A few weeks ago I was introduced to a new online space called quxnet when its creator reached out to me. I was a little skeptical at first (as any person with a website and public email address learns to be), but as I looked into it I found one of the coolest online spaces I’ve ever seen.

To be clear, I wasn’t asked to write this post. I’ve just really been enjoying my time on quxnet so far and I think it’d be fun to see a few more familiar faces there.

You can read more about quxnet on its About page, but if you’ve found your way to my site then I can already almost guarantee that you’d enjoy it. At the time of writing, quxnet has…

• An old-school forum for lots of different topics like computing, media, and art.
• A mail system.
• A feed reader.
• A link aggregator.
• Site access via SSH.
• Image albums.
• Static HTML hosting.
• Custom site themes.
• An 88x31 button creator and gallery.

And there’s probably a feature or two I’ve missed.

Profiles are extremely fun to customize too, in a way that online profiles haven’t been for decades. You can…

• Customize your profile theme.
• Set a status.
• Create custom sections in markdown.
• Upload music.
• Display your current book.
• Show off your image albums and button collection.
• Write docs and log entries.
• Have people sign your guestbook.
• Most importantly of all, subject your visitors to autoplaying MIDI.

Something I appreciate about quxnet’s design is that it all feels very intentional. There’s no push or email notifications by design. It encourages you to build, participate, and be creative. It’s all very refreshing.

The thing I’m liking most so far though is the community. It’s been growing fast with over 750 people now, around 150 more than when I signed up a little over a week ago. So much of online discussion today is doom and gloom, and the quxnet community somehow manages to avoid most of that and instead actually remembers to have fun. It reminds me of why I was ever drawn to online spaces in the first place.

Feel free to say hi if you end up joining! I go by moddedbear there. If registrations are closed whenever you’re reading this, reach out and I might be able to send you an invite.

— JP