Proposal posted to Guild ForumBy the 18 July I had heard nothing from Guild about my proposal apart from an acknowledgement from the then Chairman of the IT Subcommittee on 17 May 2013. So I decided to sound out a wider section of the membership. I copied the proposal to the Guild Forum, adding at the end: I have proposed to the Committee (on 2 May) that the Guild create a web-site (or an area of its web site) which can act as a web-host for members' web sites. If the Guild Committe agrees to such a project, I am willing to take the lead in discussing the project with members, researching its feasibility, setting it up and managing it through the early stages, in consultation the IT Subcommittee, other Guild Officers. The discussion here has already thrown up a number of issues that would need to be addressed, none of them show-stoppers I think. I do not know whether the Committee has discussed my proposal yet and I await their response. Responses on the Guild ForumMy posting to the Forum drew an immediate and positive reaction from some Forum members: Hi Mike, Its a really good idea - I don't need the archiving at the moment but will do at some point in the future and the thought of leaving my research as a "live" legacy for other researchers (with the confidence that it won't be deleted) is a good one. Good luck with the project
Very Best Regards * * * I would love to see a 'future proofed' facility such as Mike Spathaky describes. It is just the sort of membership benefit I would welcome, albeit for an extra cost. Regards Mike James * * *
Hi Mike, Hopefully the Committee will make this a priority for discussion amongst themselves and then amongst the membership before more ONS's are lost forever.
Doug Burgum * * * I would echo the comments re Mike Spathky's idea. I think it would also encourage me to have a website knowing there was a chance of some longevity to the information. Kathryn Ellis * * * I would echo Mike's comment, what I would save on hosting fees could go to the Guild Paul [Featherstone] 2627 * * * All, Very happy to be corrected, but surely most websites are now dependant on a variety of 3rd party products for their functionality? Whilst HTML will probably always be readable, I'm not so sure about database driven sites (including my own TNG site)... Perhaps we, as the Guild, should be thinking about recommending web standards for archival purposes?, just as we (should?) do for documents... Kind Regards Ken [Toll] Guild acknowledgement of proposalMeanwhile, unknown to me, the IT Subcommittee had discussed my proposal and its then chairman, Ken Mycock, had submitted a report to the main Guild Committee on 5 July 2014. Following my posting on the Forum. Ken Mycock informed me of this and on 19 July 2014, I posted this on the Forum: Hello all, It is pleasing to have several favourable responses to my posting yesterday in this thread. In that posting I wrote, "I do not know whether the Committee has discussed my proposal yet and I await their response." Ken Mycock has now written to say that he had presented a paper on my proposal to the Committee meeting on 5th July. I was able to find his paper on the Guild web site at http://www.one-name.org/members/minutes/2014July/11%20Guild%20hosting%20of%20members%20websites.pdf The Chairman also wrote to apologise for the fact that I had not received any official response. She said that the Committee delegated an action to the recently formed Web Team "to discuss this further and bring to a future meeting". So the proposal is now an action item for the Web team and, while I recognise they have other, more urgent issues at the moment, I look forward to taking part in the discussion.
Mike Spathaky IT Subcommittee Report to Guild Committee meeting on 5 July 2014Ken Mycock’s report to the Guild Committee included the following comments (in blue type) resulting from the IT Subcommittee's discussion of the proposal. I have inserted a response in black text after each paragraph: Email discussion with ITSub broadly agreed that this proposal had merit, particularly as part of the proposed enhanced support for our older members. However, it would involve a considerable commitment of financial resources and volunteer effort by the Guild, both to implement and to maintain, particularly for an indefinite period.
Implementing the proposal would make the Guild an ISP reseller, which involves service guarantees to members using the facility and not inconsiderable time and effort to keep what is likely to be a wide variety of applications (eg TNG/ Second Site, various blogging apps …) up to date. Our existing ISP (Krystal) does not offer reseller accounts.
When a site was passed to the Guild from a deceased member, the Guild would become responsible for domain name renewal fees, keeping the site compliant with changing applications and obligations under ICANN requirements (January 2014) to confirm contact details in writing.
The proposal suggests that with a take-up of 100 members subscribing £100 each, the scheme would be selffunding, but this still doesn't address the availability of volunteers for maintenance. The workload would be such that the existing web team could not absorb it and additional volunteers would have to be found. With the proposed “indefinite” Guild commitment to maintain sites, there would be no option to let the service lapse in the absence of volunteers. In an email response to ITSub, CAG said “Unless a bequest from a member was very generous how can we be sure that the preservation of a member's study (or maybe 1000 member's deposited studies!) will be within the Guild's capabilities for 10, 20, 50 or 100 years?”
Overall, the ITSub discussion was inconclusive, but strongly indicates that a cautious approach should be taken. Hence, I make no recommendation either way, but pass this to the Committee for a decision. Guild Committee minute from meeting of 5 July 2014
11) GUILD HOSTING OF MEMBERS’ WEBSITES |