. Copyright sucks. If the goal is to separate ourselves from the corporate side of the web, we shouldn't try to recreate the same rules of ownership. The net is yours forever.
scarecrowkid's newsletter.
I never realized that there was this stigma about people "stealing" code or that there are (lots of!!) people who do not allow people to learn and use bits and pieces of their code for their own use. If "free to use" code is changed to the point where it's "unrecognizable from the source", then what's the issue? Is it still someone's code if it's unrecognizable? Why does it even matter? How are people supposed to learn if they're not allowed to look at other people's work (i.e., disabling inspect or right-clicking), something that is required to be seen to even function? I'm ranting at this point, but it's all just really silly and I can't stop thinking about it. Coding has always been collaborative. The plethora of resources available for coding shows that.
Nenrikido published a Neoclitties reflection in 2023.
It also doesn’t escape me that a lot of the politics people ascribe to the old web are just…entirely fabricated. For example, this whole “don’t steal my code” thing I keep seeing is almost always coming from the exact same people who wax nostalgic for the old web. Girl! If you scold people over CSS theft, you would not have lasted a day on the actual old web. You are “good old days"ing something that never even existed! Besides, one of the best things about the old web was how collaborative it was. Frantic possessiveness over HTML and CSS is antithetical to the ethos of the old web.
maddiemuu microblogs.
i think some people on this site put way too much stock in the idea of "code stealing" + are overly committed to the idea of it as an inherent act of malice. most of what i see is like art tracing/theft- young people who really just don't understand the social etiquette in these spaces and want to feel like they made something cool. i dunno! i just think it's important to afford people grace in most situations. especially when those situations involve newcomers in niche spaces online lol.
Dariwari's license.
Intellectual property is fake and gay. I am not an idealist who believes in individual freedoms, human rights, the pursuit of liberty, etc. I do not believe in the use of coercion and violence to enforce intellectual property rights, which is all that the law boils down to. When one asserts their intellectual property rights, what they are really doing is asking the state to violate others over completely arbitrary claims, which they will gladly oblige.
I do not care if someone copies my work and passes it off as their own, in fact that has already happened. There is nothing I can do about it. More importantly, there is no thought that is truly my own. I have no original thoughts, it would be difficult to claim anyone really does. My disposition, thoughts, habits, beliefs, can only be known in relation to others. If it is said that I am rebellious, it is only because there is someone else who is an obedient slave.