A personal web page is one that is designed by an individual to present personal ideas or information or to sell ones self. It should include a resume. As a side note, a recruiter for my current employer, who is not on the resume contacted me to offer me employment! I get about a half dozen inquiries a year. It can represent things you wish to make others aware of, things you wish to persuade others of or jsut things about you.
I am aware of pages that cover all of the policital spectrum, pro and con on most major issues, and ones that inform about almost every subject.
If you don't want to influence others or inform them, there is no reason to have a page.
Commmon Sense in York PA came about in mid 1995. We were new at the internet and found this site that offered free web pages. It was called Geocities. I logged on to it and signed up, primarily to learn how to build a page.
As a long term computer nerd, (since 1963) I tend to reach out to the new. Web page design seemed to be where I wanted to go.
I am also a long term letter writer to the editor and an independent producer of TV programs for York Community Access Television. I consider politics and religion two subjects that need discussion and exposure. The local papers put (validly) restrictions on size and frequency of letters. CSYP seemed like the proper outlet.
In the early days I had to be careful of what I put up, the space allotted was one meg. Now it is somewhere like thirteen Meg and I am nowhere near that amount. Unlike a lot of web pages, mine is not an extensive list of links to other sites that are lists of links to other sites. It contains much original material including two full length novels. All of that fits in less than three megs. I do not make extensive use of graphics, this can inflate a page considerably.
There are some recent articles on some pages. I admit there aren't as many from the last year as from other years. I have been on temporary duty for that time and have bnot been as close to the pulse of the York area. I write only what I know first hand or from more than one media source. Anything I do not know first hand and cannot verify with at least one independent source is either noted as such or it is not used. I hold myself to the same standards I hold for the professional media.
As the result of being out of the area for five days a week there is not much time to do research.
The one addition to the web during that time is the "Distructive Christian Doctines of the Twentieth Century" which is the result of nearly four years of effort. In early 1999 we felt that the document was ready for exposure and published it on the web at www.oocities.org/Athens/Cyprus/2754. One of the things that we are sure God is speaking to the church today is the phrase, "grow up." And part of growing up is casting aside the wrong theologies of and knowing Him in purity and holiness. In this God is consistent, He has been saying "grow up" to His church since 33 AD. We have been slow to get the message.
Geocities was a great idea. It provided a free full one meg of space for each homestedder, the name they assigned to people who joined. They paid for this by advertising at a time that a similiar page would have cost over $100 a year.
The pages had ugly addresses, www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/2694 was (and is) my address, however they have allowed our ID's to be used more recently reducing my address to www.oocities.org/brandre. I like the old addresses better, they defined Neighborhoods that were really areas of interest. I homestedded (their term) in CapitolHill, the Politics and Opinions area. At that time there were only a few Neighborhoods, possibly eight. More recently there are others, including MotorCity, Petsburg, TVland to mention a few.
The individual homesteds in a neighborhood were house numbers, 1000 thru 9999. My site at 2694 is viewed as somewhat of a snob site, it has a really low number. Like most people with the low numbers in the orginal neighborhoods, I homestedded very early. One of the questions I asked myself when I homestedded was, What will they do when they hit 9999? The answer is very simple, they added suburbs. Capitol Hill now has five, their addresses look like www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/Congress/2694 with suburbs of Congress, Lobby, Parliament, Senate and Embassy. At about 9000 sites each this gives a possibility of about 54,000 homesteds. I have not seen figures in the last six months, at that time there were over 35,000 homesteads in CapitolHill.
There is a volunteer group that will help you build a page. Today the Geo space allotment is thirteen megs and very little content is off limits. Exceptions include child porn, threats and anything that is illegal. If you see this on a geo site there is a place to alert them.
If you are interested in building a page, you can go to www.oocities.org and follow the instructions. If you need help, E-mail me. I may not be able to help you directly, but I can point you to others who can.
On my site there is an HTML guide which has information on how to get started. If you can't find the volunteers, contact me, I will find one that will help you. There are a lot of other resources, I am working on a page to include them with the HTML guide listed above.
Copyright 1999 Ralph E. Brandt, York PA -- Not to be used without permission...
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Revised 12/22/1999 DRAAW is not a misspelling, it is an acronym for Dee, Ralph, Angela, Annette and William.
Common Sense in York PA, Copyright 1995,6,7,8,9 Ralph E. Brandt, York PA