Getting a DefendsLiberty Site

DefendsLiberty is a free service for creating powerful campaign web sites for Libertarian candidates — in about thirty minutes.

All You Need To Provide

  • the office you're running for (e.g. Congress - California district 14)
  • your name
  • your campaign photo
  • your campaign bio
  • you campaign email address
  • your campaign mailing address
  • optionally:
    • a domain name to use for your site
    • URL of your blog

What's Included

  • A free domain name: YourName.DefendsLiberty.com (or use/buy your own domain name)
  • A no-ads web site hosted for free on wikidot.com
    • Site content can be edited/customized in any browser using simple wiki syntax
    • Full versioning and easy downloads of backups means your data is safe
    • No bandwidth limits; free storage for up to 300MB of site data
    • Hyper-extensible via modules, multimedia plug-ins, and thousands of Google gadgets
    • Full candidate ownership of site, no strings attached
  • Themed banner logo with customizable text and full-window resizing
  • A full-featured customizable front page
    • Introduction to Libertarianism with colorful Nolan Chart graphic
    • A YouTube collection of libertarian videos
    • A Flickr slideshow of libertarian bumper stickers
    • A table of links to the 27 planks of the LP Platform
  • A customizable side bar
    • Your campaign photo
    • A "What's New/Next" section
    • RSS feeds of popular Libertarian-related content
      • LP.org, Bob Barr, Cato, Reason, Third Party Watch
  • A menu bar offering links to
    • Candidate bio and blog
    • District information
    • Let visitors write their representatives or the media
    • Libertarian public policy resources
    • Political watchdog resources
    • Buy Libertarian merchandise
    • Join the LP or sign up for LP email updates
    • The World's Smallest Political Quiz
    • Bob Barr for President site
  • A full-site text search facility
  • An extensible set of customizable LP issue pages
  • A guestbook page for collecting/displaying endorsements
  • FEC-compliant footer disclaimer with configurable copyright and privacy policy
  • Email signup link e.g. to your campaign's Yahoo! Group
  • Paypal button to accept credit card donations (3% transaction fee, no setup or periodic fee, you don't even have to register with Paypal until you get your first donation)
    • Congressional races: there are no reporting requirements for campaigns that raise/spend less than $5000 and do so only via donations of <= $50 that never total more than $200 from a given contributor.
    • California: reporting requirements kick in for non-federal campaigns that raise or spend $1000 in a calendar year.
    • CompleteCampaigns.com offers a contribution collection/reporting solution with no setup fee and no periodic fee but a 7.5% transaction fee.
  • ClustrMap and StatCounter of visitors to the DefendsLiberty network

Features Being Added

  • Email a friend via MailForm module
  • Promote: link to me, social network me
  • Downloads: card, pamphlets, door hangers

Integrations Being Considered

  • Questions for the candidate
  • User forums
  • Bulk emailing
  • Embedded WSPQ
  • Custom campaign merchandise
  • Calendaring
  • Visitor polls

Instructions

  • Register at wikidot.com
  • Go to Wikidot and claim billredpath.wikidot.com
    • Site name: Redpath For Senate
  • Create side panel
    • Go to http://brianholtz.defendsliberty.com/nav:side
    • At the bottom of the side panel, click "view source"
    • Copy all the source to the clipboard
    • Go to the front page of your wiki
    • On the bottom of the side panel, click "edit this panel"
    • On the very bottom of the page, click "edit"
    • Replace all the source with the source in your clipboard
    • Near the top, edit the caption ("Brian, Melisse, …") to describe your campaign photo
    • Near the bottom, change "Holtz for Congress" to "Redpath for Senate" and "BrianHoltz.DefendsLiberty" to "BillRedpath.DefendsLiberty"
    • Save
    • At the bottom of newly-updated side panel, click "files"
    • At the bottom left of the page, click "upload new file"
    • Click "Browse" and select a jpeg campaign photo
    • Destination file name: CandidatePhoto.jpg
    • Upload file
  • Create the Site Administration page
    • Go to http://brianholtz.defendsliberty.com/site-administration
    • At the bottom of the side panel, click "view source"
    • Copy all the source to the clipboard
    • Go to the front page of your wiki
    • At the bottom of your side bar, Site Tools -> Site administration
    • Create page
    • Paste the clipboard source
    • Save
  • Install the DefendsLiberty custom theme
    • Site Manager -> Appearance -> Custom Themes -> Create a new theme
    • Theme name: DefendsLiberty
    • Theme to extend: Base
    • CSS code: paste all the code from http://brianholtz.defendsliberty.com/custom-theme
    • Save theme
    • Site Manager -> Appearance -> Themes
    • Choose a theme: DefendsLiberty
    • Save changes
  • Install the front page
    • Go to http://brianholtz.defendsliberty.com
    • At the bottom of the side panel, click "view source"
    • Copy all the source to the clipboard
    • Go to the front page of your wiki
    • At the bottom of your side bar, Page Tools -> edit
    • Replace all the source with the clipboard contents
    • Title of the page: What's A Libertarian?
    • Save
  • Install the menu bar
  • Create the bio page
    • Click the candidate photo on your wiki
    • Click "create page"
    • Set the title to "Candidate Biography"
    • Add the photo by pasting: [[f<image /nav:side/CandidatePhoto.jpg width="300px" style="padding:5px"]]
    • Write a candidate bio
    • Save
  • Create each issue page as follows:
    • Go to the corresponding issue page on http://brianholtz.defendsliberty.com
    • At the bottom of the side panel, click "view source"
    • Copy all the source to the clipboard
    • Go to your own issue page
    • Click "create page"
    • Paste the source
    • Save
  • Configure License
  • privacy
  • contact
  • donate
  • endorse
  • administer-endorsements
  • support
  • Configure Custom Domain
    • Make sure the DNS name servers for your domain already point to ns1.hostmonster.com and ns2.hostmonster.com
    • Or, just ask Brian Holtz to do that for e.g. billredpath.defendsliberty.com
    • Site Manager -> Custom Domain
    • Custom domain: billredpath.defendsliberty.com
    • Save changes
page revision: 42, last edited: 07 Jun 2008 18:49
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This free Wikidot.com site is "paid" for by the candidate. Except where indicated, site content is by the candidate or by the Libertarian National Committee Inc. and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.