Alphecca

EvenMyCatsHaveGuns.com

Stick with the brand name your readers (and non readers even) know...Alphecca.

AR-phecca ?

Mutha-phecca ??

:-)

As Doug said, by now folks think 'Alphecca' means something gun related.

I'd stick with the one that brung ya, although if you want to add a few more names as ways to get to the same pages it might be worth the possible confusion.

Your site, your call, dude - those of us that already know your work consider sexual orientation irrelevant to the content of the site, as you sure don't let it interfere with the central message. Some of the more conservative types (I'm closer to little-l libertarian) might have trouble, however. I just plain have too many gay and lesbian friends to care.

What Richard said. This grouchy old Conservative will continue to stop by no matter what the name is (but coffee's thought brings a grin).
As to appearance, have you seen Dafydd ab Hugh's site, "Big Lizards"? Very interesting use of a color background. Again, I come here for the content, not the name or the appearance.

* Having a name that is 'kinda dumb' doesn't seem to have hurt "Google" or "Yahoo" all that much - so no good reason to change.

* 'Alphecca' already has decent name recognition in gun rights circles - a good reason NOT to change.

* Black on white text is easiest to read. Please don't change that. But you might be able to add a little visual interest with your headlines and whatnot - if you are really wanting to mix it up a bit.

* Donations/blegging/tip jar as long as it isn't intrusive, I've no objections. But I will say this: Personally, I've placed more in Tip Jars / Ammo Funds than in Blegging boxes (or whatever you want to call it). Alternately: I don't lend money to friends, but am more than happy to float an (un/under)employed friend a meal, or a few beers, or a day at the range. That way the inter-personal dynamic doesn't change.

* as for 'GayGunNut', I'd give that a thumbs down. No reason to play up the gay thing. It's irrelevant. I don't know how you think of yourself, but I tend to think of you as a fellow gun nut that happens to be gay. I'm very much 'live and let live' on the subject, but frankly would be perfectly happy never to see another gay pride parade. In other words: I think the gay community would gain a lot more acceptance if they weren't constantly screaming for acceptance. Why stick it in peoples' faces? The way that particular fact is presented in your profile/intro is spot on.

-From a daily visitor

Whats' dumb about Alphecca?

Ad astra per aspera...

Works for gun-owners, too

I'm an amateur astronomer and a gun nut - so I like the name and hope you keep it. I thought it was cool the first time I surfed to it (probably via Instapundit) and it's lost none of its pewter-like luster.

No matter what it looks like or what it's called, I know I can always come here and get informative quality stuff (unlike the crap I post, yes I'm a hit whore) posted by a cool gay guy who is obviously intelligent and articulate. I use the "Tiga" Wordpress theme for my dot com site as it seems to be designed specifically for idiots like me who haven't a clue. On the funny side and don't take this personally cause you know I'm just kidding, how about callin' it "Flame Thrower" after one of my favorite war weapons. Might even be able to use this pic at the top of the page
Rock on Jeff!

Hey Jeff,

I'd vote for hanging on to Alphecca; seems like you've built up pretty good name recognition with it.

As far as themes, I personally prefer white-on-black, but I know most people go the other way. The only thing that I'd STRONGLY encourage you to do is choose/tweak a theme that will fill the screen at 1024x768 resolution. There's this silly trend of themes that put all the text in a two- or three-inch wide strip down the middle of the page, with all kinds of wasted space. Dumb.

Um...what they said.

Alphecca, dark on light or black on white, what all those guys above said.

Conservative (why change for no serious reason?) "small L" libertarian but traditionalist (might Gay Gun Nut offend otherwise sympathetic readers?)

Mainly just keep on doing what you do so well.

What Doug said.

I'm no help for choosing cool domain names. I wouldn't worry too much about using something other than Alphecca, because the word would spread pretty quickly.

As far as theming, I'll half-echo TD. But I hope you won't choose a theme that requires horizontal scrolling. Designing for a too-wide presentation is worse than too-narrow. Websites should re-flow to fit the width of the browser window. I actually find slightly less than maximum contrast to be more readable, but I'm likely in the minority. And, speaking of being in the minority, I suggest a theme which does not specify a font size/face at all for the main content, so that the user's chosen default (which presumably is something readable for them) is what gets used.

Keep alphecca. It's a brand, however unlikely the association might seem.

Otherwise you might end up in -cough- blogblivion or something, with no readers.

Plus Glenn will never update his blogroll to reflect the change.

Keep the name Alphecca.

It's an established and trusted brand. Don't screw with it. (Remember Coke's attempt at reformulation!)

Anything else is artistic license. ;-)

I'll visit your blog whatever the name but I vote for keeping Alphecca.com. In my younger days, I was an astronomy geek and that is what got you the first click from me. When I saw that you were a gun nu--- errr firearms enthusiast, that made you a regular surfing stop.

It's your blog, but I like Alphecca.

Well, Of course, it is Jeff's decision, but since he is asking for suggestions, here goes.

As a self-avowed "0" on the Kinsey scale (hard core heterosexual), I have to say I like GayGunNut.com. I suggest you keep that as a pointer to Alphecca.com, even if you do not use GayGunNut as a primary URL.

I like it because it has such power to jolt people, to throw them off balance - and we all learn the most when we are "off balance", when our paradigms are challenged. And the beauty is that it works on many levels: It can jolt both the Left and the Right. Also, when I'm discussing gun politics with GLBT's, I'd like to be able to say "hey, you don't have to believe me, just go to GayGunNut.com". Very Powerful, Jeff. Lot's o' potential there. OK, I gotta go, so I can some shooting in before I report late to work.

Take time to think and think carefully about the possibility of over-thinking in this situation. I have always enjoyed the independent flavor of your writing and the content you select. Alphecca is a good domain name, and transitioning to another domain name should not in my opinion be the end of the Alphecca domain. This is nothing more than a suggestion, or just something to think about. Best of luck to you in maintaining your independent credibility and sustaining your ardent support of a citizen’s right to engage in public discourse about political issues.

Name? I like Alphecca, and it does appear to be your brand. Hell, it's even how The Guardian knows you!

Design? My only recommendation is simplicity. I *cough* have a friend *cough* who reads Alphecca at work. A flashy, multicolored design would make that more difficult for *cough* him *cough* to read your blog.

I think you should keep the name.

I also think switching to wordpress from MT will be good for your site. I did it about nine months ago when I switched hosts and wish I had done it earlier. MT gave me lots of trouble with punctuation marks coming out as gibberish and kept emailing me everytime a comment appeared (including spam) even after I had told it multiple times to stop.

As far as themes go, just make sure it is easy on the eyes.

I say stick with alphecca.com (shoot for the stars?). But then I'm also a scifi fan. Email me if you'd like a multibrowser tester - I use IE 6 at work, at home I have Firefox 1.x & 2.x loaded on different PCs at the moment, they also have IE 6 & 7 and I just picked up a Windows Mobile 5 phone and hope to setup a wireless net to support it in the next week or so.

If you wanted to go to gaygunnut it wouldn't bother me, and like JPFO might raise awareness in a community that often doesn't understand the value of the 2A in the defense of their persons and rights.

MichaelG
"I'm straight, but not narrow."

I think I'm going with the majority on this one...Alphecca has tremendous name-recognition. All somebody has to do is say, "Jeff's posted a good one over at Alphecca...", and we all know where we're going next (if they weren't considerate enough to link).

As someone else said, "Your blog, your call", but I'd hate to see it change.

I'm viewing this blog with elinks a text based browser, so it's all the same to me. I don't visit here to see the pretty background color, I visit because I like your ideas and the way you express them.

Another thought on layout - I sometimes visit on my TREO 700P. Most sites are ok but there are some that turn into a column of text 1 or two characters wide

li
ke
t
hi
s

which is not the easiest to read. Not sure what they're doing, but it ain't good. I think Bitter's BitchBlog does that - must be some reason I don't read it very often besides it being blocked by the work proxy.

1. keep Alphecca.
2. when Google buys you out, let them change it.
3. could GayGunNut be a "mirror" site?
4. of course, you could always do some
derivation of ".com"....like: .org, .biz, etc.
5. regardless, keep up the good fight.

I don't care what you name it as long as you tell me how to find it.

It's your brains and philosophy I like, and mostly agree with.

Speaking of reading on a PDA, I have web on my Blackberry. Not dsure if I have ever looked at your blog that way, but I have found that the best site design for the Blackberry is main column on the left and secondary column(s) on the right. Otherwise I have to scroll scroll scroll to get to the end of the left column and into the actual posts in the middle. Something I would never have thought of until I had the Blackberry and sometimes used it to read blogs in waiting rooms and such.

Not that this has any relevance, but maybe it will encourage you to stick with the same two column design if you change things.

I lurve the first one. Second one... eh, is okay. Absolutist has the benefit of being non-topical and yet still relevant to guns, whereas 2A is specific to guns.

I miss Single Guy Cook! You probably had a burst of stuff that was easy to think of and you were inspired to post there, but you should go back to posting once in a while.

Also the name thing might depend on path you are considering. You could use different domains for different things and make it a blog consortium: 2arights.com very specific to guns, the Colony stuff, Single Guy Cook for food-related, maybe Alphecca still for general or for SF other than your own, etc.

My only request is that when you change things, please make sure your newsfeed publishes the entire post and not just the first few words.

In other words, keep your newsfeed the way it is now.

Jeff,

Keep the name the same. Itis well known, and I see no real need for change. I stop by every morning just to see what you have to say today.

Peter

Jeff I just found your site as a link from some one else. I like your info and the other posts so your on my bookmarks.
A gun collector and outdoor nut that rides a bicycle to work every day and am approaching the 60 year mark. so do what YOU need to do but keep us posted!!