It’s over 20 years old, and its author Mark L. Irons died in 2012, but a lot of it still seems relevant.
I like this a lot, creating a personal site seems like a lot to me and this breaks it down pretty simply! At least in terms of good practices and content.
Topic adjacent, but your mentioning that the author had died in 2012 inspired me to find this look back on his life from a friend. It’s stuff like this that makes the personal web so human, so amazing.
Not implementing SSL is definitely a pattern for personal sites /s
I don’t think the push for universal HTTPS was a thing in 2003.
And here’s something you’ll love: I don’t forcibly redirect people to HTTPS if they’re visiting my site over HTTP. I figure that if somebody wants to take their chances raw-dogging the internet, that’s their business.
This is amazing! The content is fascinating and the examples are such a cool snapshot of the older Internet. I’ve only just started browsing, but I’m pretty sure I used to read the linked Conlang guide back in middle school, and he also links to the first wiki.
I read your post on this and see where you are coming from. I think I come down more on the side of “protecting people from themselves” who don’t know the difference. I don’t know what happens if you just type example.com and hit enter in most browsers, does it autofill HTTP or HTTPS?
And I know you know this but, the post being dated 2003 is irrelevant, what matters is that the site is online and someone has the ability to get an SSL cert for the domain.
Thanks for sharing ! I love those patterns definitions !
Also, I explored the site and found this very important page about Space Cadet 
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While I am far from an advocate for Dave “I am important” Winer, I still find his perspective helpful at times. Here’s his take on HTTP vs HTTPS: Link
I don’t fully agree with him, but think there’s value in understanding other visions here.
It’s also worth noting that not everyone who “maintains” a web domain has the technical wherewithal to make changes like setting up an SSL cert. It’s very trivial now with many virtual hosting services, but only if you know what you’re looking for. It’s also entirely possible that whoever is keeping his site online is simply doing so to honor his legacy despite not having any real technical background. In short, “someone has the ability” may be a bit presumptuous, even if technically correct.
I was only able to take a quick skim this morning, but this clearly has a lot of useful information that I could also adopt into my own site design! I’ll absolutely have to keep hunting for examples too; they’re the best way for me to learn, personally.
I can understand that, but I lean toward what I call the “presumption of competence”. I don’t want other people trying to “protect me from myself”; I got my fill of that as a child and even then it grated. Therefore, I figure that people on the internet are competent adults who can figure things out for themselves and make the own decisions until proven otherwise. That’s why I don’t force HTTPS on my own site.
Also, Alan Batie, the operator of RainDrop Laboratories, which hosts Mark Irons’ website, has been a Unix sysadmin for decades. Presumably he knows what he’s doing and has weighed the pros and cons of updating a dead man’s website to support HTTPS.