hi all! i’ve been thinking about this for a hot minute and cannot get it out of my brain! it’s a bit complicated so i wanted to both explain the idea here, get some feedback, and if anyone would like to help, that would be amazing!
idea: a web clique in the form of a so-called kingdom, where folks receive titles and peerage upon joining (e.g. “countess of CSS,” “keeper of the PGP keys,” etc.) based on their interests, their website, and what they enjoy. each member would receive a ‘family’ crest (again, representative of who they are as website owners and depending upon their title category) they could display on their site along with their title.
initial thoughts:
is it too complicated to have folks who have been bestowed peerage to then be able to ‘invite’ others to their crest? that seems like it could get too much quickly, but i like the idea of expanding ‘families’ outside of the clique without getting too complicated. please help me come up with language other than ‘family,’ i’d really prefer not to use that. clan? house?
this is meant to be fun, but i do want to acknowledge that this would not be hierarchial in any sense of the word, and anyone would be welcome. this would be a kingdom of the people in a fictional sense, less so glorifying actual/real-life kingdoms. i’d love to incorporate not just european influence here but also african, asian, and south american influences if possible!
having ‘orders’ within the kingdom would also be fun, where folks can create their own subgroups within the kingdom (e.g. “the order of the pen” for site owners who are writers).
i need help with art! heraldry is not my strong suit, and i think this would be an amazing addition to the clique.
additionally, we might need a better name. the kingdom of the web sounds good but floating more ideas would be best <3
what do you think? i’m super excited about this idea after floating it in discord!
I think it’s a great idea, but does sound like there will be a lot of fine detail work to be done and irnoned out. But I’m interested enough to holler back and offer any help I might have.
I like the idea of this being sort of… like a pixel clique/webring germination point. But you’ll have to be super clear when you present this to the world that like Goat runs the house of whatever, we bestowed that title on him, but it’s up to him to invite people or not IF thats kind of what you mean. Decentralize the peerage! :D
For art - it’d be cool if we had a standalone or webapp to make like little clipart heraldry. Not sure how involved that would be because it seems simple… which probably means it’s not?
name wise: Realm of the Web? Since we’re effectively creating a Peerage here.
they had the idea for folks to make their own crests, and i LOVE the idea of that. a drag & drop editor would be best for that, i think, using these bases that he made!
that’s the idea! folks would get titles like duke, duchess, regent, lady, lord, etc. i’m wondering if we should also give folks preference on the first half of their title, whether it be a specific gender or the actual title (duke, duchess, etc.) of choice to make sure folks actually have fun with this :)
Gonna be the negative nancy here - frankly I think this is gonna be a lot more fun to think about than it will be in practice
Like, just for fun this could be neat, a little “badge” with no real holding and some silly nicknames, that could totally work. However after that point this starts becoming more work than would be worth it: an “invite” system? Orders that need to be spread out, and supposedly followed to some extent to remain inside? If there’s an order, regardless of how comedic in nature, there’s a level of hierarchy within the group. Sub-groups with the same rules is a whole 'nother demonic thing to keep track of.
This is going to be a lot of fun if and only if absolutely no one takes it seriously or tries to make it A Proper Thing. Once you start pushing for that, you slowly have these gross complications pop up. Maybe not instantly, at first it’ll be silly and fun as all things are, but eventually it’ll start rearing it’s head (assuming the feature in question hasn’t been forgotten and/or dropped).
My main question here is what the presumed goal of this is, right? If it’s just “a sort of decentralized community marker”, we can do that with the 88x31s, so this would just be a version of that. If we want to have more interconnectivity within the small web (which I really do think needs to be pushed harder), there’s simpler ways to do that. If it’s just a funny idea you had - sounds wild, just better to keep it silly and not try to puff it up unnecessarily.
my mum fell for that and bought a plot of land for my dad to ‘make him a laird’. the ironic twist being that we are scottish, and he already owns land in scotland (our house)…
i appreciate your post! totally OK to pose questions especially for projects that may get out of scope quickly due to folks’ excitement.
just a reminder though that web cliques are silly and have no goal. the “goal” is to link to personal websites and have some fun while doing it, presenting it differently. there’s a lot of different ways to accomplish that—why not just do a webring, in that case? well, because this is fun and different.
i’m not sure what you mean about pushing for it to be a “proper” thing—there’s nothing to legitimize. there’s no power, nothing to lord over, no forums, no chatrooms, no special treatment, nothing within the clique to have power over. you get a title and a badge for your website. you might get additional badges because you have shared interests with others within the web clique (“orders”), but outside of that, there’s nothing to make “proper” here.
there hasn’t yet been a web clique i can find that allows you to create your own collectible using a drag & drop editor, also! that’d be nice to do to be different :)
there going to be basic rules like with all of my projects, but there’s not going to be more that folks have to follow or maintain in order to stay in the clique. this is just a collectible/link trading project. i think we are being silly without puffing anything up—and anyone who does try to make this bigger than it is would be sillier than the project inherently is :)
thank you for the feedback, though! raised some good questions about the invite system being cumbersome. that idea came about because a lot of folks who are new to creating websites don’t join web cliques because they feel like their site isn’t “done enough” or good enough to join projects like this. the invite system would allow folks to feel invited to participate rather than feel intimidated to join.
if folks don’t like that idea, we can absolutely scrap it.
I love the heraldry idea! Back in the day, heraldry was used as an individual identifier, so I love the concept of everyone having their own design. Maybe it would be cool to have a template and a specific color palette, so that when all the shields are together on the clique page, there’s a sort of visual unity.
I’ve definitely seen things like that on websites. Using a dollmaker-type setup would definitely be doable.
We could have a couple of order-exclusive symbols, like maybe a quill pen for “the order of the pen” Maybe not exclusive bc that sounds mean…order-specific?
If a dollmaker-type setup was used, the fields could be selected by buttons, like with bases, and then people could submit art for use as drag-and-drop charges, and there could be a category for general use and a category for each order. Once again, providing a palette and a size would be a nice way to make the whole thing look cohesive.
Edit: Omg I just checked the discord, and y’all are already on it lol
I probably won’t take part, but this is a cute idea!
Theoretically, you could set up a rival “Web Republic” clique for any defiant small-r republicans. Or a group for rebellious web peasants? I’m imagining a pitchfork badge…
The historic republican, democratic and populist movements of Europe weren’t as flashy as the monarchies, but they did have have their own symbolism and traditions.
the kingdom of the web sounds good but floating more ideas would be best <3
Manatee will be watching this thread with interest.
