IndieWebCamp Nürnberg 2026
All of the participants of IndieWebCamp Nürnberg, lined up in three rows, one row behind the other. I am in the middle of the back row, wearing my green and grey microformats t-shirt. ALTAll of the participants of IndieWebCamp Nürnberg, lined up in three rows, one row behind the other. I am in the middle of the back row, wearing my green and grey microformats t-shirt.
Last weekend I attended IndieWebCamp in Nürnberg, Germany, hosted at the wonderful Tollwerk offices. The two-day event was part of the larger Nürnberg Digital Festival happening across the city. The IndieWebCamp was held primarily in English. Over 23 people attended, many from Germany and some from further afield (including myself!).
On the first day, we organised discussion sessions in the BarCamp style, in which new participants are encouraged to propose sessions first, followed by regular participants, and then we all agree on where and when during the day to hold each session. On the second day, we made web pages and shared them!
Indeed, being a two-day event, IndieWebCamps have room to balance both discussing topics that interest participants as well as creating things on our websites. We also welcome remote participants, and so, in addition to the ~23 attendees we had, there were several people joining sessions from Zoom (and even helping to take notes, which was and is greatly appreciated!).
I joined the event both as a participant and as something of a co-organiser, helping to ensure Zoom rooms were set up, helping to open Create Day, archiving notes on the wiki, and more. Tantek and Joschi both led organising, with the Tollwerk team also helping in so many ways.
Throughout the day, Max took pictures using a camera connected to a thermal printer. All the pictures were monochrome, which created a terrific effect. I have included some of these pictures throughout the post. Thank you Max for taking such great pictures!
Day One: Discussions
I am always surprised and delighted at the variety of discussion topics that come up at IndieWebCamp events. I think the range of discussion topics is in large part because new participants are encouraged to share ideas first. This ensures that we don’t keep talking about the same topics between events.
This time, we discussed everything from how to welcome more new people to the indie web, calendar subscriptions on the web, beautiful web design, and whether or not the way we will consume websites will permanently change. Notes for all of these sessions are archived on the IndieWeb wiki in case you would like to take a look at what we discussed.
Whenever I join a discussion, I like to try and take notes. This started at IndieWebCamp Brighton in 2024 when I realised how much I love being the note-taker. Every discussion needs at least one note-taker, and I’m happy to help (although the more people who take notes, the more we are able to capture, and the more likely the notes are to reflect all that was discussed). I think I helped with note-taking in every session I joined, which was fun.
Two sessions that stood out to me were “Archiving live sessions / co-creating” and “Will the way we consume websites permanently change?”. The first session, led by Una, was about how to create discussion on a website after a live session (i.e. a group event). It was fascinating to think about how the role artefacts (i.e. recording of sessions, summaries of sessions) play in building community. Our discussion led to digital gardens and knowledge graphs, which gave us plenty of points of inspiration.
The discussion about whether the way we consume websites will permanently change was a fascinating one. Facilitated by Nora, we discussed the transformations currently happening on the web as a result of AI, the long-term viability of browsers, and more. This session encouraged the optimist in me. As Casey Newton said in the movie Tomorrowland “I get things are bad, but what are we doing to fix it?”
Starting with an assessment of where we are – a solid foundation from which to start our discussion – we spoke about the 700,000+ people who run sites on Neocities, the long-lived role of information design, the role of the web in government services, media diets, and more. We were then left with many questions, among them:
How to convince artists to join the web?"How do I talk to my friends on there [the web]?”Maybe lurkers have a healthier relationship with consumption?
The notes from the session include a note that “James doesn't have the words to convince someone without a pre-existing interest to start a website.” This reflected my realisation that while I have so many words to say on the web, I don’t think I have successfully encouraged someone to create a website in direct conversation who hasn’t already said something that would indicate an interest in the web.
Now that I write this, maybe this website has encouraged others to start websites, in which case maybe I do have the words! But I think the note speaks to a discomfort I have: I wish more people had websites, but communicating their value is tricky. Maybe the best thing I can do to advocate for the web is keep doing what I’m doing – writing, talking about websites passionately, making cool things on the web – and be there for anyone and everyone who sees potential in this medium as I do.
Day Two: Creating
The second day of an IndieWebCamp event is Create Day, in which participants are invited to work on their personal websites for the day. Toward the end of the day, everyone – both in-person and remote attendees – are invited to demo what they built on their website if they would like to share what they made.
At the beginning of Create Day, I stood up to share what the day is all about. Looking back, it amazes me the ease with which I was able to stand up in front of a room and introduce what Create Day is all about. I am bewildered by how anxious I feel at times in social situations and yet how I can stand up in front of a room and talk to over a dozen people with few notes. My confidence has certainly come a long way over the last few years; there are still many places for me to grow, too.
Me standing up in front of the room presenting what Create Day is all about. ALTMe standing up in front of the room presenting what Create Day is all about.
The “what to make at IndieWebCamp” page on the wiki, authored by Tantek, was a good starting point for me to present what to do on Create Day. As someone who has attended an IndieWeb event before and tried to take on a big project, the points “start easy” and “prioritise joy” were particularly resonant. These points were mentioned by several participants as being their guide to the day as time passed, which was a delight to hear.
I had a few ideas in mind of what I wanted to do on Create Day. I made a new bookshelf page as my first project. The last version of the page had not been updated in several years. I decided that rather than try to list all of the books I have on my shelves, I wanted the new page to encapsulate my current interests and include a few select recommendations across different genres. I am happy with the page I made.
Me, with long hair, smiling, sitting at a desk with my right hand on my laptop and looking directly into the camera. ALTMe, with long hair, smiling, sitting at a desk with my right hand on my laptop and looking directly into the camera.
I also made an IndieWebCamp category on my blog and added posts explicitly about or written at IndieWebCamp events. This blog post will go in that category.
Having started with easier projects, I had finished in the first hour or so. By coincidence, something happened that would give me enough to work on for the rest of the day, and beyond. Tantek mentioned he had updated his “daylists” page, which lists the names of Spotify daylists that have been generated for him based on his music tastes. I didn’t see the changes in Artemis, my web reader, which led me to ask why this was the case.
This led to my working on two changes. First, Artemis can now process feed items that don’t have URLs, which was at the root of the problem. Second, because Tantek updates his daylists pag