Webmaster Questions

I found these questions while I was out and about in my travels. I thought it could make for a fun little diversion. Hope you enjoy!

1. Please introduce yourself.: I'm Billie! 31 year old trans girl who has too many projects
2. How long have you been making websites?: I first learned how to use HTML in a college course back in 2013, then a uni course in 2017. However, it wasn't until around 2020 that I started really getting into making websites.
3. And what got you into the hobby?: I started making some websites privately around 2020, when I was building up my skill set for job searching. However, it wasn't until 2022 that I discovered the retro web scene, and decided to delve into making my own officially as of 2024!
4. What kind of website are you most interested in?: Personal websites are such a fascinating snapshot into someone's sensibilities!
5. What's your workflow? Do you plan your websites out thoroughly or do you come up with the design as you go along?: I typically just cobble things on as I go.
6. Please link to your biggest inspirations.: Not sure I have links for that, but I do draw some inspiration from old fan websites for Mario games.
7. What's your favourite part about making websites?: Honestly, the plotting of the look is lots of fun! And the satisfaction of seeing the plan come to fruition.
8. And the thing you struggle with the most?: CSS, especially when it decides to Not Work for no discernable reason
9. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?: The main part of my website sticks to the same theme, but I
10. How confident are you with CSS?: Not that much. See number 8
11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?: I have never used this tag!
12. What is your favourite HTML element?: Honestly? Even though I have issues with it sometimes, I have to give praise to the div.
13. If you're making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?: Try to draw the layout in an art program to figure what I want the page to look like.
14. Do you know JavaScript?: Yep!
15. How about PHP?: Yep! I've used it a lot for my own private websites for non-static output!
16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?: At the moment, it's mostly this vector art style, though I'm hoping to get a bit more advanced with it on later pages or layout redesigns.
17. Are you more focused on content or design?: As with most things, I tend to focus more on the functional aspects over the visuals. I love when things look nice, but my sense of aesthetic design leaves to be desired sometimes...
18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?: Nope, and maybe! I think I would mainly consider it if something were to happen to Neocities though.
19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or "retro" websites?: It's an amazing movement. In fact I kinda wish my website looked more retro!
20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?: I don't really know. Maybe I should check?
21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?: Fun and awesomes :) I need to add more to my homepage actually
22. What do you think of button walls in particular?: Assuming this means large amounts of buttons? Absolutely support it.
23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?: I think I'd want to go for a more retro style honestly!
24. Are you envious of other people's websites?: See 19 :P
25. What text editor do you use?: I use Notepad++, and Neocities' text editor
26. Why do you use that one?: The former is a better version of Notepad, while the latter is convenient (I don't really want to constantly upload my files)
27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?: Neocities takes care of that at the moment!
28. This might not be relevant to you, but what's your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?: Hadn't heard of nekoweb until just now. For the time being I don't have any reason to move.
29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?: Probably 50MB? I'm assuming most of it is the images on my BillieChart Year-End pages. (Actual answer is 17.5MB as of 10-21-2026)
30. Do you keep local backups of your files?: I think I do, but it's been a minute since I did. Remember to back up your files folks!
31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?: Both have their charms! I like a nice clean website, but the chaotic late 90s-early 00s style of website design is fun too!
32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?: I noticed I tend to lean towards green for my UI designs? Green and blue are my fave colors so that might have an influence.
33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?: I've had hiatuses, but I don't think I've considered actually quitting making my website.
34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?: I know some people who have their Neocities, but I don't fully interact with the web design community.
35. Do people in your real life know about your website?: I think I've told a few people?
36. Do you update your website very often? How often is "very often"?: It comes in waves.
37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?: I've stuck with this design since I officially started working on it. Whether it changes or not will depend on whether I can settle on a new main look for my website.
38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?: It's me focused! The hobby pages are also focused on me in a way, so I'd say that circles back to the first point.
39. Do you do web design professionally?: Nope!
40. If not, would you like to? And if you're comfortable answering, what do you do for work?: Could be fun maybe! Though modern web design doesn't really appeal to me. Most of my work at the moment takes place in Excel :P
41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?: Not really.
42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?: I do use Tumblr and Bluesky!
43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?: Discord is probably the main place I'm at. I don't really share it publicly though.
44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?: Depends! And honestly I will typically just listen to whatever's on my "main rotation" at the moment.
45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?: I really just have this one website, though it's basically going to be many websites in a trenchcoat when I'm done with my current plans!
46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?: I do plan to have sub-sites/shrines for each of my main hobbies in the future!
47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?: I don't tend to filter much, but obviously decades of being taught about web safety put a hamper on that :P
48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?: Not at the moment!
49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?: I'd say it works better than I recall it being
50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?: I don't have much knowledge of what practices people have. I'd say avoid having music that people can't turn off? Ideally it should be 'opt-in'.
51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?: Not really much of an opinion there.
52. Do you use a lot of ? Or are you guilty of generic structure?: I learned HTML through generic structure, so I mostly lean on that.
53. Do you consider different browsers?: As a Firefox user, I think I'm fine staying where I am.
54. Speaking of, what's your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.: Firefox is not Chrome. That's pretty much all I have to say
55. And what OS are you on?: Windows
56. Do you have a strong opinion on that, or do you just happen to use it?: It's mostly out of convenience. I've thought of Linux, but I worry about losing too much compatibility with the programs and games I like to use.
57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?: They aren't designed to be at the moment.
58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?: Needs a way to be easily turned off IMO. But I don't HATE hate it.
59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?: They're cool! And not yet, but it would be fun to be one!
60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?: Shrines are awesome. I have a bunch I want to create! And honestly my favorite ones lean into the original source's style. For example, I'd love to have the Life is Strange shrine look like Max's journal.
61. Are your websites "cliche", in your opinion?: I think mine is more generic than cliche?
62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?: I think I really do like the old Geocities style of website design. I would love to lean more into that sort of design someday, but that might be a while away.
63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?: Yep! I've drawn most of the assets I use, including the background! Or created them through CSS.
64. What are your favourite resource sites?: I guess W3Schools? I don't think I really use any.
65. Is there a habit you just can't get away from no matter how hard you try?: Forgetting to add comments to my CSS or HTML...
66. What's your biggest advice for a new webmaster?: Plan your layouts! Draw them in Paint or something, so you have an idea of where everything should go!
67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?: I usually try to keep them
68. What do you think of frameset layouts?: Haven't heard of those. Seems to be deprecated though, from what I can see.
69. How about table-based layouts?: Tables are fun!
70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of "one-column", "two-column" and "three-column" layouts? Do you use any of these?: Can't say I've dabbled in designs that use more than one column. Unless the side bar counts? Which I don't think they do.
71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?: CSS tends to give me more trouble overall.
72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It's useful for your thoughts.: I think even a 'thought-dump' page would need a minimum of styling for me to be happy with it. (My blog page is probably as simple as it gets)
73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?: I usually just make the layouts for each page I make.
74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?: A bit past beginner probably?
75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?: I do it from time to time, but not that often.
76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?: Through college and uni classes!
77. Do you ever force elements to do things they're not supposed to?: Probably?
78. Thoughts on floating elements?: They can do cool things, but actually getting them to work can be hellish.
79. When you're sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?: I go with px for fonts, and % for some visual elements.
80. Do you have a favourite font?: I tend to be fond of pixely fonts! None jump to mind though, but I'm pretty fond of the original NES font, and the Mario World fonts.
81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?: I think I'd want too much creative control for that. Maybe for a community website.
82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?: Not as often as I should.
83. Do you bookmark other people's websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?: I sometimes do! I try to add the banners of websites I like to my Links page.
84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?: The absolute depths of my obsession for things nobody cares about :P (And I guess the visuals, too!)
85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?: Not to that big of a degree. I have game consoles, but not much else.
86. How often and for how long are you online?: Pretty much all the times.
87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?: Queer folks (especially trans girls), game enthusiasts, fandom folks, autistic people.
88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?: Anything relating to XML scares me :P
89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?: I do like to program! I've even done work on my own game (not released at the moment)
90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?: Haven't used one of those. I think I prefer to lean more into dynamism, so I probably wouldn't use that.
91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?: I should get one!
92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?: I used to as a kid. Now all the forums are Discord servers...
93. Do you write your page content directly into the editor, or do you prepare it elsewhere, like a text document or a Word document?: I usually use the Neocities text editor, to get instant feedback on my changes.
94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you're cool?: Probably not.
95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?: Sometimes, but I don't tend to delete my old work. Honestly, sometimes I look back on old work and actually find a lot more to like than I expect.
96. Would you close down your website if you couldn't update it, or would you leave an archive?: I don't think I'd close it unless I absolutely had to.
97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?: See 47
98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?: My friend only has a basic website for her music, but I guess that counts!
99. And do you optimise the images on your website?: I think I've reduced the size of the images for my 2013 year-end page, but it's a lot of work and I'm lazy :P
100. We're out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ....other than exhausted.: I feel like I don't know as much about web design as I thought! But this was a cool little distraction. Hope y'all enjoyed my answers!