Whom Do You Believe? Some Suggestions

I am always mystified by website designers throwing out a fear card. I am doubly mystified by those same website designers who give absolutely zero pricing information on their websites. Case in point is ChurchWebPlus. Here is the first claim they (Rick) make on their website. The idea for ChurchWebPlus was hatched in 2007 by Rick Stoffiere after becoming frustrated with the business models available from church and faith-based website design vendors. Is this true? Hardly. In 2007, the market was in the midst of change (gaining momentum since 2003) the result of a plethora of open-source Content Management System products which allow for 24/7 online editing of websites by a faith organization/church teams and NOT requiring the designer or vendor hosting the site to do anything in that vein except to act as a knowledge base when questions on editing were requested by the editing team. The whole landscape changed. So, where is the frustration? I really don't know. There were more choices then AND there are more choices now. Now, I did a bit of sleuthing. Rick sold Newbury United Community Church a plan and there are glowing reports about him from Newbury on his website. But, if you look for ANYTHING on the Newbury site that TELLS YOU what CMS is being use what conclusions will you come to? In the source code, ChurchWebPlus is spelled out as the content generator. Read, software program. So, Rick throws a dart at THOSE proprietary systems and creates his own? Well, not really. He uses the CMS program Joomla. See also Joomla FB. Any cursory look would not divine as much. But, yes, it is true. Rick even conceals THIS WONDERFUL FREELY OFFERED collaborative open-source system as HIS own. Good grief. For me, this is an ethics issue even if back links ARE NOT required. You just give just due where it is due. Talk about throwing darts at yourself. Not to mention key-word stuffing (highlight that black area at the bottom of the Newbury website) which is amateur stuff that CAN reduce your search engine relevance.

Now, for the FEAR card. Even a misspelled word here. Ugh, I'm the blind one. Rick says: You see, most vendors charge a one-time development fee for a church website. Then, they proceed to charge monthly fees to host and 'maintain' the site. While the upfront development costs seem reasonable, the monthly fees add up quickly. In most cases, these vendors use a proprietary form of a Content Management System (CMS). These systems allow the churches themselves, with very little technical ability, to update their sites. Sounds great - right? Wrong! Beacuse (sic) these systems are proprietary, it is nearly impossible for the organization to move a site once it's with a particular vendor. Decide you've had enough of the high costs? Guess what? You lose everything you had in moving sites.

HERE is the problem. Some vendors do BUT most don't use proprietary systems. As for those that do, I agree. A church would be ill-advised to use them. THEY are WAY TOO expensive for any church let alone those of small or medium size. However, MOST vendors use some type of GPL or general-public-license type of CMS program. The only difference being in the amount of doo-dads, bells and whistles. I prefer simple. And, that is why I use CMSimple which is a flat-file database program. It does the job it is intended to do and does it well. Alot of the other stuff that CMS programs can do is just bloated icing. At least that is my take. It all boils down to YOUR mission. Where YOU are going. And, who YOU target. And, YOUR message that YOU want to get across. That neither required alot of bucks or doo-dads.

Lastly, MOVING content. The website is yours. You should be able to retain and move content at will. And, you can. Easily. Even if those files aren't available from the vendor. Just save the page as a full web document. Rick should know this. But, he isn't telling you. There. I just did.