I keep running into comments that frame digital gardens as the anti-blog, I’m not sure I agree that tried and tested navigation models and information sorting mechanisms should be subverted for the sake of subversion. Also, what is the point in doing away with chronology as some grand gesture to the web of old if you’re then just going to pin a recents section anyway?

As I see it a digital garden should be any digital space that facilitates ‘digital gardening’, the format shouldn’t matter. Can you imagine how you’d react to a hobby gardener claiming the space you’d chosen to cultivate and nurture somehow didn’t qualify as a garden because your selection of flora wasn’t appropriate?

I don’t doubt there are counterarguments. I can hear some exclaiming “That’s not the point!” and I understand that there is a desire to differentiate independent web projects from more traditional blogs, I can especially empathise if you believe that blogs as we know them portended the great walled gardens, and that we should shun those ideas as a result. Ultimately though, gatekeeping can never be a good thing.

I think the next logical question would be, why does any of this matter? Can’t you just go on creating and developing your own project, and ignore other people’s attempts to categorise your work in a way you disagree with? Well, I’m relatively new to a lot of these concepts and ideas but I think that the more people that take self-hosting seriously and dive into the independent web, the better.

I can think of nothing more discouraging than for your first exposure to the concept of digital gardening to be steeped in the kind of pretention and elitism I’ve seen in various places.