Several years ago, I registered a domain name–barnson.org–on a lark. Initially, I set up a few static pages about topics that interested me, then moved to Movable Type, all delivered on an old Pentium Pro 200MHz machine with 64MB of RAM on my home DSL connection.
After a while, I figured out that upstream DSL was slow. I hosted a lot of my own MP3 files and photos there, and it just sucked. So I looked up low-cost hosting options, and ended up with 65535.net (later jvds.com). I’ve referred a few friends to them, and on the whole, they have been decent, low-cost hosting providers.
Everything changes in time, though. We’ve shuffled IP addresses around, changed software to Drupal, added stuff, removed stuff, and had fun. Along the way, a bunch of friends discovered the site, and I gave them space and posting privileges, and we have a small community with around 1,000 readers a day, and perhaps a dozen regular posters.
So my question is this: have we outgrown the name barnson.org? Is this no longer my little playground, but something larger where people don’t need or want to justify their writing here by explaining their relationship to the webmaster?
To that end, I’ve registered WaywardSun.org. Those of you familiar with my background will instantly recognize this as the name of the band which Sammy G, Wandering Moose, Kevin, Ben, Ed (who has disappeared) and I were in at various times.
Should we change the domain to this name? Other things I could do at that point would be stuff like, for instance, making Sam’s blog be available both mixed with others on the main page, but also at something like sammyg.waywardsun.org. What think you? Change, or no?
It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s just a question of whether it’s a good idea or not.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: “I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is — `Be what you would seem to be’ — or, if you’d like it put more simply — `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'” — Lewis Carrol, “Alice in Wonderland”
Why Not?
As long as you’re keeping it to only 2 domain names, why not keep both, at least for a while? Barnson.org can still work but the offical name would be waywardsun.org. After a year (or when the next renewal for barnson.org) comes, ease people into the fact that they need to update any links they have.
And btw, you could always use http://www.thoughtsfromweed.org instead…imagine the clientele you’d attract with that one 😉
My $.02 Weed
vhosts…
Actually, one of the goals would be to ease virtual hosting. So like have http://www.thoughtsfromweed.org go to http://barnson.org/blog/32 instead, but retain its hostname.
(Yeah, that second link is your blog on this site)
And I definitely want to keep barnson.org. If for nothing else, for my mail domain! I love having a vanity domain like that.
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Matthew P. Barnson
stupid domain names I’m not using…
I have a handful of unrelated, stupid domain names I’m not using. You’re welcome to any of them 🙂
customfurnitureman.com diypics.com fam4ever.com famforever.com hairbymissy.com oshadev.com
I’d offer my extra domain
I’d offer my extra domain names too, but unfortunately if I posted them they’d break your family-friendly-site rules…
Well, except “Wereallylovedogs.com”
I could probably sneak that one by… heh heh… it looks innocent… but it really is.
On a more serious note, I think if a name change is something you want to do, Matthew, then more power to you. However, even though the site has clearly grown a lot (it was huge before I even joined), I say all the more reason to be proud of the site’s name as it is now.
Don’t be afraid to take some credit, dude. I mean really, how thrilled would we all be for you if this site got so big that years down the road when you introduce yourself as Matthew Barnson, people would be like “You don’t mean…” and you’d just nod your head and go. “Yeah. THAT Barnson.”
Because that would @#$*%($ ROCK.
Huge?
Actually, not so big. We only have about 30 registered users who visit at least twice a month (most don’t post). The remaining hits are 2/3 search engines indexing the site, and most of the 1/3 left are people who use a search engine and find one particular topic of interest on the site.
So, compared to an average high school classroom, we’re about average. Compared to the Internet, we’re teeny-weeny, and that’s OK 🙂
It’s definitely weird to me that things morphed from just being my little blog in cyberspace to a bigger community. But it rocks that people keep finding other people they know using this place. At the heart of it, we’re a “friend of a friend” site still. No strangers: someone always knows someone who knows someone around here.
Except the random hostile drive-bys. Those are always fun to flame into oblivion.
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Matthew P. Barnson
That’s what makes this place nice…
I have come to relate this place to a cyber version of Cheers. All except people yelling Norm when the synical jolly fat man walks in the room… Everyone knows everyone else through the friend of a friend method. The name is just a name, but the input from the readers (Honorary Barnson’s) makes this place what it is.