Reflection Overview
This week, class was focused on learning a sample set of HTML knowledge through peer teaching to assist in the creation of retro homepages. Said web pages are to ideally, although not required, resemble those found on Geocities, as if our sites lived in the ’90s and early ‘2000s.
Lambda Discoveries
I did little in the way of direct discovery on the MOO itself this week, but off of the Lambda, I found a Fandom page for LambdaMOO under MUDs and was intrigued by some of the governance discussed. It is not much in the range of information, and is not as expansive as an old-school player could potentially provide, but it provides more knowledge on the subject than I held previously.
In 1993, a petition and ballot system was put into place, allowing for policies to be voted into place democratically. Those with 66% of votes of passed and implemented into the world itself. The fact that players play a direct hand into the life of the MOO is great, especially given that it is an entire virtual world with a government system mimicking our own. In terms of geography, I found a map of the original grounds of Lambda, which will be useful in further playing.
Peer Teaching 1: Reflection
For my first peer teaching exercise, I found it most beneficial to focus on fine-tuning the basics HTML and CSS. Specifically, formatting commands such as headings <h1-6>, horizontal lines <hr>, page breaks <br>, big/small <big><small>, along with a slew of others were covered. Additionally, code conventions were highlighted to assure readability. To prepare for this session, I watched a two-hour HTML Full Course by freeCodeCamp.org, of which I have since shared in the resources channel on the DGST 395 Discord.
ALF Theories
Inspired by Space Man’s ALF Awards webpage, as discussed in my week 2 summary, ALF Theories, my retro homepage, is a website that houses fake theories related to the ’80s sitcom ALF. When experimenting with HTML, instead of naming my .html document “X-Files Theories” such as that found in the in-class demo, I instead made mine related to ALF. Although it was intended to be temporary, I found the concept of creating fake theories for a television show I have never watched to be quite entertaining.
The parts of this website that I find most essential are the word art title and visitor counter. The title splash was created using Make WordArt, while the visitor counter code comes from HitWebCounter. Both of these were important editions given how seemingly prominent they were on Geocities. By clicking on the central ALF GIF, the user is taken to a page full of several theories I came up with — all of which have little to do with the show itself — and is able to click on a house GIF to return back to the landing page. Many of the GIFS used on this webpage were found using GifCities, a website achieving GIFS from Geocities using the Internet Archive.
