Who Is The Yesterweb's "Manifesto for a New Web" For?

The Manifesto for a New Web is written for individuals and groups who want to build a different kind of internet culture and are willing to adopt its three core commitments as a shared basis of unity. It is explicitly not a rulebook: the Yesterweb presents the commitments as expectations upheld by participants "to the best of their ability," while leaving room for diverse focuses, interests, and missions. If you run a community, organize online, or simply want to align your own conduct with a stated set of values, the manifesto is addressed to you. If you are looking for enforceable rules, moderation policy, or a step-by-step platform guide, it is not that.

What the manifesto actually commits you to

The page describes the commitments as distilled from two years of the Yesterweb staff's practical experience in community organization, offered as a general template that "can be applied to any community at a foundational level." The excerpt details two of them:

Social responsibility and partisanship

• Safety and self-defense are treated as basic necessities of any community.
• The text acknowledges that not all people can be accommodated in one social space, because antagonistic beliefs are inevitable.
• Diversity of opinion is respected up to bounds that reflect oppressive intentions—the page names discrimination by age, sex, gender, class, nation/race/ethnicity, religion, or disability.
• When conflict appears, the community is expected to understand the situation and "take the side of the oppressed at any cost."
• Where it is unclear whether harm was intentional or accidental, the manifesto calls for investigation through dialogue, on the reasoning that ignorance can be resolved with education.

Collective well-being and personal growth

• Healthy communities require sustainable amounts of selflessness and sacrifice, ideally from everyone.
• Communication should train listening and empathy, striving for unity and dialogue rather than division and debate, and approaching conflict with the intention of resolution.
• The community should not define its goals purely in opposition to something; it should work toward something of its own.

The excerpt cuts off mid-sentence at that last point, so treat the third commitment as not fully covered by the available page text.

Who it fits, and who should look elsewhere

How the three sections connect

The site's structure—Mission, Manifesto, Social Etiquette, Summary—reads as a chain rather than separate pages. The Mission states the aim: working with the guidelines established by the manifesto and the social etiquette to "progressively transform the culture of the internet and beyond." The manifesto supplies the commitments; the Social Etiquette section is where those commitments are translated into day-to-day conduct. The available excerpt does not detail the etiquette section's contents, so if that is your deciding factor, read it directly on the site before committing.

A practical way to test fit

Before adopting the commitments, run one concrete scenario through them. For example, a member posts something that offends others but claims it was a joke. Under the manifesto you would first ask whether the harm looks intentional or accidental, open a dialogue to find out, and treat ignorance as something education can fix—while still siding with the harmed party if the belief behind it turns out to be oppressive. If that process feels workable for your group, the manifesto is aimed at you. If it feels too discretionary or too partisan, it is not the right template for your community.