WordPress.com vs WordPress.org vs Network23.org

The site is based on the free WordPress software. WordPress is a company that provides software called a Content Management System (or CMS for short) through their web site WordPress.org.  This is freely downloadable under a the GNU Public Licence version 2 from the Free Software Foundation.

This licence allows anyone to use, and modify, and contribute to WordPress or any of it’s extensions, called plugins.  The only condition is that any derived work or changes you make you must make public under the same licence.

The problem with the WordPress software for more mere mortals is that to run it you need your own Internet server (a big computer in a data centre) to run it on.  This being impractical for non-technical users without the knowhow or the financial means to run such as server, WordPress also provide the ability to use their servers through WordPress.com, but this is a commercial service, WordPress is  obligated to hand over your data to authorities, and although free to start with, charges set in should you want to extend your basic free site.

Enter Network23….

We use the excellent CMS software from WordPress.org and run it on our own servers providing our users with anonymous blogs that have all the features of WordPress.com but none of the disadvantages associated with the latter being a commercial service.  The main considerations and advantages of Network23 over WordPress.com are:

  • We do not keep a log of the data of which computer you used to access your blog (known as IP address logging in technical parlance).  This means that we have no such data to hand to the authorities should we be asked for it.  We have to keep an email address on record in order to contact you about your blog.
  • Your blog is free and comes with all plugins and features enabled; there’s no extra hidden charges when you want to add something to your blog.
  • It’s run by people who share or sympathise with your viewpoint, we’re up for supporting you where we can, so long as you agree to our terms and conditions.