{"id":1509,"date":"2026-11-13T02:41:38","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T01:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/?p=1509"},"modified":"2026-11-13T02:41:39","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T01:41:39","slug":"the-renaissance-of-the-plateau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/en\/the-renaissance-of-the-plateau\/","title":{"rendered":"The Renaissance of the Plateau"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>The Plateau, 1999 to 2019<\/h2>\n<p>I once had a project called the Plateau. It launched in 1999, used the technology of the early 2000s, and was continuously maintained and developed until 2019. In essence, it was designed as a blend of a virtual learning environment, a gallery, and physical meetups. To achieve this, I wired together a wiki, a forum, a blog, a chat, and a CMS. In total, there were around 100 users and 20 meetups. Highlights included building a <span class=\"clu-omni\">Bitcoin miner<span class=\"clu-omni-pop\"><span class=\"clu-omni-pop-inner\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bitcoin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bitcoin (Wikipedia)<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>, setting up a self-hosted server, and the 2018 meetup with roughly 25 people.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Areas and Their Purpose<\/h2>\n<p>The areas back then and what they were actually intended for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blog = Improving self-reflection<\/li>\n<li>Wiki = Improving self-presentation<\/li>\n<li>Forum = Improving discussion<\/li>\n<li>Chat = Improving real-time communication<\/li>\n<li>CMS = Improving admin skills (every user had admin rights on my system)<\/li>\n<li>Physical meetups = Improving real-time interaction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h2>The Idea and Its Problem<\/h2>\n<p>The idea was to connect people who would recognize themselves in the writings of others. The fundamental problems with this construct have not changed since: for every active user, there are 100 passive ones. And the ambition to improve oneself at all requires a certain ruthlessness\u2014looking squarely at yourself, even when it hurts.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Why I Pulled the Plug<\/h2>\n<p>The reason for pulling the plug was the state of the underlying conditions in 2019. They were not suited to my goal. Essentially, two components were missing: AIs, and a way to &#8222;democratize&#8220; the Plateau\u2014making its technology, which would finally run smoothly with the help of AI, available to other people for their own projects without hijacking their projects.<\/p>\n\n<h2>WordPress 7<\/h2>\n<p>On May 20, 2026, <span class=\"clu-omni\">WordPress 7.0<span class=\"clu-omni-pop\"><span class=\"clu-omni-pop-inner\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/2026\/05\/armstrong\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WordPress 7.0 &#8222;Armstrong&#8220; (wordpress.org)<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span> was released, bringing with it the theoretical possibility of integrating AIs. With the release of <span class=\"clu-omni\">version 7.1<span class=\"clu-omni-pop\"><span class=\"clu-omni-pop-inner\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/2026\/08\/mary-lou\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WordPress 7.1 &#8222;Mary Lou&#8220; (wordpress.org)<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span> on August 19, 2026, the WP team added the final component that once made up the Plateau.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few months, with the help of AI, I have turned that theoretical possibility into reality. You can find more details on the mechanics behind the plugins under &#8222;Houseboats on the WordPress Lake.&#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Plateau, 1999 to 2019 I once had a project called the Plateau. It launched in 1999, used the technology of the early 2000s, and was continuously maintained and developed until 2019. In essence, it was designed as a blend of a virtual learning environment, a gallery, and physical meetups. To achieve this, I wired [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,121],"tags":[],"hf_cat_post":[],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-essences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"hf_cat_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianermisch.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hf_cat_post?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}