Stop Microsoft
Miscellaneous => The Lounge => Topic started by: CommonSense on 12 June 2002, 00:49
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I'd love to see this site get more attention, more press (well -- press, period), more links on other sites, and so on. But I'm finding that a huge hindrance to all this happening is its name. "fuckMicrosoft.com" just doesn't lend itself to cross-promotion. And I'll be honest with you -- my own parents don't even know I do this website, and nor will it appear on my web portfolio or resume. Which kind of sucks, especially when you consider it's all due to a stupid NAME.
A while ago, I registered a perfectly innocuous, G-rated domain (the .com, the .net, and .org variations, just to be safe) for a possible idea I had of starting a new companion site to this one which would have an ambitious goal, one I planned to seek "angel investor" funding for, etc. I talked with a couple of people and soon realized it was a totally un-fundable idea, so I won't be pursuing it after all. But I still own the domain names, and they would work for this site, I think.
Of course, we lose the nice, clever sting of "fuckMicrosoft.com." Of course, I'd still keep all the current domain names, and they'd all continue to point to this site. It's just that its primary name would no longer be fuckMicrosoft.com, and the site itself would probably have no references to that anymore.
I suppose I could script it in such a way that, depending on the URL the visitor typed in, the appropriate graphics, headers, etc. would be inserted to reflect the site name they expected. And I could have certain links (e.g., fuckMicrosoft.com T-shirts, virtual hosts, e-mail addresses) only be available if they actually entered the fuckMicrosoft.com site.
As for site promotion, submission to other sites, family-friendly naming, and my own portfolio, I'd use the "G-rated" alternate name.
I don't have enough knowledge on how to script all this to make it happen, but it's probably nothing too terribly hard to learn.
So . . . thoughts?
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I agree 100% with this. I think this site could explode if it weren't for the name. Why not just go with your windows-sucks.com domain? I would let my kids on if it weren't for that (and the fact that you allow images in messages where porn often shows up). The language doesn't bother me all that much, they hear enough of that anywhere...
[EDIT] or maybe some form of MES... mseradication.com?
[EDIT2] And maybe think about switching over to a different messaging system. Something like a /. engine perhaps. I like the current forums but I don't know if they would scale well...
[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
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I agree with you that the name of this site is a bit too extreme for some people's tastes as it can give the impression that it's being run by some irresponsible kids, trying to kill their time. Hence, trying to promote it by that name is merely impossible. To team up with VoidMain, why don't you stick to your windows-sucks.com domain?
[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: hoojchoons ]
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i would go with windows-sucks.com, and i think with a bit of cookie work, you could do it. /* i be no webdev person, i sit in my room and learn how to configure odd things like samba and nfs so i probably don't know what the hell i am talking about */ maybe even have an interface to select if you want the "clean" version or want to go with fuckmicrosoft.com origanal style, anyway, if you pulled it off, /*the interface*/ that would look good on a resume /* just describe about interface, not the content */
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i can look at this site at the library (in US). the (US) government says so. grandma has no interest.
plus, i really love the name. it smacks the viewer in the head with the whole damned point.
i love the content even more, which really makes the name a moot concept-- it could be called iluvteletubbies.com for all i friggin care as long as free thought prevails.
my suggestion:
maybe just change the logo to lose the fuck, push the ms-eradication.org addy in the place of fuckmicrosoft.com, and stick some bs about "please don't cuss in the forums but i will not be held responsible. you'll see more linked hits. keep it simple! just change the logo and keep the fuck part a ~~secret for persons 18 or older ooooooo!~~
BTW tomshardware.com sent me here, but I had linked from google a day earlier and promptly got a BSOD.
i think that if you were my kid i would be proud that you had the balls to put your effort into such a wonderful project. if they kick you out i will adopt you errrrrrrrrr...
FUCK IT
EDIT: voidmain: i figgered youd know there is the ms-eradication.org addy... tho its not listed at the top
[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: sporkme ]
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I also agree "100%". It's not fair that this site get's no publicity because of a thing like a name. We could influence so many more people if we had a G-rated name. People blow this website off simply because it is offensive. What is ironic is that this site actually has some good information that the public should know before buying that upgrade of M$ Windows. I mistook the site for a band of malicious hackers when someone sent me a virus from the domain name. I've found out through posting on this forum that that is not in the least so.
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I love your name and I believe that it should remain as it is. Not that long ago I was reading I think it was PC magazine when i saw that they had included a link to fuckedcompany.com. This tells you that even though you have a bad word in your name, such naming conventions are becoming more acceptable. However if you do choose to change the name, Im with you 100%.
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i second what that dude said 'windows-sucks.com', the name gives a clear point across of what it's about, it's easy to remember and easy to spell (i can't spell eradication)
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Yes i keep hearing people judge this site by its name so yes a name change would be good. How about make it formal.
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a name change is definitely due. ("formal" isn't a good name though x11, sorry! :D )
I think you should also have filtering so that words like fuck get changed to innocuous language (for the forums this is), so that it can be viewed by more people and so on, the content is great, but the language is not to everyone's taste, even though i personally think that it's petty and childish to be insulted just by the word fuck.
Also, i like the idea of having a clean language version and a mirror with the uncensored version there too. Will this be possible with the forums as well?
Anyway yes, change it! this way i think it will become a respectable bastion of antiM$dom, and also it might up the real posters in the forums, and lower the number of fucktards who only come here because of the "jokes" and "profanity".
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I was not suggesting that as a name but the word "sucks" is also immature. Try somthing slightly more
in the range of old farts and so on. Somthing more "upper class" maybe you want to put me in charge of this site (http://smile.gif) as you will be busy with another.
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quote:
Originally posted by Chooco:
i can't spell eradication
You just did.
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quote:
Originally posted by Gooseberry Clock:
You just did.
Gooseberry in calums song Calum-42
it has "First, Tell me why your here and your not somewhere else"
Why are you here scriptkiddy!
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I'm here to show you guys that there is much more to life than dissing Microsoft. There, I said it.
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that's all very well, but most of us have lives elsewhere, but we don't choose to air our dirty laundry here since this is the forum for bitching about Microsoft. If you choose to talk unrelated drivel (which you have been doing less of the time recently) then you can only expect people to be pissed off. Want to talk about music? go to a music forum. Want to talk about flash movies? i hear they have a forum about that some other place...
what are your thoughts about changing the name of the site, clock?
[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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Shouldn't be too hard to change the images depending on the domain, although I'm not quite sure what we're gonna do about the board. We could even go so far as to have two separate boards.
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no, that would be shit. people would not read one or the other and posts would be duplicated. Why reinvent the wheel?
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I can't believe it, I actually understood the last few messages that Goose posted. Is he becoming civilized? Maybe he's alright after all? Shit, I hope I didn't just ruin it, now he'll probably go back to his old ways of posting incoherent drivel...
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I don't care eather way. Whatever is in the best interest of the site I say. The only thing I would ask is that you still keep fuckmicrosoft as an alternet domain name. Just advertise the G-rated version.
I neab, even tho the MES is registered I still reffer to the site as fuckMicrosoft :D
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So here is a suggestion. Why don't you try to get some publicity first. Approach some magazines and explain your case, then at the end drop the info about the site name and alternatives. See what they think, how they react first. If it's negative see if they will consider you after a rename.
Try and get yourself into those site of the day type things, maybe after judging reaction by the general public you can decide if you want to change the name. When I told my roommates they laughed.
Your biggest barrier may not be the name, it may be the content. It may be seen as inflamatory, derogatory or insulting. Despite the fact that these forums contain useful comments, intelligent thought (from time to time) and often seem to attract a better class of discussion than many of the forums out there (I speak in general terms, there are of course exceptions).
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pkd, i have to disagree with you totally. If the content is so insulting, then tough, that's it. The question is, is the content being held back by the name? i think so...
If he approaches all the media and says "hey i have a site called fuckmicrosoft.com" how many of them do you think will keep listening long enough for him to say "and it's full of good stuff and i'm thinking of changing the name"?
Nope, change the name first. That's what i say...
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We (the bobs) support the MES and will help spread publicity of your site not matter what the name is. We Bobs do not discriminate against anyone, except the anti-bobs, whether sex, age, colour, race, or dubious smell. www.bobhub.cjb.net (http://www.bobhub.cjb.net) has link to your site and so does The Abyss (http://www.abysmal-plane.cjb.net).
But for those Nazi's that are against profanity you could just change it to www.MES.com (http://www.MES.com) or .org.
I will get some of the Bobs to start pimping MES just as much as we trip out The Cult of Bob (http://www.cultofbob.cjb.net)
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I'd say change the name for sure. When I first saw the link for the side, I considered not checking it out because I thought that it might simply be a profane and less than appropriate website.
Needless to say, it's not and the name does fit, but I think that to encourage more publicity, a name change would be good.
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Hey, I support this site. I DO NOT find the site insulting, etc. and I would certainly not change the content (I know you didn't suggest this I'm just prempting), I was just interested in whether there has been any 'actual' feedback.
If not, there are people and organisations out there who hold more 'liberal' views of such language, which we all seem to agree is the biggest barrier to this sites furtherence.
I would love to keep the forum content as it is, and the name. I was putting up the idea of whether the site has to change, or whether there are enough free thinking individuals out there that this site can survive intact.
Whoops I just reread that last statement, if there were enough free thinking individuals then M$ would not be where it is today.
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This is great! My previous post "the f-word" was all about schools and company's blocking everything related to fuck, including some parts of this website and this forum.
My suggestion is www.microsoft-eradication.org (http://www.microsoft-eradication.org), because people just don't understand what ms-eradication.org means...
[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: Refalm ]
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how about www.microsoft-elimination.com (http://www.microsoft-elimination.com)
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quote:
Originally posted by Gooseberry Clock:
I'm here to show you guys that there is much more to life than dissing Microsoft. There, I said it.
What not here to diss microsoft where here to help others find an alternative.
And why do you care at all?
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how about microsoft-alternatives.org
the idea of the site is "alternatives to Microsoft products"
this site is not based on "f*** MS", it's based on "pro non-MS"
i actually came to this site because i wanted to start a huge flame war about how much MS sucks balls but i found out this was a real place with educated people LOL.
microsoft alternatives sounds like it might work (http://smile.gif)
notice that the URL is .org because this is in fact NOT a company like .com implies....it's an organization like .org implies
[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: Chooco ]
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yeah, but the .com version should be reqistered incase some shitbrain tries something stupid, or the site becomes popular, also get a few of the misspellings so this site doens't get voilated from some assclown like this , dumshit popup scamer (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/05/cupcake.htm)
[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: choasforages ]
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I have mixed feelings on renaming this site. I actually discovered it when I typed "fuck microsoft" into Google. I wasn't having a good Windows day right about then. One of very many bad Windows/M$ days.
I do suppose that MES would have a wider appeal and attract more thoughtful posters and maybe even convince more users to migrate from M$ products. I would just hate to see the FuckMicrosoft.com abandoned entirely.
Just $.02 from a new member.
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thing is, i am not sure everyone wants 50,000 microsoft lovers on here telling us how gay we all are....
mixed feelings
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Hrm. So basically, it's a mixed bag of responses.
I'll tell you all a story, which might shed a little light on why I asked this question in the first place.
A few months ago, I was on IRC (as I am basically every damn day), and one of the people I regularly chat with was having a few drinks and was a little . . . well, drunk. This made him chatty, and he started /msg'ing me, saying I'm "sitting on a goldmine" with this site, and if I just tapped into its potential, I'd really have something.
He ended up convincing me that getting a G-rated name for the site, and reshaping some of the more strident, militant content, taking out the profanity, etc. would make this site appealing to more people. Then, on top of that, adding some services and features -- some of which would require some real money and time to do -- could actually lead to a revenue-generating operation.
So then I started thinking about it, and came up with the name FreeMyPC.com, which was miraculously available -- along with the .net and .org (you'll notice those URLs all point to this site now). It fit the whole concept rather well -- the site could become a clearinghouse of information and resources to people trapped in an M$ world and wanting to learn about what else is out there, and how to go about switching to it. I even started looking into getting funding for the idea.
But reality gradually set in -- well, that and a couple of conversations with people in the industry (hell, I even drove up to Silicon Valley to meet with a friend of the family to get his input) -- and I ended up concluding there's really no way to make this thing generate any significant money.
It's only lately that I started wondering . . . yeah, I can't do all the big plans I had for a totally NEW site, but . . . is it worth looking at changing the name over anyway? (As for the forums, it's a simple flick of a switch in the UBB control panel to make it block out profanity.)
I dunno. To be honest, I think I'm too lazy and kind of short on time to really put in the time. At least right now, anyway. I have to finish a couple of freelance projects, and do the Public Internet site itself (FYI, The Public Internet is the "parent company" of this site) before I can really contemplate spending big amounts of time on any kind of major reshaping of this site . . .
Hrmph.
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well the site can't make money because it's not selling anything, it's just promoting alternatives.
just get rid of the profanity and this site will actually be credible and people will not be ashamed to link to it from some place like anandtech
freemypc sounds good ;)
btw doesn't it get costly to register all these names? domain names are like 15 USD each.....this place has like 10 domains lol
fuckMicrosoft.com|.org | fuckWindows[2000|XP].com | fuckBillGates.com|.net|.org | windows-sucks.com
it's a shame you'll have to get rid of that beautifuly done F***Microsoft.com logo, that looks so well done it's insane ;)
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www.microsoft-eradication.com/.org/.net (http://www.microsoft-eradication.com/.org/.net) would be more appealing. And the FreeMyPC.com sounds good.
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freedom.org ? Maybe MicrosoftFreedom.org i think we should buy these before a domain investor does it first. My cousin is into the whole domain real-estate thing... Did you know you can rent domains...
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i think you could easy make at least a bit of money here, you'd have to sell stuff big time though...
I like the non-profanity new domain name idea, but i think that all "fuck microsoft" searches and current URLs should still be active, and i also think that the logos should stay as fuckmicrosoft if it was a fuck URL that got the person here in the first place. I like the whole fuckmicrosoft.com concept, but i think some people are a bit 19th century about it, or they have kids or whatever.
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Some suggested names:
dumpmicrosoft
microsoftstinks
overthrowmicrosoft
nomicrosoft
I think your idea of removing the profanity is excellent. Some things to focus on:
- Privacy
- Linux for Dummies
- Microsoft's business practices
- Shareware, freeware and alternatives
Section off a part of the website for the wild comments, and focus the rest on non-Microsoft alternatives.
And one more thing: Do it for love, not money. In that regard, stay away from Silicon Valley and especially the venture capitalists. Take it from someone very experienced in that side of things: Silicon Valley is a nest of criminals at the top. The minute you start coveting those BMWs you are sliding into oblivion right with them.
Sun and Oracle are every bit as bad as Microsoft. Keep your independence. If you're good at what you do, eventually the money will come.
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Please! Webmaster!! Don't ever turn off the profanity in the forums.
That is just unfair and contrary to the sites motive of freedom from opression and censorship. That which M$ stands for.
I want the right to say Fuck whenever I fucking please :D
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they might mistake us for a charity fundraising research for multiple scerosis
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::head explodes::
ok... so we pull off an about.com-style anti-ms angle, loose the fuck-face of the site, and pull in more open exchange of ideas where profanity is a concern. i think we just may reach the masses~~~
this will take help (volunteer work) from fuckmicrosoft people if you ask me...
oh, and i like the freemypc addy
keep it looking like the ms site for sure, the irony is not lost on anyone who has been there.
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actually, back when the forum started, a lot of dumbasses did come on here and say that obviously the webmaster had no sense of originality since the site looked so much like Microsoft!
i disagree with willysnout about the profanity. Maybe a suburbanite middleclass asshole would want profanity filtered out, but i think that FREE SPEECH should prevail, and people should be allowed to swear on the forums. However, i think that removing profanity from the url and the masthead is a great idea, also maybe there should be some mirror where all the profanity get's turned into fu*king cu*nting son of a bit*h and so on, so it can get past the filters and be suitable for kiddies (still, if kiddies don't know what 'fu*k' means then i despair for them, and if they do, then what's the point of filtering it?)
edit - oh yes, and before willysnout has a coronary about me deigning to disagree with him, i agree with him about all that other stuff he said about Sun et c being as bad as Microsoft. Actually, they are a smaller company so they cannot be just as bad, but you know.
How do you like that, Mr Snout? you know i was perfectly ready to welcome you onto the board until that puerile reply of your in the "MS to manage our computers" thread. You raised some good points, i took them up with you, and you then turned into a raving reactionary child. I expected better of you, oh well....
[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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the most important thing is that this website exists until the end of time