http://ubu.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UbuWeb

Here's another big art repository:

https://monoskop.org/Monoskop

And a very well-documented collection (a "wiki") of paintings, also non-profit:

https://wikiart.org

Another interesting one is Aaaaarg (according to Monoskop's wiki, originally with one less "a", acronym of Artists, Architects, and Activists Reading Group):

https://aaaaarg.fail/

https://monoskop.org/Aaaaarg

Basically it's a collaborative environment for reading, annotating and discussing texts. The content is submitted by users and (thus) of high quality.

I think you need an invite to access the community. Also, the domain used to be aaaaarg.org, but I think they faced copyright issues of some kind and had to find an alternative domain. (Not sure about this; excellent new suffix, though!)

EDIT: More precise description:

https://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2014/10/28/aaaaarg-org...

I’ve been listening to the BBC’s Introducing Mixtape podcast for a while. I also use Spotify and really enjoy its recommendation but the 6 Music podcast is just stellar.

As paywalls restore quality journalism, I believe a renaissance for curated content is possible.

As in, do you believe this uptick in quality journalism has already happened/is happening? And what associates it with paywalls? Presumably you'd have to be seeing quality journalism behind paywalls for this to be case?

Welp, apparently this is the rare case where ‘avant-garde’ isn't the same as ‘experimental’ or ‘underground.’

For the past two weeks I have been trying to find an old website by searching for "old mysterious site search engines" and "how to search deep parts of web" and "search engine tricks old site" and Google has not returned anything, even when I limited the time span to 2005-2006.

I made the same search on Wilby and it returned search lores (maintained by the hacker Fravia) as the first result! I was so happy to find that website again because I haven't been on it for 10 years. Unfortunately I just found out that Fravia passed away in 2009 because of cancer :(...

Wiby seems like a search engine Fravia would have enjoyed.

There are many ways you could seed that search, but as totally-not-a-movie-buff I decided to check IMDb's list of lowest rated movies [1] and chose a title further down the list (The Wicker Man), on the theory that only dedicated people would be talking about movies that are bad, but not bad enough to be the worst. Searching for blogs (as identified by inurl:blog) mentioning "The Wicker Man" [2] does turn up a few promising results, like [3].

[1] https://m.imdb.com/chart/bottom

[2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=inurl%3Ablog+%22The+Wicker+Man%22

[3] https://blog.vrv.co/kaiser/4826/the-wicker-man-was-almost-lo...

http://www.zackssnakes.50megs.com/index.html

In my opinion there has to be widespread fatigue of Google just somehow managing to return a large chunk of something like 1,000 sites for pretty much any search. It's in part SEO, but it's also like the article mentions - Google makes money from ads. These sites they spam at you generate substantial revenue for Google - no name sites do not. Being the world's largest advertising corporation and search engine is one hell of a conflict of interest in terms of delivering what the user wants, instead of delivering what Google wants.

My DDG-from-shell Bash function:

    ddg () 
    { 
        w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*"
    }

  &kd=-1

For example:

https://duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=test&kd=-1

Focus is either on the submission field or gets there on first tab. Search button is focused on next tab, and visible.

Wiby seems amazing - the first three surprise me links were a human powered ornithopter, lego maniacs and a guide to knife throwing. Thank you for sharing!

This is a very new group that has sprung up in the last few months.

Glad this is becoming more organized and I will follow along with interest.

It brings back a little of the wonder of the old web.

A smaller subset somehow seems bigger, more infinite.

Incidentally (and rhetorically), how I have not heard of micro.blog? It looks amazing! This whole thread has become a goldmine of interesting things.

I'm personally not a fan of directories that try to tackle the _entire_ web - it's just too sprawling. So I tend to not recommend them; you have to drill down pretty deep to get anywhere. I think 'awesome' directories (and Reddit wikis) have proven how well niche directories can work - and so I like to encourage folks to build their own directories that encompass their personal view of the web. They act like those 'little libraries' you see on the roadside or at pubs - but for the web.

Thanks for bringing these sites to attention, can't way browse them when traffic is lighter.