Right, so here we are, after one full week of me trying to convince you that self-hosting is the superior choice and most probably, you still have the same opinion as before I started.
That’s ok, I didn’t expect 6 simple posts to create a stampede of people falling over each other to take control of their own site. What I did hope to achieve is to dispel some of that wariness so that I don’t have to counter all these arguments in this post.
So here’s my cunning plan:
I’ll do it for you.
What will I do specifically? I will setup your wordpress installation. I will use all my experience in the platform to configure the most useful plugins, your SEO, your backups, your performance and importing your previous blog. I will take your wishes for your blog and attempt to make them come true.
You will not be required to spend any time in setting anything up, other than buying your new hosting plan and putting your new password once I’m finished. Hell, I’ll give you 30 days support while I’m at it.
And I’ll do it for free.
It is at this point that most sensible people would ask: “What’s the catch?”. Well, there’s no catch, but there are…stipulations:
- The people eligible for this offer will be personally chosen by me. I will only help people who have proven to hold values at least a bit similar to mine. This means no Ayn Rand Objectivists and no libertarians: These true believers in the free market can go pay for it.
Initially this offer will be extended by invitation. Depending on how well received it is, I may allow people to request it. I will investigate and veto requests on ethical grounds. - You will have to use Dreamhost and you will have to use me as a referrer. The reasons this are:
- This is the provider I use and know pretty well by now. I do not know the admin panels of the other hosts and nor do I care to learn them. By using Dreamhost it means that I’ll be able to work very fast.
- I will receive 10% of whatever you pay as a referral reward. This will be less than 5€ if you go for a yearly plan so don’t assume I’ll be earning a fortune. Furthermore, since by using my promo code dbzer0 you will pay 20$ less, I will not get anything for a while.
- If you pay by credit card, you can cancel your contract within 90 days. This gives you ample time to abort if you don’t like it anymore and saves me from nagging. It gives you the peace of mind that I will not scam you as soon as you give me access.
- It is cheap. You can pay from 9$ to 6$ per month, depending on how much you prepay. While this is more expensive than some, it more than makes it up for quality and support.
- It is scalable. If you find that shared hosting is too slow, and you will only have that if you have too many plugins or too many visitors, you can request private server hosting for an extra 15$ per month which will dramatically improve your speeds. You can then further increase your speeds depending on your needs.
- It provides overwhelming amounts of space and bandwidth. The initial plan will give you 500Gb of space and 5Tb of Bandwidth which will increase weekly. You will find it practically impossible to use them all, which means you can start hosting stuff for your friends, or special projects (say, online backup of your home PC).
- You will certainly find naysayers of Dreamhost and I’m certain they have valid points but I’m quite satisfied myself and I believe you will be too.
- They’ve been recognised as one of the only twenty five companies in the world to have a democratic workplace. I’ll gladly promote and pay a bit more to make sure that their employees are not abused and give an example for other companies. Plus, they are one of the few companies that don’t take themselves too seriously and their newletters and blog are actually worth reading.
- You are not required to give me any reward for this. That does not mean I would not appreciate any way you might deem to repay me and I will accept anything you believe my work deserves. This can be a linkback from your new blog, a permanent or prominent place in your blogroll, donations, a good word and generally anything else you might think of.There is only one catch:
Any kind of reward you provide me for this work will be shown publicly.I will have a special page for this project and I will list all the people and sites I’ve created through it and all the rewards each has provided. Of course, on stuff that it is not easy to figure out if they are a reward or not (like a linkback), I will only require you explicitly mention it somehow.
So these are my only stipulations. I believe they are reasonable but if you disagree, I’m open to discussing it.
How will this work?
Simple. You follow my link and register to the only plan there is (I told you it’s simple). This will automatically set me as your referral so don’t go surfing around before registering. If you want to make sure, use my email dbzero@gmail.com
Alternatively, you can use the promo code “dbzer0” (minus the quotes) to get 20$ off. Alternatively you can not use the code which means that at some point in the future I’ll receive those 20$ extra 😉
Once your account is ready, you give me your new admin code for your dreamhost panel.
I ask you some information like “What domain name do you want” and “This domain name is not available, choose another”.
Once I have all the information I need, I tell you to wait.
At some point in the near future I get back to you and tell you that your new blog is ready and provide you with a new username and password.
We spend the next month telling me what else you would like you blog to do and I try to make it do it.
Once the month is past, I keep supporting you only on a best effort basis as I attempt to help someone else. Hopefully by then, you’re once again to the stage where you’re happy to leave your configuration be and simply post new stuff.
Why do I do this?
I do it because I’m honestly disappointed to see so many good people not doing the smart choice because of time or skill constraints.
I do it because I find it a pity that these people cannot shine as they could, as they are moored in the limited free hosting.
I do it because I want to help fellow Atheists (with correct values) to become better.
I do it because I like attention.
I do it because I have free time and enough skill that won’t hurt me to put to good use. It’s either that or simply read more or watch some series.
I do it because I had a dream.
I do it because I think gathering goodwill is worthwhile.
I do it because I hope it will inspire others.
The first invitations.
So, to get things started, here are my first invites.
I will start on a first come, first serve basis. If more than one of you guys accept, I will do it serially.
If none of these three accept the invitation, I select the next batch of invites. If none of the next batch accepts, I will attempt to select one from the comments (so if you want me to do you, please leave a comment stating so along with who you are, in case I don’t know you already)
If I have no acceptances and no comments to select from, I will consider this experiment a failure and stop asking.
Personally, I’m hoping it does not fail.
As for the rest of you. I hope to hear your opinions on this. Speak up!