Chris WiegmanThis site has been through a lot these past few years. It started on WordPress, moved to Hugo, moved back to WordPress on a custom theme and, today, is running mostly off-the-shelf plugins and the Blocksy theme for basic functionality.
I’m not done yet.
While I’ve gotten comfortable with Gutenberg and WordPress in general there are so many other technologies I want to explore.
As 2022 begins there are a few things I have in mind to make this site even better than it is today:
- Revisit my use of Jetpack
Today I’m using Jetpack by Automattic for contact forms, comment functionality, stats and a number of other functions. It’s overkill and I’m not sure it is good enough for the privacy of my users. One of my first tasks, as a result, will be to remove that and revisit whether I need any of its features at all. This includes comments, contact forms and anything else that might leak data to companies like Automattic which I am not sure I trust to be the good stewards of that data they claim to be. - Remove Blocksy
Blocksy has been a good theme but it still feels heavy. I’d like to instead look at either going with a Full-Site Editing (FSE) theme or move entirely to a headless solution, both of which will be lighter-weight and should better protect my user’s privacy while also making for a more sustainable site that requires less data and energy to store and serve to a user base that is increasingly world-wide. - List my talks
I’ve wanted to better record the talks I’ve given for a while. In the past they were in WordPress but, when I moved to Hugo, they went to a spreadsheet where they still live today. I need to fix that. As the pandemic reaches a point where it might be safe again to speak in person I will be working on a plugin to present those talks in a way that will help me keep track of what I’ve done and more easily share them with the world. - Remove the privacy policy
Before moving back to Jetpack and Blocksy I didn’t even have a privacy policy on this site. I didn’t need it as I was recording no data from anyone for any purpose. I’d love to get back to that point.
In the end it’s yet another evolution for this site I’ve come to love writing on, this time with all my users in mind, not just those with expensive devices and fast internet.
What are you plans for your own sites in 2022?