Well, yesterday, 4 February 2025, was a banner day here at Cayzle's Wemic Site — two people reached out to me, unsolicited, to offer their thoughts on my site.
You have to understand, I do not have the capacity for site visitors to leave comments. I do not have a Discord or a Patreon, for example. I am on the Twitter, @cayzle, but nobody talks to me there. What I am saying is that I get very little feedback, mostly email. Cayzle@cayzle.com, that's me.
So to get two people reaching out to me is a remarkable thing. So I'm remarking on it.
My first correspondent is Anonymous Sabertooth, who reached out to me to say this:
By sheer accident I had stumbled upon, as one imagines, "Cayzle's Wemic Site". I offer my gratitude for continuously maintaining more or less a wild and completely unscripted piece of internet history; a reminder of a place and time that has since set in the long shadow of the internet today.
As one can imagine, I style myself a feline aficionado and have always entertained even a passing appreciation for the tauric felines as a result - although I haven't played such a character myself. This, combined with reading what amounts to a trove of well-archived archaic commentary on similarly much beloved material, was a wonderful surprise.
Since I'm now well past my 60th birthday, I suppose I can't take any issue with "archaic." Sigh. :-) And I am really grateful for these kind words. My site is something I do for myself, and that's enough, but it is sweet sweet gravy to know that someone else has enjoyed it.
Of course, back in the infancy of the Internet, before social media, people who wanted to have an online presence had to make their own website, often with handmade HTML. There were lots of companies offering website hosting services. You may have heard of Squarespace doing that today, for a fee of course. Well, back in the wild west of the dot.com boom days, lots of people were giving away free stuff, relying on VC money or market share or advertising to make a go of it. One of the best free website hosting services was Geocities. This website started as a free Geocities site. Here, take a look at my site from way back when, in January 2002, as captured by the wonderful Wayback Machine. Back when web counters told you how many visitors you had, and webrings were a thing!
So why the nostalga trip? Well, like Sabertooth says, it is neat to think back on those days, when everybody and their mothers had personal web sites. But I have to point out that the past is also the present! Like my site, there are still a lot of people out there running websites and blogs and other indie pages, usually for free or for tips, with little to no advertising, running mostly one-person operations as a labor of love. They just get lost in the forest of commercial Internet sites, social channels, and mobile apps. But the "indie web," aka the "small Internet," is still there if you seek it out. If you want to go looking, let me recommend the Cheapskate's Guide, especially this article: The Small Internet has Already Succeeded. Disclaimer: Blame parallel evolution or just great minds thinking alike, but I am NOT the Cheapskate, even though we both decorated our indie sites with the same color scheme!
But let me not dwell overmuch on the past, especially since I have ANOTHER correspondent from yesterday to celebrate. So out of the blue, no other preamble, my beautiful normie sister texts me. And at first I had no idea what she was saying ...
Sister: What's the magical figure you like
Me: I am nonplussed by this query.
Sister: What is it Mike!!
Me: Figure like a star or a rune??
Sister: The ones in illuminated texts
Me: You mean the mythical creature?
Sister: Yes
Sister: Mike. On your webpage! What animal !
Me: Ancient Assyrians called them "Urmahlullus"
Me: Medievalists called them "Sagittaries"
Sister: You have texted me more on this question than you have texted me all year!!
Sister: What's the answer.
Me: A D&D game designer called them "Wemics"
Sister: Ahhh! Wemics!! Yea!!
Me: A video game designer called them "Liontaurs"
Me: Other names: felitaurs, lion-centaurs, lamias.
Sister: I love your webpage!
Me: No you don't. It has nothing of interest to you.
Me: Why would you so claim now, 25 years after it launched?
Me: FaceTiming you now to see if you can say it with a straight face.
Sister: On phone. Will FaceTime in one sec. And I really do love your page. I went to it
Me: Ok. You need time to stop giggling. I get it.
Sister: No!
Me: It is sweet of you to pretend.
Sister: No pretending. It's a beautiful Page.
Note that she never did FaceTime me. And yes, my real world name is Michael. I'm still not convinced that she actually just saw my page for the first time. But it was nice to have somebody (my sister!) reach out anyway. Second time in a single day!
Just to put that in perspective, I have a folder in my Yahoo Mail in which I archive website feedback. Here are comments from a comprehensive list of the emails I have "recently" received:
- April 2023: "I came across your site and was fascinated on what you researched and wrote on Urmahlullu seals."
- January 2021: "I have a concept for a D&D wemic character, and a pal of mine is starting his first DMing experience... online of course, it's through Discord. He's using the 3E ruleset."
- December 2014: "Just a quickie note to say thank you for putting together your site, especially the links section."
- December 2008: "I really like your webcomic. Please do keep it up."
- September 2007: "I absolutely love your site."
So you see that when a person does actually reach out to me, it means a lot. Even if it is just my sister.
But what about the hidden lurking masses, enjoying my content and then passing on? I have wondered about how many people come on by the site. I started putting google analytics code on my pages a couple years ago, so I do have some site traffic data. Here, take a peek:
So I get upwards of 10 visitors per day. Nothing wrong with that!
