WEBMASTER@ a manifesto for everyone

A week ago, when I was working on my project for HTML Day 2026 I stumbled upon this passage from an essay on blink and marquee tags: At the time, there was a new breed of web professionals proudly labeled “webmasters.” Part designer, part developer and part evangelist, webmasters held enough esoteric knowledge about the web to manage, edit and create websites, both large and small. — Jay Hoffman (August 28th, 2017) And that's when everything clicked for me. Over the past year, I've written dozens of articles on the Independent Web. Forty-two essays on principles, technical tutorials, accessibility, and advocacy. And, in a way, it has all been leading to this manifesto. Only through months of research and getting to know many kind and talented people and building things myself have I finally understood the true power of the webmaster. I think this will be the most important thing I'll ever write, and I wish to share it with you. With everyone. Part One: THE PAST The earliest webmasters…