The paper is back on the porch

November 2026 · crayon.net

In 1995, before the word “personalization” meant anything on the internet, a site called CRAYON - CReAte Your Own Newspaper - let you build a front page of your own. You named your paper. You gave it a motto. You picked your sections and your sources, chose a color for your masthead, and every morning your newspaper was waiting. More than half a million people made one.

Then the web grew up, the feeds wound down, and CRAYON spent two decades as what the internet politely calls an artifact: still online, quietly serving a front page from the Clinton administration.

Today it's back - rebuilt from scratch, because the problem it was born to solve has turned inside out. In 1995 the hard part was getting enough news. In 2026 the hard part is trusting any of it. So the new CRAYON does one thing relentlessly: for every story, it shows you every side.

How the new front page works

CRAYON reads dozens of outlets across the spectrum, groups reports of the same event into one story, and ranks stories by arithmetic: how many independent sources are covering it, how fast coverage is spreading, and how readers vote. No editor. No engagement algorithm tuned to your outrage. Every story page lists every account in the order it was published, with the first reporter marked - read them all and decide for yourself. The methodology and full source list are public, because a ranking you can't audit is just an opinion with extra steps.

If you had a paper here

We kept everything. All of it, for thirty years.

• Your password from the 1990s still works. Sign in with the email and password you used then, and your account walks forward into the present - your old section order shapes your front page, your motto returns to the masthead, and the weather opens on the zip code you gave us when a different president was in office.
• No password back then, or email long dead? Claim your paper - if your old address still reaches you, your paper is a click away.
• And see the time capsule. Every subscriber can open their original paper exactly as they left it - sections, chosen sources and all, each source marked still publishing, 30 years on or lost to time. It is half newspaper, half memorial garden, and we think you'll want to frame it.

What's different about the community

Readers vote stories up and discuss them - but influence is earned, not bought. New accounts vote at reduced weight that grows with age, so a swarm of fresh bots moves the front page barely at all. Comments open after a short account-age gate, and three reader reports hide a comment pending human review. Passkeys, verified email, the whole modern kit - wrapped around the oldest idea on the web: your newspaper, your name on it.

Thirty-one years is a long time to hold the porch. The paper is back on it.

CRAYON - CReAte Your Own Newspaper · est. 1995 · rebuilt 2026 · still crayon.net
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