Help Me Name My Blog

post by Peter Wildeford (peter_hurford) · 2013-04-21T20:30:56.004Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 6 comments

A few of you may know I have a blog called Greatplay.net, located at... surprise... http://www.greatplay.net. I’ve heard some people that discovered my site much later than they otherwise would because the name of the site didn’t communicate what it was about well and sounded unprofessional.

Why Greatplay.net in the first place?  I picked it when I was 12, because it was (1) short, (2) pronounceable, (3) communicable without any risk of the other person misspelling it, and (4) did not communicate any information about what the site would be about, so I could mold the site as I grew.

Now after >2 years of blogging about basically the same thing, I think my blog will always be about utilitarianism (both practical and philosophical), lifestyle design (my quest to make myself more productive and frugal, mainly so I can be a better utilitarian), political commentary (from a utilitarian perspective), and psychology (of morality and community and that which basically underlies practical utilitarianism).

I probably would want to talk about religion/atheism from time to time, which used to be my biggest interest, but I can already tell it's moderately unpopular with my current readership (yawnnn... we really have to go over why the Bible has errors again?) and I'm already personally getting increasingly bored with it, so I can do away with discussing atheism if I needed to keep to a "topic"-focused blog.

Basically, at this point, I think I stand to gain more by making my blog and domain name more descriptive than I stand to lose by risking my interests shifting away from utilitarianism (or at least the public discussion thereof).  But the big question... what should I name my blog?

Option #1: Keep with Greatplay.net: There will be costs with shifting to a new domain name.  The monetary cost is mostly insignificant (<$20/yr for a new domain name), but it will take a moderate amount of time to move all the archives over and make sure all the new hyperlinks on the site work.  Also, there will be confusion among the readership, and everyone who was linking to my site externally would now be linking to dead stuff.  So, if I've misestimated the benefits of moving, I might want to stick with the current name and not incur the costs.

Option #2: Go to PeterHurford.com: I already use this site as an online résumé of sorts, so I wouldn't need to get the domain.  This also seems the most descriptive of what the site would be about (a personal blog, about me) and fits in with what the cool kids are doing.  However, some of my opinions are controversial relative to the mainstream and I don't know what I'll be doing in my future.  Keeping my real name hidden from my website might be an asset (so I don't lose opportunities because of association with unpopular mainstream opinions), though it might also be a drawback (I think I have gotten some recognition and opportunity from those who share my unpopular mainstream opinions).

Option #3: A new name: If Option #1 and #2 don't work, I'd want to just rename the blog to something descriptive of a blog about utilitarianism.  Some ideas I've come up with:

• A Shallow Pond
• The Everyday Utilitarian
• Everyday Utilitarianism
• Commonsense Utilitarianism
• Atheist Altruist
• Living Laudibly

Though feel free to suggest your own!

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