Sacrificing accessibility for some vague concept of "soul"
I wrote the first draft of this when I first joined Melonland, and at the time I was enjoying myself there. It seemed like everything I wanted at the time: It’s a community full of likeminded individuals who have the same interests as me, and I am always deeply appreciative of internet communities that value kindness and discussion. As I kept visiting, though, I kept feeling as if it was a community I didn't fit in for many reasons. If it's not the common theme of "disconnecting and going outside", which the forum even closes on Mondays to encourage and which I'll talk about later, it's my forum post entitled "I made [description of site]" being changed to [description of site] out of unnecessary pedantry. It's the "website pet peeves" thread where most of the replies are "oh no, I do this! :(" and Melon says " joke 90s sites kinda annoy me now, even though my site started like that too. People are at different stages in their web dev journey so I try to give people a lot of leeway in my mind for a lot of things." (leeway for what? The crime of having a cringe site?). It's the low level of accessibility on the forum or the fact that there are no dates anymore by default or for logged out users, so you don't know when things were posted..
Sorry, you can't use acronyms. Sorry, you can't use the phrase "I made" in a forum topic, you can only use descriptive words. Sorry, we're closed on the only day you don't have doctor's appointments or other responsibilities. Sorry, your reply isn't long enough so you didn't meaningfully contribute to the conversation. Sorry, you can't make this forum post readable by turning off the custom font CSS without making an account. No, we might not approve that account even if you do want to join. Sorry!
The time thing perplexes me. Instead of specific dates there are seasons. You can turn it off - if you have an account. It's on by default. Melon writes in response to criticism:
Bestie, what the hell does that mean? And how does a gimmick that makes functional forum usage inaccessible work to make you question what time means? What are you actually attempting to do with this? Dates are extremely useful in any kind of discussion. One user writes,
"here's an example, I was looking at this thread about old laptops and post number #8 states that he can't find the cable to charge his Toshiba 4090XCDT. So I helped him find the parts numbers and a direction of were to go. The thing is I CANT TELL IF THE POST WAS MADE A DAY AGO OR A MONTH AGO! Its just "on a summer night" not made July 4 2026 or June 15 2025. I DONT KNOW IF HE CHUCKED THE DAMN THING IN THE E-WASTE BIN OR NOT!"
Sure, the internet has an odd relationship with time. It is heavily focused on things that are recent and has both a parasocially idealized and extremely hostile relationship with the past. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to change fundamental aspects of how we use the web because we want to be cute (I really genuinely cannot fathom a reason for this change besides a fakedeep attempt at being whimsical and cute, depsite Melon's words). I mean, you can do it, I just think it's a little bit ridiculous. (As we all know, I am the end all be all decider of Good Internet Practice, and this is not an opinion article but an affirmation that I am right all the time. (That's sarcasm.))
The internet has an odd relationship with time. So do I; I have schizoaffective disorder and dissociative identity disorder. Seeing a lack of time in a place there normally should be one on a particularly bad day could send me into a psychotic episode. One user in the same thread wrote that timestamps are an accessibility tool for their ADHD. That may sound dramatic, but my point is that there are so many reasons to have timestamps and Melon has provided few actually sensical reasons for this change.
I was discussing potentially writing this article with a few friends and one of them put it very well:
"Melonland's brute force approach to making a relaxed online atmosphere seems a bit counterintuitive."
Originally I thought that this was a fun and relaxed place for people to congregate and discuss the small web, but in practice it feels more like a place where only a small fraction of people participating in the small web get to have a voice. You can't use acronyms so that everyone on the forum can understand you, but also knowledge of English is required to participate in the site. (Understandable, I suppose, from a moderation perspective, but still.) You can't use topic titles in these specific ways because they might make it hard to navigate the site, but it's totally fine to turn off dates for logged out viewers and regular users by default, and make unreadable text the default with no option for accessible fonts, that totally doesn't make it hard to navigate the site, no sir!
But what makes me most perturbed is the fact that the forum closes on Mondays to encourage going outside and disconnecting. Fun, great, cool! For a specific kind of lifestyle. Imagine you are a disabled person and you have medical treatments you have to go to weekly. You do them twice a week, Tues and Thurs, and they're three hours long total. You get exhausted when you come home from them, and typically fall asleep afterwards. You have weekly trauma therapy on Wednesdays, which also tire you out due to the topic, and DBT therapy on Fridays, which tires you out because of the effort and focus it requires. You have one day with no appointments and no exhausting activities. That is a Monday. You want to go check out a fun forum so you can talk about your tech and website related interests. Sorry! The forum is closed because you really need to get offline and touch grass.
That's my schedule, by the way.
See, in theory, I love the idea that the internet should not be your whole life. And I do believe getting outside in the real world is extremely important. But I would like people to understand this: not everyone is capable of leaving the house, not everyone is capable of even getting out of bed. The internet is my only connection to the world outside of my house. I love the fucking internet. I love the people I have met on the internet and the community I have formed. Many other friends I have are in a similar boat, too disabled to do a lot of things outside of the house. The internet has many downsides. A lot of them. But for many people it is a lifeline, a tool, a freedom.
The authentic web never went away. Its voice was just drowned out.
Melon writes, in response to a different criticism about the restriction of information on Monday closures:
To me this is a confirmation of my current feelings on ML: It's vibes only with no logical purpose. "In a dream of the web being new and fresh"—-okay, but it isn't. That's just not reality, nor does that sentence make much actual sense. The reality is that the web is the way it is for a reason. Information is accessible for a reason. Other sites stay open 24/7 for a reason—everyone's circumstances and ability to access sites is different. Melon finishes with: "Dreams exist in the unknown and the unknown exists behind impassable barriers - without those barriers, the forum would be more functional, but it would lose its soul".
It's funny, then, that much of this site is an impassable barrier to me as a disabled person. You sure got it in one!
I see this idea of logging off and touching grass a lot of places now. It is as if a life lived primarily digitally, even when done responsibly—-no doomscrolling, diversifying the sites you visit, making your own projects, being positive—-is somehow a lesser life than one where the individual disconnects and touches grass. I don't like that. Yes, it's important to be a part of the real world if you can. But not everyone can. Should you aim for it? Yeah, probably. But it gets into shame-y territory way way too fast for me.
This idea that using the internet too much stains you somehow confuses me. At times it can remind me of the way my Christian aunt talks about “not getting distracted by Earthly things” and tells me “don’t enjoy things too much or you’re sinning”. The internet’s existence is not the problem. It’s been talked about to death, the commodification of the internet and the focus on profit above literally anything else driving authentic communities to their graves. The problem, on a more micro level, is also that the internet being everywhere these days means a lot of bigots are around to infect it. But if you wouldn’t make the argument that learning is bad because some people learn chemistry or engineering to make weapons, why argue that the internet is a blemish just because terrible people use it? There are also a lot of cool people on the internet! What about them?
I joined small web spaces to get more into web dev, self hosting, small game development, etc; computer hobbies are the one of the only hobbies accessible to me as a disabled person who often can’t leave its bed. So it is a little hurtful that a common message among abled or even non-housebound disabled webmasters is now “Unplug! Go outside! Make friends in the real world!”
So I propose this instead: adding on to the encouragement to unplug. Give suggestions to people who can’t leave their house or bed - things to do besides scrolling mainstream social media or contributing to the “wider web”. Encourage them to diversify the websites they spend time on if they cannot go outside, or to try a new hobby if that’s accessible, or to spend time talking to a beloved friend, or call their pets up for a cuddle, or… you get the idea. I’ll pull a few things from Sky Stanton’s The Bedbound Activities Guide, but meditation is a great one you can do anywhere, you can also make gratitude lists, fantasize and daydream, if you can use devices, go on itch.io and check out some indie art/games/books! You don’t have to make going outside the end all be all of Healthy Internet Usage.
You can have a site that is whimsical and fantastical and still accessible to the disabled. You can. I know, shocking, but it's possible. It just requires, uh, creativity and thinking outside of the box. If you can't design a site with your aesthetic goals in mind that is also usable by the disabled, I simply don't think you are very creative. Melon says the forum would lose its soul if these features changed. I posit that the internet has no soul without disabled users--the people who arguably rely on it the most.
I do still think these forums are a good place for people. I just think they are a good place for a very specific kind of small web user, the kind with pink text on a red background and autoplay on their sites, the kind that cares about aesthetic over accessibility and politeness over authenticity and genuine discussion.
There are more housebound and bedbound people than you think.