Today (Sunday, September 4, 2022) I want to state (on this “separate” platform) the “rules” for how my own web presence is set up from here going on forward.

An individual’s own online presence comprises two parts: (1) Branded (permanent) and (2) social media (more transient or ephemeral).

More specifically:

Branded presence, in my case, means domains owned by me, blogs on major blogging platforms owned by me, and video channels under my name(s).  Generally posts on these platforms are permanent, available to search engines, and may be viewed at any time.

My Branded Presence comprises these components:

Domains (with domain names):

The only non-commercial domain is johnwboushka.com,  derived from my legal name, John William Boushka. It is intended to be permanent (until my death.)It is  The domain will contain one blog with the same name in a directory (/wordpress1) to which the A-record will point. The domain will contain non-content-managed (flat file) directories containing (individually selected) copies of items that had been on my other blogs before Jan. 1, 2022.  These include various essays, courtesy purchase links to regular e-commerce sites selling my books, and media reviews (movies, books, plays, music, accumulated over the years).  Since the site is non-commercial, no login is required.  However normal https even for browsing is maintained.

Doaskdotell.com   — a legacy domain with book content and many links to older content.  Because of its age (back to 1999) it is hosted by a different company than the domain name registrar and recently this has caused issues with maintaining security certificates for https.  It would need to be moved to hosting by the domain name registrar to fully fix this problem.

Doaskdotell.info      I am developing a visual marketing site for selling the books with web.com.   Eventually this would replace the doaskdotell.com content completely (NLT end of 2022).

These names are reserved thru the end of 2023.  To continue their use, they must demonstrate “commercial viability”.  This normally means the ability to conduct transactions with consumers (either individuals or other stores) in a secure environment.  In the interim, the recent evidence of interest in motion picture possibilities from some parties is serving as justification.

It is true that the “doaskdotell” series of three books use my pen name “Bill Boushka”, with “Bill” derived from the secular middle name William given to me by my parents at my birth in 1943.  Since perhaps early 2021, it has become apparent that it is not such a good idea to use one on a book that over time does not sell well in a commercial sense.  That may also be true of a catchphrase for a book series (that implies a trademark), if there are other competing uses for the potential marks. 

The solution, in setting up a domain, is use the nickname as a subdomain.  If I want a URL to refer to me by nickname, the correct way to do this is a formulation like “billboushka.johnwboushka.com”.  Likewise, in a blog, the best way to do this is with a high level category, to cause the blog to be able to group or select all posts related to the nickname.  One can also dedicate a page in the blog to the nickname (page named as such).  These are the practices I wlll follow.

Likewise a similar mechanism is possible with the “doaskdotell” moniker.  For example “doaskdotell” (or “doaskdotell-business”) as a category on WordPress.  And doaskdotell.johnwboushka.com as a subdomain (right now it is “mybooks” so I might have to change it).

I did not set up an account on Amazon as an author.  But if would be questionable now to use “Bill”.  I would have to be able to give “billboushka.johnwboushka.com” as the related domain.

There is one other auxillary blog, the one this is on (jboushka.wordpress.com).  Right now it is the free blog with a WordPress account which you automatically have if you have WordPress directories on any hosted sites (domains) that you did pay for.  I use it for “special posts” about my business and personal situation, outside of the main stream of my content. 

What about the “j” vs. “johnw”.   All of my major social media sites use jboushka, because it started that way in 2008 with Facebook (which required a user name based on real legal name at the time).  So I so consider the use of “j” alone as OK.

Another factor with WordPress blogs, in particular, is that if you have more than one host (as I did from Nov. 2021 until June 2022) WordPress accumulates all of the names onto one list.  In theory, it could object to a combined pattern of names as somehow excessive or abusive, or as depriving other speakers the possibility of using the names (especially nicknames) unfairly or inequitably.  The commonness of a last name spelling can become an unpredictable factor.

I have one major essay on Medium (about power grid security) from August 2018.

I might set up a substack later if I think it can attract paying subscribers.

I have had a YouTube channel since 2011, with a large number of mostly brief (unedited) videos.  I have started removing older irrelevant and untitled videos,  I do intend to upgrade equipment (camera) and editing capability this fall. 

Social Media:

I have active accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Minds, and YouTube.  They all use the mnemonic jboushka.

General:

When you leave an employer, you lose ownership of your work.  When you work on your own, you get to keep it (if you are completely on your own). But social and political conditions have become much more polarized since the middle of the previous decade, and some groups consider individuals working outside or established organizational channels to be an indirect threat to “the oppressed”.  

(Posted:  Sunday, September 4, 2022 at 2 PM EDT)

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