#ReclaimOpen

My website is a junk drawer My website is a junk drawer full of weird and random things. A wild mind has been living there for a good long while. I used to blog a lot, but when I started doing a newsletter 10 years ago, I slowly, slowly adjusted myself to writing personally about once a week. I continued to blog about projects and work stuff. Blogs written all over the web. I make sure that no matter where something is posted first, if I wrote it, or collaborated on it, it ends up on my website. And so my website is a mishmash of wild and wonderful things. I’m going to write a blog post about this junk drawer and the things I find inside of it. Perhaps I will pull out some happiness, some silliness, some sadness and a little bit of incredulity. I will write about blogging as an extension of self, a way to see what you’ve learned, who you were and who you have become. Link to the blog: https://www.laurahilliger.com/blog/ **Link to the full post:https://www.laurahilliger.com/writing/my-website-is-a-junk-drawer/** # Blog-A-Thon Reclaim Open starts with a day-long Blog-A-Thon. Read this short intro to find out how to take part and what it’s all about: ## So what’s the Blog-A-Thon? The first day of the event, November 4, is the day of the Blog-A-Thon. Check the full schedule of what’s on the agenda. Starting at 9am EST we will publish a post on the hour every hour for the whole day, for you to read, respond and connect. You’ll be able to find and navigate between the posts via the conference site, and post your comments there, too. We’re also planning for some good old-fashioned radio coming to you live with bloggers chatting about blogging and playing the soundtrack to their stories. Learn more. ## Session Author(s): hello This piece is sort of inspired by an ongoing email conversation I’ve been having about rewilding with Alan Levine. We both are rewilding some land, across the world from one another, but rewilding nonetheless. We are farmers and ecologists. I’m sure that every good farm has a junk drawer with string and rubber bands and post it notes and sticky tack and other requirements for all manner of natural living tasks. One thing led to another and all these thoughts led me back to my website, where many of the digital bits of me are stored. ## Session Resources: > Posts | Trackback ## Post navigation Previous: Things change (or, Montaigne and the Open Web) Latest message: 7 minutes ago pete rorabaugh : @alan!!!!2025-11-04 06:42:37 taylorjadin : True. search makes all the difference Imagine if I could search for things in my house like I can on my blog, that would be amazing I put a lot more wait on time as metadata and the search feature, than I do categories/tags, personally. I've never been good at tagging things.2025-11-04 06:38:56 CogDog : I relish in the messiness. More often than not I find things I forgot. I forget more than I remember. My blog does not.2025-11-04 06:38:51 CogDog : Likewise, my ~20 years of posting on flickr gives me a means to find all the times I was in Fredericksburg or what I was doing on any given date2025-11-04 06:36:36 CogDog : or April 2019 «link»2025-11-04 06:35:57 CogDog : In WordPress I can easily find through the URL structure what I was doing in 2019 «link» or in July of 2019 or April of 2019 «link»2025-11-04 06:35:49 CogDog : A practice of blogging I find incredibly valuable, even with a messy set of categories and tags, is that it becomes what I call a "Timelined Self" «link»2025-11-04 06:34:34 CogDog : But again, my kitchen junk drawer does not have a search feature, or metadata for each pencil and screwdriver that indicates when it was tossed into the drawer.2025-11-04 06:33:25 taylorjadin : everything else you need to keep organized. You just hope your junk drawer doesn't become a junk room, or junk house!2025-11-04 06:31:26 taylorjadin : That works for me, because I really feel like having a concept of organized and unorganized spaces is important in general. I think most folks NEED a junk drawer as a "pressure release valve" from2025-11-04 06:31:08 taylorjadin : Yeah this is a delightful little post. I very much embrace the junk drawer approach to my web presence, but I've been over the years making sure it centralizes on to my blog that way I can control it.2025-11-04 06:30:22 pete rorabaugh : in the spirit of seeing the junk drawer w new eyes, i started blogging when i started going thru a divorce in 2007 .. the reflections on that wp.com space (diff from my current space) are profound now2025-11-04 06:30:03 Pilot : This is a lovely post and shares a mindset that I struggle with a lot -- I definitely feel a pressure to keep my web presence very carefully curated, no junk drawer allowed. Thank you!2025-11-04 06:28:52 Alexis Block : Maybe in a future blog I can find some way to bring old projects back to the surface :)2025-11-04 06:28:31 Alexis Block : But finding so many fun projects I completely forgot about!2025-11-04 06:26:49 Alexis Block : @LMC seconding that, and in the spirit of resurfacing junk, I am linking my name to an old static portfolio created for a web dev class at CU. Links are broken, info is old, maiden name is used...2025-11-04 06:26:30 Todd : @pete. I think plants are important. Someday I'll get rich with this one :) 2025-11-04 06:25:31 maren : 100% relate to that, @LMC - I always find unexpected things on my blog years later2025-11-04 06:24:40 pete rorabaugh : @todd .. that was fun, thank you for sharing.2025-11-04 06:23:38 pete rorabaugh : @todd watching .. all the pothos plants make me real happy.2025-11-04 06:21:12 Andy Rush : My cats love laser pointers!2025-11-04 06:20:29 LMC : One of the best things about junk drawers, and junk blogs, is that you often find useful or interesting things that you'd forgotten you'd put in there.2025-11-04 06:19:43 Jim Groom : What a great little post Laura weaved with that metaphor, I not only relate, but I also think I have a promotional laser pointer somewhere in my blog.2025-11-04 06:19:07 Todd : @pete Wow. Very cool. This was my attempt at an office tour that was inspired by the one he did. «link»2025-11-04 06:17:37 Andy Rush : POSSE all the things. Even junk drawers.2025-11-04 06:17:15 Jim Groom : Laura literally iventories the junk drawer in my foyer2025-11-04 06:15:40 pete rorabaugh : @todd i think about howard and what i learned from working with him briefly and his books, at least once a week2025-11-04 06:15:18 Todd : I recall Howard Rheingold's little tour of his office. Can't find that one, but these are so insightful to people «link»2025-11-04 06:12:05 pete rorabaugh : .. i think the extension of that is, because i avoid mess sometimes, it keeps me from writing/posting/accumulating things in my blog in the way that laura describes .. id like to challenge that in me.2025-11-04 06:11:23 pete rorabaugh : these discussions of the junk drawer and the sock drawer are giving me a lot of reflection .. i have banished the idea of a junk drawer from my house (too much chaos) .. but ..2025-11-04 06:10:38 Mark : "The Tao of the junk drawer." A new religion is born!2025-11-04 06:09:45 Todd : @pete Loved those nights.2025-11-04 06:09:06 Todd : Here is sock drawer rant «link»2025-11-04 06:08:35 Todd : I am compared lots of university courses to sock drawers which can have a similar vibe. I will remember to add that within the mess of stuff is a buried gem, somewhere :)2025-11-04 06:08:17 pete rorabaugh : @todd i DEF remember watching the "bass-o-matic" skit over and over on my snl VHS tapes in high school.2025-11-04 06:07:36 Sarah : This is gonna make a great TDC - show us yer junk drawer!2025-11-04 06:06:30 HibbittsDesign : Digging this embedded chat next to a blog post...2025-11-04 06:05:42 Todd : "And it’s wonderful to rummage through other people’s junk drawers" Laura, here is my drawer: «link» I just posted about fish in a blender :)2025-11-04 06:05:25 pete rorabaugh : @laura thanks for introducing me to "POSSE. It means Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere"2025-11-04 06:04:59 Todd : Yay for "some happiness, some silliness, some sadness and a little bit of incredulity."2025-11-04 06:03:36 pete rorabaugh : would love to alternate tag this with one of my fav children's book lines: "let the wild rumpus START"2025-11-04 06:03:34 Todd : "I slowly, slowly adjusted myself to writing personally about once a week." Yes, I am slowly, slowly getting exactly one post a month out.2025-11-04 06:03:17 Todd : "And so my website is a mishmash of wild and wonderful things" Yay for mishmashes of wild and wonderful things!2025-11-04 06:02:21 Andy Rush : Yay, more cat GIFs!2025-11-04 06:02:16 maren : Here is also the direct link to Laura's post «link»2025-11-04 06:01:47 maren : And we're into the next hour of the blog-a-thon!2025-11-04 06:01:19 reclaimhosting : Welcome to the Chat2025-11-04 06:00:51 Name URL Message ## Conference key dates Submissions: closed September, 15 Registration: open now Conference: November 4-6, 2025 ## Conference Registration Registration will remain open up until and throughout the event. As in previous years, we work hard to keep the conference fees as affordable as possible. Register now Search **Howdy.** We're Reclaim Hosting, founded in 2013, we provide educators and institutions with an easy way to offer their students domains and web hosting that they own and control. Our goal is to make the process of offering a flexible web space and domain name to your students as easy as possible and giving you the support you need to make it all happen. Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: reclaim-open-retro-v-justin by Underscores.me. *[URL]: Uniform Resource Locator

Just discovered the #reclaimopen blogathon had a little chat window where a lovely conversation was taking place about my post on my junk drawer of a website: reclaimopen.com/session/my-website-is-a-...

Designing for Trust: Privacy, Safety, and the Social Contract Online | Ian O'Byrne

Building community online isn’t just technical. It’s a trust problem.

Privacy, safety, empathy, and care are the foundations of human-centered digital spaces.

#reclaimopen

Read more: Designing for Trust: Privacy, Safety, and the Social Contract Online 👉 wiobyrne.com/designing-fo...

Building Human-Centered Digital Communities | Ian O'Byrne

Presenting later today at #ReclaimOpen:

How do we build digital spaces that honor the whole human?

Not campaigns. Not platforms. Communities rooted in empathy, trust, and care.

👉 Building Human-Centered Digital Communities
wiobyrne.com/building-hum...

Very much enjoying the REWILDING keynote from @bonstewart.bsky.social here at #ReclaimOpen. Very much in my GenX nerd feelings.

Federating the Self: Openness, Privacy, and AI in the Garden | Ian O'Byrne

We used to say: “Own your domain. Make one home online.”

But maybe that’s wrong.

Maybe the future isn’t a single home — it’s a federation of gardens.
Open yet safe. Connected yet bounded.

Federation isn’t about control. It’s about ecology. 🌐🌱

#reclaimopen

→ wiobyrne.com/federating-t...

From CV to Living Web: Rewilding My Digital Identity | Ian O'Byrne

Your website shouldn’t be a digital résumé.

It should be a living notebook. A place to learn in public, connect ideas, and grow in the open.

I stopped “publishing” & started rewilding my work.

Presenting on this at #reclaimopen today

🌱 Rewilding My Digital Identity → wiobyrne.com/from-cv-to-l...

For #reclaimopen @dajb wrote this excellent post that made me smile, tear up and feel simply grateful for our over a decade long friendship and intellectual partnership. Really good, Dr Doug: dougbelshaw.com/blog/2025/11/04/things-c...

My website is a junk drawer - Open Visual Thinkery This week I'm tuning into Reclaim Open to try and make some visual sense of it. I really resonate with the metaphor used by Laura Hilliger...

Aww I'm so honoured that @bryanmmathers did a drawing for my #reclaimopen post!! Thanks Bryan 😘 💕 https://bryanmmathers.com/my-website-is-a-junk-drawer/

My website is a junk drawer – Reclaim Open

I wrote about my website as a junk drawer for #reclaimopen and I kind of want to explore the metaphor more : reclaimopen.com/session/my-w...

We all have a drawer somewhere in our house or our flat, behind the counter in the office or, not as a drawer but a shoebox, a container, let’s just call it a drawer – we all have the junk drawer. It’s the place you put stray rubber bands and the promotional laser pointer from the accountant down the street. Maybe there are ribbons or address stickers, glasses cleaner, a single cough drop, highlighters, an old USB drive or spare headphone ear cover thingies in there. There’s a good chance that there is something highly useful, like a roll of tape or new post-it notes in the junk drawer, but we still call it “the junk drawer” because useful or not, it is still a lot of junk. It is the place in our home where we put all the superfluous items. It is exactly the right place for these items to live because you know that if you are looking for something that is rarely necessary, it lives in the junk drawer. My website is a junk drawer. It is the place I put all the random digital things. Unlike a physical junk drawer, I put all the useful things in there too. A multiple decade long storage facility that holds mainly texts, but also decks and images, audio and videos. When I think about archival in the real world, I don’t think about the junk drawer. But in the digital world, the junk drawer, my website, is where it all goes. Years ago, and still today on the indie web, people used the acronym POSSE. It means Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. I was never great at keeping the junk drawer that is my website organised, and I certainly haven’t published everything to my own site first. But who on Earth has an organised junk drawer? About once every five years I try to organise my drawer, but within weeks whatever scheme I’ve organised with is faded into disorder. It is simple the Tao of the junk drawer. Isn’t the wild organisation in our homes, brains and personal online portals what make life interesting? It’s wonderful to find the unexpected in my junk drawer. Fascinating to find things that I placed there long ago and forgot about. And it’s wonderful to rummage through other people’s junk drawers (the digital ones, it’d be weird if I showed up at your house and started rummaging around in your drawers). The web has these places still. The wild and free and full of random exists on the Web still. It’s nice to have a community of people who care about these places. #ReclaimOpen because you all surely have weird, wonderful and inspiring stuff in your junk drawers and that is the most interesting drawer in the house.

I wrote a post for the #reclaimopen blogathon about my website as a junk drawer. Iz here: www.laurahilliger.com/writing/my-website-is-a-...

Things change (or, Montaigne and the Open Web) A post for the Reclaim Open conference

I wrote a thing for #ReclaimOpen dougbelshaw.com/blog/2025/11...

The grille of an guitar amplifier with the text "This one goes to 11(ty)" superimposed. 11ty has been styled to look like metal and replicate the style of the original Spinal Tap logo.

Spent the weekend finalising slides for this week's #ReclaimOpen conference. Looking forward (and slightly daunted by being on after the keynote) to sharing some thoughts on using #11ty to reclaim the open web.

The grille of an guitar amplifier with the text "This one goes to 11(ty)" superimposed. 11ty has been styled to look like metal and replicate the style of the original Spinal Tap logo.

Spent the weekend finalising slides for this weeks #ReclaimOpen conference. Looking forward (and slightly daunted by being on after the keynote) to sharing some thoughts on using #11ty to reclaim the open web.

From OER25 to Reclaim Open 25 This year, sadly, is the first time in a long time that I’ll be missing out on the OER Conference. I have blogged (a lot) about this very special event before, including a literal love letter…

New post, lots of love for #OER25 coming up in London next week and looking forward to @www.reclaimhosting.com #ReclaimOpen marendeepwell.com?p=5621

Good to see @josiefraser Lucy Atkins & @HallyMk1 winning a #reclaimopen award for http://www.digilitleic.com/ http://bit.ly/17rZXBm