When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, he could hardly have foreseen just how popular his invention would come to be. In 2010, the number of Web users exceeded two billion,1 with over 100 million domains registered2 and, as of 2018, over 50 billion pages indexed by search engines.3
We can all take a few steps towards improving the Web, for the good of the all of us. Here is a brief, non-exhaustive list of actions you can take to better the Web today!
Sharing / Social
- Licence your work under a Creative Commons licence
- Avoid plagiarism! Always link to the original source when you share content online, or provide some other attribution. Use Google Search by Image to find the source of images you want to share
- Thank a content creator for their work, even if it’s a simple “thank you”
- Pick a small, local business that has provided you with good service and share & discuss it with others! Go one step further, and leave them a glowing review on TripAdvisor or a similar review service
- Check if your favourite blog or website has a Patreon or Flattr and make a small donation
- “Like”, “upvote” or react positively to posts and submissions you enjoy or find useful across the Web
- When you come across somebody new to a hobby you’re familiar with, link them to useful resources
Design
- Pick a sensible font and enhance your site’s readability
- Add an option to enable the Dyslexie font on your site
- Improve your site’s accessibility to those with limited or impaired vision
- Respond to comments left on your site or blog; if someone asks a question, try to help them out
- Improve your site’s loading times for those with poor or limited Internet speeds; compress images, remove unnecessary JavaScript, check to see if you can tweak your server’s configuration to improve caching, and so on
Charity
- Help a local charity or non-profit with SEO or help to optimise their WordPress site
- Support a project on Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Patreon or Flattr
- Share a link to a charity’s donation page on your social media pages
Activism
- Help people to find free, open source alternatives to software they know and love
- Find out which politicians in your country, state or province support and oppose things such as Net Neutrality and a free Web generally
- Stay calm and collected when you’re arguing with somebody you disagree with, even if the exchange becomes heated; Remember The Human! Encourage others to do likewise
Programming
- Contribute to an open-source project on GitHub
- Create an IFTTT applet and make it available to others
- Create an extension for Chrome or add-on for Firefox
- Help improve Firefox, the open source browser that supports a free and open Web, by becoming a Firefox beta tester
- Provide SEO services to charities or the website of a local business for free
- Join a community dedicated to answering questions to those new to programming, such as Reddit’s /r/LearnProgramming subreddit (or /r/LearnJava or /r/LearnPHP)
Humour / Funny
- Help people with their Photoshop requests and make two versions, a version that fulfils their request and a humorous version to make them laugh
- Take a picture of your cat doing something funny and share it on YouTube or Reddit – put a cucumber behind your cat and film its reaction
- Share your favourite webcomic, making sure to provide proper attribution. Maybe drop in with a relevant XKCD!
- Tell jokes that punch up, not down
All it takes is a few, positive actions across the Web and it could be vastly improved overnight. Help make the Web a better place!
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.”