betterwebsites.dev

Theme

awawa@betterwebsites.dev (betterwebsites.dev) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:14:58 -0700

I rewrote this theme to better serve the needs of use-cases for myself as well as the general public to have a home on the web.

The idea is this: markdown, toml, html and css, when basically all prepared makes it simple and easy to work with, even if one isn’t tehcnically inclined.

The modern web is full of overly designed and flashy pages that don’t convey information well or in easily accessible fashion.

We should all have the ability to share ourselves our ideas, our art, our queerness to the world and I’m a firm believer that obtaining a domain and putting up a simple static site like this one is the future of the web.

This theme has existed in some form over the last few years and I’ve now redone lots of it to allow for improved blogging, news publishing, and even physical printing to augment the use of handouts and zines.

20260103 - everything is okay

rewritten, but still the same in spirit

Note that this is a more detailed overview than the about page but does not walk the user through all the settings. Stay tuned for a second article on this site that will provide education on this.

ordered list

link (will change color once visited)
emphasis
bold

blockquote

“Why is freedom so frightening? Is that even the question? Or is rather: How has freedom been made to seem so frightening that people find themselves longing for authoritarian rule?” (Judith Butler, 2024, “Who’s Afraid of Gender?”)

printing

when one prints this page, it looks like this:

20260603 - screenshot

Hugo is creating QR codes for each page for us and css is styling it.

This allows for easy printing and distribution of posts, news, zines, whatever you want with a link and QR code to the live page that allows the reader to easily assess for updates to the page.

the pdf also supports links inside the document

inline code

nvim is really cool and i highly recommend it

codeblock

current nvim config file:

--use terminal colorscheme
vim.cmd('colorscheme vim')

-- options
vim.opt.tabstop = 2
vim.opt.expandtab = true
vim.opt.autoindent = true
vim.opt.hidden = true
vim.opt.number = true
vim.opt.wrap = true
vim.opt.linebreak = true
vim.opt.clipboard = "unnamedplus"

-- statusline
vim.opt.statusline = " %f [%{wordcount().words} words]"

-- backslash-shift-d will insert the date (only in normal mode)
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>D', ":put =strftime('%a %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%z')<CR>") 

--backslash-shift-s will toggle spellcheck!
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>S', function() 
  vim.opt_local.spell = not vim.opt_local.spell:get()
end)

--vim.keymap.set('x', '<C-S-C>', "+y")

images

images use a hugo shortcode wrapped in a <figure> element like so:

{{<figure 
  class="float-left"
  link="https://ravenwinters.org"
  rel=""
  src="img/authors/raven/profile.png"
  alt="raven's profile picture"
  width="400"
  caption="Raven Judith Winters"
>}}

which renders:

Raven Judith Winters

note how text flows around it. i find images really difficult to deal with on the web and this is so far the best method i have found. by default images are centered and full width of the body. options allow you to float the image left, right, or keep it centered. the left and right options are floated and inline whereas normal images are block displayed.

Loki, the bestest floof

some of the background code driving this could probably use some improvements, but for now i find this good for my needs!

buttons

i have a love of 88x31 buttons and so there is special code to render them on the home page!

one should theoretically be able to put them anywhere tho:

emotes

emotes can be called with the shortcode:

only use this for inline paragraph styling {{< emote src="" >}}

only use this for inline paragraph styling

for other styling, use the figure shortcode:

authors and tags

the site uses hugo’s taxonomies and branching to create authors and tags

author pages will auto generate with each new author you place in front matter of your posts. the default page template will take whatever you put as your lead author in hugo.toml and plug them in as an author. each author can then create their own page with whatever they want in content/authors/yournamehere/_index.md. pages support multiple authors, with the byline automatically adjusting based upon 1, 2, or >2 authors.

rss

The rss is automatically set up and will display full-text of all entries

sitemap

at the bottom of each page is a sitemap with all pages, in the order of being last modified

to be continued,,,

look for updates on this page as i add to the features

u should write

awawa@betterwebsites.dev (betterwebsites.dev) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:06:22 -0700

20260425 – more queers should write

writing is important.

it’s asynchronous. it can be copied and archived and printed. it’s a neat technology: being able to understand each other across space and time. reading in important. without reading, writing is way less powerful. the best way to become an excellent writer is to be a reader. setting up a cozy little home on the web is important as AI slop and a handful of companies control our online connections. social networks are important. writing, even as microblogging on mastodon, is a large contribution to culture, especially queer culture.

Write about your adventures! Or write about the things that give you hope and meaning; and the things that would make the world better. A reform caucus in a big union in Oregon uses this theme on their website to help their fight for transparency and democracy within that union. It powers my blog. And it could power your own home on the web as well!

One may protest: “well, i don’t know what i would write about!”

Write about love. about sex. about politics. a vignette or slice-of-life. your passions; your philosophy, your poetry, your hobbies. Share what you’ve learned with the world. In a graduation speech, the comedian Tim Minchin urged: “be a teacher! … Even if you are not a ’teacher’, be a teacher … Rejoice in what you learn, and spray it!”

class-conciousness is being a creature

melt ICE

awawa@betterwebsites.dev (betterwebsites.dev) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:06:12 -0700

This example post is mostly photos

20260131 - Nurses Against ICE

20260527 - abolish ice

20260527 - don’t look away

Legal

awawa@betterwebsites.dev (betterwebsites.dev) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 03:03:43 -0700

TL;DR

This is a static site and we don’t collect any personal data of visitors.
Some data may go through the site’s host Cloudflare and their privacy policy applies to that.
Cloudflare analytics are enabled but no personal identifiers of site visitors are obtained by us.
If an embedded item like a YouTube video is on a page, they may track you through that (embedded items are similar to visiting the actual site), and you are beholden to their policies.
If you find an issue, let us know by sending an email to: awawa@betterwebsites.dev
Always do your own research before acting on any information or advice that you read here. By using the site, you agree to waive liability per license terms.
Feel free to share, use, or remix our content! Just be sure to follow the license terms.
We may share things here under fair use, no copyright infringement is intended.

The Privacy Policy

We, betterwebsites.dev, care about privacy and wish to make this policy as inclusive of that goal as possible. This is a static site, meaning there is no database for data entry from a user of the site. Further, this site contains no Javascript and is arranged in HTML/CSS for maximizing security. This site is hosted on Cloudflare. Cloudflare has their own analytics that are “privacy-first” and defines what data they collect and what they can know about you. They state that:

Cloudflare Web Analytics does not use any client-side state, such as cookies or localStorage, to collect usage metrics. We also don’t “fingerprint” individuals via their IP address, User Agent string, or any other data for the purpose of displaying analytics.

— Cloudflare Analytics

Cloudflare’s privacy policy can be found on their website.

This site is built without cookies and does not contain any trackers. Embedded content (eg from YouTube, etc.) may contain their own cookies and trackers, and the linked sites own privacy policies will apply. Embedded content is akin to visiting the actual site itself, and the embedded sites privacy policy will apply.

We do not collect any personally identifiable user information of visitors to our site.

Since we do not collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to our site:

there is no one to share or sell the information to
no place it is collected from (where)
no reason for the information to be collected (why)
no application of “how information is collected” because it’s not collected in the first place
no application of “rights users have over their data” as it’s not collected in the first place
You can contact us via awawa@betterwebsites.dev if you have questions or concerns about this policy

Disclaimers and terms of use

We are not a lawyer and nothing on this site is constituted as legal advice
We are not a physician and nothing on this site is constituted as medical advice
We are not a financial professional and nothing on this site is constituted as professional financial advice
On this site, we express opinions and views which are our own and do not represent our employers or associations with which we are a part

The legal code of the CC BY 4.0 license in section 5 states that:

Section 5 – Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability.

a. Unless otherwise separately undertaken by the Licensor, to the extent possible, the Licensor offers the Licensed Material as-is and as-available, and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the Licensed Material, whether express, implied, statutory, or other. This includes, without limitation, warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, absence of latent or other defects, accuracy, or the presence or absence of errors, whether or not known or discoverable. Where disclaimers of warranties are not allowed in full or in part, this disclaimer may not apply to You.

b. To the extent possible, in no event will the Licensor be liable to You on any legal theory (including, without limitation, negligence) or otherwise for any direct, special, indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive, exemplary, or other losses, costs, expenses, or damages arising out of this Public License or use of the Licensed Material, even if the Licensor has been advised of the possibility of such losses, costs, expenses, or damages. Where a limitation of liability is not allowed in full or in part, this limitation may not apply to You.

c.The disclaimer of warranties and limitation of liability provided above shall be interpreted in a manner that, to the extent possible, most closely approximates an absolute disclaimer and waiver of all liability.

— CC BY 4.0 LEGAL CODE, Section 5 – Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability

The license terms of other licenses, including limitation of liability and waivers, are applicable to the content which are licensed as such (MIT license for site theme, Unsplash license for certain images, CC0 where in use, etc.).

Intellectual Property

As stated above, all our original material is (unless otherwise noted), under a Creative Commons Attribution license:

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

This site theme is under the MIT license. Feel free to use it and share it!

If you decide to use our content under the CC BY 4.0, remember that if you alter it, you must indicate what was altered, and you cannot imply that we endorse it:

No endorsement. Nothing in this Public License constitutes or may be construed as permission to assert or imply that You are, or that Your use of the Licensed Material is, connected with, or sponsored, endorsed, or granted official status by, the Licensor or others designated to receive attribution as provided in Section 3(a)(1)(A)(i).

— CC BY 4.0 LEGAL CODE, Section 2 - Scope, a.6

Fair Use

This site may contain some copyrighted material from others. All such uses are intended to be either under public domain, license, agreement of copyright holder or used under the fair use doctrine. No copyright infringement is intended.

§107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

(Pub. L. 94–553, title I, §101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546; Pub. L. 101–650, title VI, §607, Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5132; Pub. L. 102–492, Oct. 24, 1992, 106 Stat. 3145.)

— United States Code, Title 17

Note that you may not make false claims of copyright infringement under the DMCA:

Section 512(f) of the DMCA creates liability for “Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section (1) that material or activity is infringing, or (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification.” If you were harmed by an improper takedown, you may be able to sue the person or company who sent the takedown demand for DMCA misuse under Section 512(f), and recover damages and your attorneys’ fees. See EFF case Online Policy Group v. Diebold.

— Electronic Frontier Foundation, Intellectual Property

Now

awawa@betterwebsites.dev (betterwebsites.dev) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 03:03:39 -0700

hewoo,

This theme started off long ago as a simple set of html and css files that I manually edited to have basically a landing page with my links to other things.

Then it evolved into a full Hugo blog theme that I released in early 2025 which ran the site.

Until now.

The idea is simple: the designs of sites like https://en.wikipedia.org, https://craigslist.com, https://old.reddit.com, https://grapheneos.org, and https://text.npr.org/ are all cool and based (or in the words of one of my friends, “those sites fuck”).

I wanted to make a blog theme that’s simple, multi-author capable, was easy to read, and most importantly: that it fucks.

So, here is my humble and free offering, MIT licensed.

If anything about this theme is wrong or could be improved, lemme know by going to the site code and filing an issue or proposing a patch.

I wrote this page with a more normie person in mind, as I believe more folks should get comfortable taking back our means of computation. This is a static site and it can be deployed anywhere.

I encourage more of us to write.

— Raven

About

awawa@betterwebsites.dev (betterwebsites.dev) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 03:03:30 -0700

This is an overview of the main features of the theme.

theme features (this is a level 2 header)

full-text rss
tags
monospace or sans-serif system fonts
auto dark and light modes
multi-author support with author pages
optional banner images on the top of posts
optional table of contents
88x31 buttons on homepage
webrings on homepage
h-card for basic indieweb support
link previews with fallback image (opengraph)
image processing with hugo
float images left or right with text-wrapping
easily modifiable for making it your own
specific CSS for printing, with QR codes automatically generated that link to the live page
sitemap at the bottom of the page that shows all pages on the site
a:visited to keep track of where you’ve been on the page
date in ISO8601 format
default author setting
neocritter emojis via shortcode (supply your own)

for a better view of theme, check out /posts/theme/