Nuts and bolts of axbom.com

After buying the domain name axbom.com in 1997 I started sharing my learnings about the web experience in diary format online, some years before the word "blog" was coined.

Two decades later I'm still writing regularly in both English and Swedish on two separate publications: axbom.com and axbom.se. RSS feeds are of course available for both of these.

Privacy

I want to lead by example when it comes to privacy on the web. That is why this website does not enforce or endorse non-consensual tracking or data collection. At all. Visits are counted with privacy-friendly Umami (hosted on my own VPS), and the feedback and backing I receive are how I primarily gauge the impact of my content.

Privacy when commenting

Should you however choose to comment on an article or post, there are some things you need to know. The details you enter about yourself, and the text you write, will be saved. I know—it seems obvious—but on the topic of privacy it's good to be clear.

I'm using Belgium-based independent firm Tally.so to collect comments. When approved the comments are then copied into the post itself, which means there is no additional server load for reading comments from a third party.

Privacy and embedded videos

Running a website for decades means that backtracking on some decisions will take a while. Unfortunately, embedded YouTube videos will track you when you press play (and sometimes even just by being loaded on the page) and I can not stop this.

I am in the process of regularly going back to old posts and removing embedded YouTube videos, replacing them with links and proper words of caution. You can see an example of that, and also learn why, in my article Embed YouTube videos without cookies. I'm thankful if you let me know when you find YouTube videos on this blog; e-mail to per@axbom.com. I'll remove it promptly.

For my own videos I will use the video service Vimeo whenever I can.

When it comes to embedded videos from Vimeo, I am embedding these with a parameter known as dnt (do not track). This means that these videos will not track you in any way, and will also not be able to report statistics on plays. I am of the conviction that your experience, and trust, matters more than my numbers. If I forget to use the dnt-parameter, let me know.

Abuse and misuse

My blog should not idly harm the wellbeing of others. Should you comment in a way that harms or unnecessarily risks the wellbeing of others I will remove whole or parts of that comment. If you come across any content of this nature on my website, written by myself or others, then please alert me on abuse@axbom.com.

Accessibility

Living up to a high standard of accessibility is important to me. I am sometimes limited by the use of third-party services but I will also make efforts to influence those parties when I can.

I am aware that there are some images on older posts that do not have proper ALT (alternative) attributes, and that there are videos without subtitles. Any videos produced by myself—in recent times and in the future—will have them.

Some older content has been distorted during my recent migration (November 2020) and I will be working through this systematically to improve.

Some visualisations I produce—mindmaps, system maps and worksheet—are difficult to convey meaningfully in words and I am always on the lookout for ideas and advice on how to make my visual content more accessible. As an example, I've made one attempt here with the Digital Ethics mindmap.

Don't hesitate to reach out to me by e-mailing per@axbom.com when you want to point out poor accessibility or provide tips on alternative ways of communicating content in different forms.

Reach out

If there's anything you think should be added to this page, or you think is unclear, reach out to me via e-mail: per@axbom.se.

Thank you for spending time with my words,
Per

P.S. If you wanted to know a bit more about me, my background and what I do for a living, start with hello!