Top Sites>Ribbonfarm

# As a condition of accessing this website, you agree to abide by the following
# content signals:

# (a)  If a Content-Signal = yes, you may collect content for the corresponding
#      use.
# (b)  If a Content-Signal = no, you may not collect content for the
#      corresponding use.
# (c)  If the website operator does not include a Content-Signal for a
#      corresponding use, the website operator neither grants nor restricts
#      permission via Content-Signal with respect to the corresponding use.

# The content signals and their meanings are:

# search:   building a search index and providing search results (e.g., returning
#           hyperlinks and short excerpts from your website's contents). Search does not
#           include providing AI-generated search summaries.
# ai-input: inputting content into one or more AI models (e.g., retrieval
#           augmented generation, grounding, or other real-time taking of content for
#           generative AI search answers).
# ai-train: training or fine-tuning AI models.

# ANY RESTRICTIONS EXPRESSED VIA CONTENT SIGNALS ARE EXPRESS RESERVATIONS OF
# RIGHTS UNDER ARTICLE 4 OF THE EUROPEAN UNION DIRECTIVE 2019/790 ON COPYRIGHT
# AND RELATED RIGHTS IN THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET.

# BEGIN Cloudflare Managed content

User-agent: *
Content-Signal: search=yes,ai-train=no
Allow: /

User-agent: Amazonbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /

# END Cloudflare Managed Content

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://ribbonfarm.com/sitemap.xml

# Ribbonfarm

Ribbonfarm (ribbonfarm.com) is an essay blog by Venkatesh Rao that ran from July 2007 to November 2024. The site was retired and converted to a read-only archival museum site in 2026.

## About

Ribbonfarm published long-form essays on technology, organizations, decision-making, culture, perception, and speculative thinking. The tagline was "constructions in magical thinking." Over 17 years it grew to 1,133 posts, with contributions from prominent guest writers.

## Contents

- 1,133 posts spanning 2007–2024
- Major essay series including The Gervais Principle, Mediocratopia, Domestic Cozy, Elderblog Sutra, and others
- Guest contributors including Sarah Perry, Kevin Simler, Jordan Peacock, Tiago Forte, and others

## Entry Points

- Homepage: https://ribbonfarm.com/
- Full Archive: https://ribbonfarm.com/archive/
- Essay Series: https://ribbonfarm.com/series/
- Books: https://ribbonfarm.com/books/
- About: https://ribbonfarm.com/about/

## Books

Several essay collections derived from Ribbonfarm posts are available at https://books.venkateshrao.com including:
- The Gervais Principle
- Crash Early, Crash Often
- The Rust Age series (4 volumes)
- Mediocratopia (forthcoming)

## Author

Venkatesh Rao (Venkat) is a writer and consultant. His current work is at https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com and https://venkateshrao.com

## Rights

All content copyright Venkatesh Rao. All rights reserved.