Why do I do it?
Categories: Install4Free
Written By: James
I have been using WordPress since the days when it was still cracking open the egg. I have never been one of the elite WordPress ‘club’ and to be honest, never wanted to be. But I do like the product itself! I have used it in my employment, in my personal life, in an online business and even though I have never been involved in its development, I feel like I know my way around the wordpress code enough to get the most out of it.
One area I have always been heavily involved in is helping others set it up and use it. Much of this has happened through personal emails and via the age old system of ‘from someone who knows someone‘ etc. However, from late 2007, I have been an official team member of a service known simply as Install4Free. The weird part of all of this is I hardly know the other members, rarely ever having any personal contact with them via emails or other communication channels, and even though I commit much [as in lots and lots] of my life to helping out in this venture, overall it is a thankless and demanding scenario.
It works like this: People want to use this new buzz blogging FREE software [better known as WordPress] and they try to do it themselves. But for many different reasons it will often not work as they expected. This applies to a widerange of people, from those who do not own a domain and no web host, to people who have all the requirements and yet some minor element just seems to stop them from installing it themselves.
And the people we deal with via this free, non-paying, voluntary service? Well, like anything in life - a real mix. Rude, obnoxious, arrogant - they get the service done in just the same manner as the very grateful, thankful and polite. The big difference for me is that often these people keep coming back for help in other WordPress issues and it should not be too hard for you to work out who I choose to help and who I ignore. Karma isn’t it - what goes around comes around - that kind of thought.
We have this policy in place too where we accept no offers of payment, no linkage to our sites, no glorification for the work we do of any nature. [To be honest, I am not sure who made the policy, but it is just one of those things in life we seem to do and abide by without question]. So, we hide behind our masks and simply do installation after installation after installation with our thoughts to ourselves - and we keep on churning out the installations day after day. When I say there is a team too, that is a bit of a misnomor really, but I won’t go there for now as it may ruffle feathers .
So this little category in Erratic Souls, is for when I just want to let a bit out to do with Install4Free. Like the guy this week who argued with me in a massive email tennis rally that his password WAS correct and that it was me who must be doing something wrong if it did not work. And the password in question - yes, I can share it with you - *****. He just could not understand that it would work for him and not for me. A potential 5-minute installation that turned into a 3 hour nightmare. And in the end I completed the installation and not a simple thanks came my way.
And yet, I enjoy what I do and really appreciate those who do take the time to acknowledge our efforts.
More to come…
