# Who has a website and why?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 12, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923 "2005-06-12T02:34:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/1 "2005-06-12T02:34:13Z")
I was reading [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=320756) and I know several Dopers have their own websites.
For those that do:
1. Why do you have it? (business? hobby-related?)
2. How much time do you spend maintaining it (assuming you do it yourself)?
3. What reactions do you get (if any)?
4. Has your site ever been hacked?
I keep thinking I would like to have a site, but can’t think of anything worth sharing (not that that hasn’t stopped thousands of people :D).
---
### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/2 "2005-06-12T02:43:09Z")
Maintain 3 at the moment.
The first:
1. Family and hobby. Kid pix and diplomacy games. Also a spot to FTP files to on the road.
2. Not too much. Lady Chance and I both make updates as required.
3. None except from the grandparents.
4. Nope.
The second:
1. Business. It’s a newsletter I run as a side project. Makes me some dough.
2. Used to be more but I had it converted to MySQL and now it takes an hour a week, tops.
3. Yes, letters from readers every week. Some love, some hate.
4. Yes, our DB got hacked and our headlines were replace with ‘I’m so cool!’
The third:
1. Business. It’s for a new project I’m trying to get funded.
2. Minimal at the moment but when we’re running we’re talking about 4 people each day.
3. Some from investors.
4. No, not yet.
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### Author:  [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/3 "2005-06-12T02:49:14Z")
I don’t actually have a web site per se, but a friend that owns and operates a huge datacenter gave me a colocated Linux box to play with. So long as I don’t create a blip on the bandwidth meter, I can play all I want. I’m learning now how to VPN to the one of the IP addresses in the subnet (alas, only 8 addresses) he gave me and use it as my public IP address. I’ve used it to seed torrents from time to time; the 3Gbit pipe he’s got makes for some fast uploads. 😃
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/4 "2005-06-12T02:57:04Z")
[http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeper/](http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeper/)
_1. Why do you have it? (business? hobby-related?)_ Hobby at this point. Mostly wilderness paddling articles and photos – some reprints and some not published.
_2. How much time do you spend maintaining it (assuming you do it yourself)?_ Very little.
_3. What reactions do you get (if any)?_ Nice comments and requests for information a few times per month.
_4. Has your site ever been hacked?_ No.
---
### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/5 "2005-06-12T02:57:39Z")
1. I have a personal web site that I made just to learn how to do it. I originally had mostly technical articles on it that I had written, but over the years added a little bit of personal info.
2. I spend almost no time at all maintaining it. In fact, I think the last change I made to it was I loaded up some dopefest pics last year.
3. I never get any feedback from it, but I do find articles I’ve written on it copied all over the net (that’s what I get for being a techie geek). Sometimes they are even kind enough to put my name on the stolen articles.
4. I’ve never had my site hacked, but then it’s not on my server, it’s on my ISPs. It would be on mine if they allowed me to run my own server, but that’s against my ISP’s rules.
---
### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/6 "2005-06-12T03:02:58Z")
A. [Montreal by Metro](http://www.metrodemontreal.com/)
1. Labour of love, public service, museum ideals, hobby…
2. About fifteen minutes a day to check over the forum, a few hours a week writing new content.
3. I’ve gotten interviews on radio, TV, and the paper a number of times – I was even the “webzapping de la semaine” in a magazine from France! I get fairly regular emails from people telling me they like the site; the only wrong number is the occasional grousing about my French grammar, which I am trying to improve.
4. Yes, a number of times. :mad:
B. [Personal site: Flippancy, Sentimentality, Sarcasm, Camp, and Smut](http://www.metrodemontreal.com/matt/)
1. Exhibitionism.
2. I don’t, that much, though I recently finished a redesign.
3. Not that much, though a few people have linked to or sent kudos about different things I’ve written.
4. Not as such, but ancillary to my metro site being hacked, as it’s on the same server.
---
### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/7 "2005-06-12T03:08:57Z")
- A personal one, which basically I use for hosting files too big to send to Hotmail accounts etc. I use the email address as my main one, though.
- One for a museum where I’m a volunteer, and where nobody else has a clue. It’s still in the latter part of the ‘setting up’ stage, so there’s plenty of ongoing work. I’ve had some good responses from related websites where I’ve offered link-exchanges, and quite a few click-throughs from local tourism sites.
Both are with a decent hosting service, and nobody’s tried hacking them (although they haven’t had long to try).
---
### Author:  [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/8 "2005-06-12T04:10:59Z")
[www.brandonsturiale.com](http://www.brandonsturiale.com)
1. Business. I’m a composer/pianist, and it’s been an invaluable tool for promoting my music and allowing people from all over the world to listen and purchase it.
2. At this point I do it all myself. It took awhile to get everything on there, but now all I have to do is add new songs every once in a while and update the calendar, which doesn’t take very long at all.
3. I’m told it’s laid out pretty well; no complaints so far.
4. Nope.
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### Author:  [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/9 "2005-06-12T04:37:50Z")
I’ve had one for about … damn, 9 years. Now I feel old. ANyway it’s just my genealogy. Nothing too special.
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### Author:  [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/10 "2005-06-12T04:39:27Z")
Oops. Umm Last updated in 2003 (not much new stuff since then). I’ve helped some people. Confused several back when I first started and was pretty bad at it. Nope, why would anyone bother. I doubt I get more then a dozen visits a year.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/11 "2005-06-12T06:16:26Z")
1. Hobby related. Some fanfic, and some flight-simulator stuff.
2. I don’t think I update it more than a few times a year. (Longer than that, with the stories. ☹ ) It doesn’t really need much maintainence.
3. I think I’ve gotten a couple of emails along the lines of “hey, cool stuff!”
4. Not that I know of.
::sound of crickets::
Yeah…
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### Author:  [@6\_6\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6_6_6)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/12 "2005-06-12T06:37:32Z")
[Here’s mine.](http://www.ewart.org)
[ol]
[li]Mine’s a “Namesake” type site, done as a hobby. (There goes my anonymity!) I used to maintain work-related sites as well, when I was working.[/li][li]Very little time spent updating now. Several hours per day when first building it.[/li][li]Maybe a dozen individual surfers on a typical day, but they typically don’t look at the whole site. I have a “Feedback Form” which gives me one or two responses per week. Biggest reaction was when it was linked to by _Minnesota Public Radio_ when I had several hunderd hits per day for a week.[/li][li]Not hacked yet, touch wood.[/li][/ol]
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/13 "2005-06-12T06:39:21Z")
Only ones hosted by Geocities and Trupod, 'less I get up enough dosh to go full domain etc.
Started the first as a vanity muck-around site, but my historical research and articlesswamped it, spilled over into another site, then evolved into one for my local historical society. I don’t maintain them enough, but should shortly get the time to do so. I’ve had loads of email response to them, from all around the country and the world (mainly genealogical enquiries).
Two others are more “I’ll put this online 'cause I feel like it” sites.
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/14 "2005-06-12T06:57:58Z")
[http://www.cyburbia.org](http://www.cyburbia.org)
It was part of a Web site I created for the UB School of Architecture and Planning in 1994. I completed grad school in 1996, but the site was still hosted at UB until 1999.
Yes, the site really is going on 11 years. I maintain it as both a hobby and as a pro bono service to my chosen profession.
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### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/15 "2005-06-12T07:07:27Z")
1. I have a website! There aren’t any pages on it and I have it just so I can say I have a website. Well, I use it to store files sometimes but that’s it. Wish I had something interesting to put up.
2. Not much. It’s really easy to maintain a pageless website.
3. I get friendly visits from all sorts of spiders and I tell them to go away and they leave without ever saying goodbye. Bastards.
4. Of course. Every website has been hacked, whether they know it or not.
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### Author:  [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/16 "2005-06-12T07:08:33Z")
_Kind of_ - I used to have a couple Angel Fire pages just for learning perhaps. Mostly, I learned really bad stuff, but that was the fun of it. Frames, tables, blinky text, etc. Well, I did do one nice one for a school project, but that’s it.
No one has ever touched them, though - hacking, complimenting, or otherwise. Just small time stuff I never update anymore, let alone know the URLs.
However, I wouldn’t mind making more now that I know java, CSS, and flash pretty well.
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/17 "2005-06-12T08:55:11Z")
I had a blog on Blogger for nearly two years, then a few months ago I moved to my own domain. It’s still just a blog, but now I can host pictures and movie files and such. I’m apparently supposed to get e-mail addresses with it as well, but I can’t figure out the setup and I’m too lazy to call [godaddy.com](http://godaddy.com)’s tech support. (If you do start your own site, [GoDaddy](http://www.godaddy.com) has the cheapest rates I’ve seen, and their tech support is terrific, in my experience.)
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> 1. Why do you have it? (business? hobby-related?)
Because I write compulsively. This gives me a forum to write all I want, and if someone decides they don’t want to read my trenchant witticisms anymore, they can get bent.
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> 1. How much time do you spend maintaining it (assuming you do it yourself)?
Depends. Today I didn’t write at all because I worked late, but I’ve often spent two or three hours on an entry that no more than twenty people will read.
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> 1. What reactions do you get (if any)?
Sometimes people leave comments. Not much, really; there’s a small circle of blogs that I read regularly and who read mine. I know most of them in person.
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> 1. Has your site ever been hacked?
Nope.
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> I keep thinking I would like to have a site, but can’t think of anything worth sharing (not that that hasn’t stopped thousands of people :D).
You sound like a perfect candidate for [Blogger](http://www.blogger.com). It’s free; give it a test run to see whether you’ll stick with it.
---
### Author:  [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/18 "2005-06-12T19:44:24Z")
For right now, I just have my personal site ([http://www.tim.cx](http://www.tim.cx)). It’s just a daily blog/picture gallery thing. Pretty standard personal page stuff, really. I spend about 15 minutes a day on average, posting a new blog entry or uploading a new picture gallery… stuff like that. Now that its entirely PHP/mySQL based, it takes very little time to add new content. The reactions are mostly positive, but its a low traffic site made mostly for myself, friends, and family. Soon I should be adding more content and increasing traffic, though. It’s never been hacked.
I’ve maintained several others, most notably a site called junkmachine. I had some good luck with a project on that site that landed me a couple magazine and newspaper interviews, and even on television once. I got slashdotted a few times and had mucho traffic. I would get 120-150,000 visitors per day. It got hacked on a weekly basis and took far too much time to maintain considering how little income it made me. I sold the site right before it was unrepairably hacked. It was sad to see the site and all content deleted, but kind of a relief at the same time.
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### Author:  [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/19 "2005-06-12T20:23:36Z")
I have a little personal website, mostly because I have free space on a server. It’s mostly for family and friends. I have a few pictures up there, and some recipes. I don’t spend a lot of time on it (maybe half an hour every week). I’ve never been hacked, because that would just be a waste of time.
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### Author:  [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-a-website-and-why/307923/20 "2005-06-12T20:25:46Z")
1. Why do you have it? (business? hobby-related?)
I have 2, both for business. [This one](http://www.rnc-enviro.us) is a general contact info and qualifications site about my main business. It’s mainly for clients or potential clients who already know about us to get more info & see that we’re “real”.
[The other one](http://www.ohec.com) is a specialized information service that brings in a little spare cash on the side.
2. How much time do you spend maintaining it (assuming you do it yourself)?
Probably less than I should … once they’re up & running properly, probably not even an hour a month.
1. What reactions do you get (if any)?
Exisiting clients use it as intended … can’t say I get a lot of other feedback.
1. Has your site ever been hacked?
Nope.
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