Recently, the Neocities districts page relaunched. The districts has a lot of excellent ideas, it is a great tiny directory and clearly a lot of thought went into it. They put sites into neighborhood categories, they include the 88x31 banner if available, they describe the site contents and include a profile link, and they include multiple listings for sites with multiple subjects. Incidentally, the districts is also a good example of neocitizens taking matters into their own hands. The neocities activity directory is inadequate, and the districts offers a better map of the city.
I was curious how they made the districts and followed some rabbit holes to dotcomboom’s AutoSite templating engine.
I think it would be fun to have a directory that looks like an overworld map, or even a door nexus a la Yume Nikki. Of course, these would not be practical presentations like the districts, they would be a fun way to explore a few sites. In the case of the overworld map there is some overlap with my other interests in procedural map generation. You take the 88x31, the url, an blurb about the url, and you put it on a map of roguelike tiles, and it would be funny to me if every time you updated (regen) the map was different. So one time Froge is on a lonely mountaintop, contemplating his own madness, and next time he’s a crier in a town square or something. For the record, I will never do this, I just like thinking about it.