100 Questions for Webmasters

The original questionnaire by MOUSEcky.

It may seem like I'm fashionably late to the party, but I first answered this questionnaire a long time ago. Like... *checks archive* 3 November 2025?? Has it really been a year?? I would originally put this questionnaire on my about me pages which I have a habit of deleting or deprioritising after site revamps (don't even have one as of writing this) so I've answered this questionnaire like 4 times already with slightly different answers.

I saw other people put it on their blogs so I thought I should do that, too. It helps that blog posts are dated so it's clearer if my answers are a little outdated. Anyway, here is my fifth time answering this damn questionnaire!

Answers

01. Please introduce yourself.

Ciel.

02. How long have you been making websites?

I published my first site in March 2025, so a year and a half.

03. And what got you into the hobby?

I don't remember. Wanting to seem cool and shit was definitely one of the reasons.

04. What kind of website are you most interested in?

I'm usually drawn to ones that have really cool art or blogs and article about things I'm interested in.

05. What's your workflow? Do you plan your websites out thoroughly or do you come up with the design as you go along?

It's very "make it up as I go" unless I have a specific purpose for the site.

06. Please link to your biggest inspirations.

In the beginning, I was inspired by Monsieurdoll (at least that's what I felt, but visually it ended up very different). Mouseling inspired me to start (trying to) practice semantic HTML like a year ago and I think that decision has influenced my current style.

07. What's your favourite part about making websites?

This is something I'm still trying to figure out.

08. And the thing you struggle with the most?

Confidence. And understanding what the hell some tutorials/articles are saying with their lingo.

09. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?

I have the same layout for groups of pages which is much easier with an SSG. Stand-alone pages get their own style.

10. How confident are you with CSS?

I can usually do what I want to do but there are so many things I don't even know exist yet.

11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?

Yes. But I only found out fairly recently that you can nest <dt> and its corresponding <dd> in a <div>!

12. What is your favourite HTML element?

<details>. What do you mean I can show and hide content in pure HTML??

13. If you're making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?

Plan the general layout in my notebook with the content in mind (just a bunch of rectangles and shit) then make that skeleton in HTML and CSS. Then I start writing the content.

14. Do you know JavaScript?

I know just enough to understand very basic scripts. I used to be very self conscious about not knowing JavaScript and tried a few times to learn, got about halfway through The Odin Project's JavaScript Basics last I tried. But now I actively choose to avoid JavaScript if possible so I'm not in a rush to learn it anymore.

15. How about PHP?

I wanted to learn it but then I discovered SSGs which fulfilled what I needed while letting my site remain static. It's a lot harder to find free PHP hosting (that sounds legit) than free static site hosting.

16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?

Not really. Except maybe a plus sign (+) motif here and there.

17. Are you more focused on content or design?

Leaning more towards content, but I try to make it look nice nice.

18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?

*looks up at address bar*

19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or "retro" websites?

Not a fan. That's the nicest way I can put it.

20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?

I would like to think so but I forget to check if my build is valid.

21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?

They're fun to collect but I have no practical use for most of them on my site unless they're for linking another site. I just have a bunch of images for like no reason.

22. What do you think of button walls in particular?

No comment.

23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?

I've restarted a few times and I just make the same thing with a different skin. I don't think there's any other way I would make my personal site...

24. Are you envious of other people's websites?

All the time.

25. What text editor do you use?

VSCodium.

26. Why do you use that one?

From my Uses page...

Literally Visual Studio Code's open source version, which means no Microsoft telemetry or branding. I mainly make use of the live server extension, git source control GUI, autofill suggestions, colour picker, and Emmet abbreviations.

27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?

On my server. When I was a wee beginner, I saw everyone external hosting and blindly followed suit. I stopped because keeping track of all those Catbox links was hell! I have no idea what the image looks like based on a string of characters, and I could accidentally delete a link and have to keep reuploading files (not to mention Catbox's infamous reputation for going down frequently).

28. This might not be relevant to you, but what's your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?

I think the debate itself is stupid (especially when Kyle Drake's opinions are brought up as if that automatically makes Dimden a saint...) I don't really like Nekoweb but it's a personal and anecdotal opinion that I don't try to convince anyone else of.

29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?

My local site build folder is ~70MB. ~55MB (remember to clear your site build every once in a while... I had a bunch of files I wasn't using that were added to the build while I had 11ty watching...)

30. Do you keep local backups of your files?

Err no... I only have my main folder. Unless this is about how people use online editors exclusively, then I guess I do.

31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?

For blogs and articles, simple is definitely better for readability. But for more abstract or artistic sites, I like visuals. It's fun to see the capabilities of the medium.

32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?

I like blue.

33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?

General feelings of incompetence. But I always come back anyway.

34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?

I generally find it hard to consider people friends... so I would say no. Unless someone tells me otherwise.

35. Do people in your real life know about your website?

They know it exists because I talk about it way too much online, but I've never told anyone the URL of my current site and would like to keep it that way.

36. Do you update your website very often? How often is "very often"?

I have periods of updating pretty often and periods of lull. Sometimes I work on my site for days at a time, but the update takes a while to actually get pushed. My schedule more or less aligns with my motivation and my school calendar.

37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?

I've had about 6 major iterations of my site and a few soft redesigns between, so yes. Every time I step away from my site for a few months, I lose attachment to my current design and my code is horribly unmaintainable so I just redo the whole damn thing, like, the whole site. I really have to stop.

38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?

Me and hobby-focussed I suppose.

39. Do you do web design professionally?

No.

40. If not, would you like to? And if you're comfortable answering, what do you do for work?

Maybe, but the industry is somewhat oversaturated and getting taken over by AI.

41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?

No. I don't talk to people very much at all.

42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?

I reject social media unrelated to my having a website. The few accounts I still have are only personal and mostly dead.

43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?

WhatsApp is a must (unfortunately). I have Discord exclusively for occasional lurking a server or two, or "just in case". My current school uses Discord so I can't delete it anyway.

44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?

I usually like silence but recently I've been playing YouTube videos in the background which I find entertaining and annoyingly distracting at the same time (I don't even really pay attention to them honestly). Usually it's comedy YouTubers like Duncanyounot, Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Kurtis Conner, Chad Chad.

45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?

Currently, it's all here. I do have some ambitions to make another site but that's not guaranteed at this stage.

46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?

Many.

47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?

My real self. Maybe more sanitised so I can be better understood. I don't think I could LARP if I tried.

48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?

See Question 34.

49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?

Some semantic HTML elements have pretty vague descriptions which is probably why they get misused or misinterpreted. CSS is weird sometimes and it seems CSSWG agrees, too. But I think the underlying frustration I have is moreso differing browser implementations.

50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?

I get pissed easily. Here's some (oddly?) specific pet peeves I've noted recently:

Inline CSS

I saw someone tell another person it's "for when you want to style an element but don't want to make an ID"... h0ly misinformation! As a general rule, just avoid inline CSS. It has its uses, but the people using it a lot likely aren't using it right. If your HTML makes no sense on its own then you have no business using inline CSS. Separation of content and presention and such...

Media queries or (worse) a domain redirect to prevent visitors from accessing your site from a mobile device

because it is "unavailable on mobile" which is code for "unnecessarily anti-accessible garbage". A broken layout is far less worse than this.

Navigation full of links that go to 404 or refreshes the page

If you're not going to remove the links entirely, I would suggest removing the href attribute and styling them to be visibly disabled. You can target them in CSS with something like a:not([href]).

Tiny scrollboxes, especially excessively

it is very difficult to read many lines of text in a scrolling container that is 3 lines tall. Sometimes boxes even scroll only like one line, you might as well just make the container bigger.

Putting site buttons in a marquee

it's hard to see and click on the buttons (doesn't matter how slow the marquee is or if it pauses). If you do this I hope you at least also have the sites linked in a static container somewhere else on your site.

Using target="_blank" for sub pages instead of external links like it was meant for

especially if used to compensate for lack of navigational links on said pages.

Not a pet peeve but this:

No hate to OP but this is genuinely the funniest external host antics I've ever seen.

This isn't a pet peeve or bad practice but sometimes I see people nest divs just to add a CSS border within an image border. I hope people know we have outline and that outline-offset can be negative which produces the same effect with less nesting.

51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?

Utilising CSS selectors where possible over classes or IDs, which extends to using semantic HTML.

52. Do you use a lot of semantic HTML? Or are you guilty of generic structure?

I try my best to be semantic but I think I need to read up on the specifications properly because I've definitely been using some semantic elements incorrectly.

53. Do you consider different browsers?

Yes, but I already use different browsers even without site testing in mind because I'm extra as fuck.

54. Speaking of, what's your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.

LibreWolf. From my Uses page...

Better privacy-focussed alternative to Firefox, no Mozilla bloat. I use this as a, so called, "ephemeral browser" which basically means it clears history and cookies whenever you close it so it's best for quick searches. If I want to save something I bookmark it.

Personally, I think Firefox requires a lot of configuring to make it feel comfortable and that's what I meant by "Mozilla bloat". LibreWolf kind of just worked out of the box, the only thing I've really customised is my toolbar.

55. And what OS are you on?

Windows 11.

56. Do you have a strong opinion on that, or do you just happen to use it?

Just happen to, I need it for school.

57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?

I try to make them so, I myself tend to view my site from my phone (or skinny ass windows).

58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?

Evil.

59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?

They're cool for discovering sites. I'm in three currently, I don't want to overdo it.

60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?

I have a Hibiki Wataru and Tsumugu Logic web shrines but I don't have them linked on my home page at the moment (thinking of revamping them). For shrines on niche topics or ones I only vaguely know, background information on them can be interesting to read. I also like it when they have a unique style or layout compared to the rest of the site to match the shrine's content.

61. Are your websites "cliche", in your opinion?

I still don't understand this question. Maybe..?

62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?

I just want to be satisfied.

63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?

Yes and yes. I hate keeping track of assets so I've recently tried to avoid using them in favour of CSS and text-based decoration (i.e. Unicode characters, ASCII art, or SVGs), limiting myself to only one or two decorative images per layout. I either edit my own photos or stock images, like this blog's background, or make an SVG in a vector program (since they're more lightweight and easier to edit). I used to take random images off Pinterest but I realised that Pinterest images are not inherently free to use and I wanted to be more intentional with my assets.

64. What are your favourite resource sites?

There's probably some on my Bookmarks page or graphics page I have yet to make.

65. Is there a habit you just can't get away from no matter how hard you try?

Using <style> tag. I probably commit many other crimes that I'm just not aware of yet.

66. What's your biggest advice for a new webmaster?

Think about why you're adding things to your site, don't just do it because everyone else does it.

67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?

Yes, I did rant about inline CSS some questions ago after all... I only use it if the appearance is important to the content like zooming in on a part of an image I'm referring to.

68. What do you think of frameset layouts?

I know they're not a great practice but if they're used effectively and not broken, I don't really mind. You could use something like this to help with links. They're definitely quite overused, people use iframes for the most random components that don't really need to be an iframe.

69. How about table-based layouts?

Visually, it usually doesn't affect me unless I'm on mobile. But the semantic HTML enjoyer in me gets shot 52 times. We have CSS grid now.

70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of "one-column", "two-column" and "three-column" layouts? Do you use any of these?

I guess so, yeah. Sidebars are just an efficient way of displaying complementary information.

71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?

In the beginning stages, CSS. Once its out of the way then HTML/content.

72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It's useful for your thoughts.

Only temporarily.

73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?

No. Form follows function and such.

74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?

I'm like slightly more advanced than a beginner.

75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?

Not really unless I really want to see how something was done.

76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?

I mainly learnt HTML and CSS from W3Schools in the beginning, then acquired everything else along the way from wherever else like MDN Web Docs and various articles/tutorials. W3Schools definitely helped set a foundation... but in hindsight, they're kind of everything wrong with the modern HTML landscape with some questionable, outdated, and sometimes just wrong techniques and examples.

77. Do you ever force elements to do things they're not supposed to?

I don't think so.

78. Thoughts on floating elements?

If we're talking about CSS float, they're really unpredictable and feel more like a quick hack that will come back to bite you. And don't trust any website that suggests using it for layouts.

79. When you're sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?

I use a lot of rem, then px, and maybe %.

80. Do you have a favourite font?

I hate all of them.

81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?

No. I'm very particular about some of my coding habits and I think that would clash with others.

82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?

I have a bad habit of scrolling Neocities too much but I wouldn't call that "surfing", so no. I would like to set aside time and let myself get sucked into the rabbit hole through webrings and site buttons.

83. Do you bookmark other people's websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?

If they're on Neocities, I usually just follow them. I tend to forget to visit websites so it's easier to see when they update instead of looking through all of my bookmarks (which is full of a bunch of other bullshit). If someone did I would feel quite bashful...

84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?

I don't expect people to be impressed at all.

85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?

I've tried to dabble in homelabbing but its on pause. No.

86. How often and for how long are you online?

Indeed.

87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?

Not sure.

88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?

No. I honestly think its a bit messy, outdated, and unnecessary now that we're even past "HTML5" (which was supposed to replace HTML4 and XHTML). W3C is historically kind of a mess with XHTML and HTML (and now WHATWG's specification is considered the more authoritative). I read HTML history for fun now I guess...

89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?

No. It hurts my brain.

90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?

I recently started using Eleventy and it really helped lessen the dread working on my website because I don't have to type shit over and over again. Not just layouts but really any kind of repetitive list that I could put in a JSON file. There was definitely a learning curve but knowing the basics of JavaScript helped a lot. As I said in a previous answer, I want to avoid client-side JavaScript if possible for optimisation, accessibility, and just avoiding redundancy.

91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?

No. I used to but I don't really care now and I don't think its accurate anyway because I reread the contents of my website a lot so for all I know 90% of the hits could just be me.

92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?

No.

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?

Sometimes I write some initial notes in Notepad, but the main content directly into the editor.

94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you're cool?

No, I'm genuinely an antisocial loser. Yes and I find it hard to believe.

95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?

Yes and yes.

96. Would you close down your website if you couldn't update it, or would you leave an archive?

Probably. I don't like the idea of archives existing of my personal site unless I can control it.

97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?

I do have a tendency to overshare but I try to be selective where possible. The internet is forever after all.

98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?

See Question 34.

99. And do you optimise the images on your website?

Mostly yes, I probably forgot some.

100. We're out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ....other than exhausted.

AGH!

I tried to keep my answers concise, but maybe that made it boring with all these one-word answers. I'm starting to wonder why I keep doing this. I could've just not... Anyway I might do more questionnaires weow.

In my head, I pronounce WHATWG as "what wee jee".