this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
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Ask Lemmy
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Do you have a list of communities by topic or do you have an encyclopedic brain? Or just know what to search? I'm always impressed seeing you post in such a variety of places
Regardless, thank you!
I just do a classic search for keywords based on whatever in posting to find the closest match and generally avoid "catchall comms". For example, if I'm posting an article talking about newly discovered animal behavior, instead of shoving somewhere like !interestingasfuck@lemmy.world id put "animal" in the comm search bar and see what comes up which would lead me to !ethology@mander.xyz
Though it works better on lemmy.world than PieFed.world because PieFed isn't nearly as federated with remote comms as lemmy.world is, so sometimes I go back to lemmy.world or use Lemmyverse.net to look up and then back to PieFed.world to subscribe to it
Chad recommendations.
Who's Chad?
Cool thanks!
Thats awesome thanks!
Kagi also has a small web search option. Its so great. I love kagi! Wish it was unlimited search tho. I blow through my 5 dollar allotment in like 2 weeks ha.
I also love the small web. Maybe we should get on some IRC channel or create one about these topics ? Id love to talk with like minded folks
!smolweb@slrpnk.net
E: typo
I started that one!
looks like its blocked on piefed :( but thanks!
It's a bit of a chicken and the egg issue - the tools are there, but the business model of hosting a website is not sustainable for small or niche communities (especially with AI scraping causing strain and horrible ad rates), so not many people are motivated to create them.
At the same time, unless someone creates and maintains the sites, communities can't form and spread through word of mouth. If you can get a group of like minded folks willing to bear the upfront costs, give it a go, and people will come. But I doubt such sites will spring up on their own anymore in the 2020s.
This reads like someone broken by capitalism. I'm sorry, buddy.
I live in the USA, so I guess that checks out.
I mean your complaints are valid, but even if you're using a VPS, it shouldn't cost you not than $5-10/mo. With self-hosting probably even less.
We're not talking like a lemmy or masto instance here.
I have several personal websites on the small web, and people do visit. It's actually lovely.
I self-host my own game servers for my friends and communities, so I know it's definitely possible to run stuff on a budget. I'm just thinking a forum or blog/message board site, even for niche subjects, will get scraped to death and may outpace your initial resources allocated, so the only way to sustain that is having a benevolent owner.
Then again, I could be thinking way larger scale than what OP is thinking.
Not that I've heard of. But look into webrings
Thanks!! I went ahead and created a feed for the communities. Ill also add it to the post.
Good question.
Next to the ones already mentioned there is also !smallweb@lemmy.ml but there is not much activity going on.
Maybe we could start by sharing our own personal websites or something like that? What would you say, guys?
but there is not much activity going on.
Yeah it looks empty to me cuz i have all .ml blocked lol
Maybe that's the reason why I don't see much activity? I don't bother much looking at the instance's name.
Check the communities on lemmy.sdf.org, there's some for gopher and gemini.