[Lnc-business] LPedia

Thu Jan 5 01:45:58 EST 2017

Starchild asked me to try to answer each of these questions. Here's the
best I can do. 

* Would the tech support mentioned be unlimited, or is there a cap on
the number of hours or other limitations? 

This is a full corporate wiki hosting plan. This plan provides support,
but I assume if we called every day they would eventually stop taking
our calls. Heh. I had good luck reaching them by email for my basic
requests, and used that to test response time for non-emergency contact.

* Who would be able to call the tech support number mentioned in order
to get help using the site? 

I would assume that the LNC Staff the primary admin (and billing
contact) but that the people on the to-be-proposed committee would also
be administrators. 

* How much are we paying for LPedia right now, and what all is that
money getting us? 

It's "free" but hosted on the same site as the 2008-2016 LP.org webhost,
which is depricated and needs to get shut down as soon as we recover the
data from the old LP.org (which is dependent on first moving the current
LP.org to new hosting). This will eliminate Rackspace as a vendor. 

* Exactly how much would we be paying for LPedia under this proposal,
and what would that money get us? 

I'm still going to respond with "under $500 per year". 

* Would we be looking at any further additional costs down the road
associated with the proposal? 

While it's always possible that they might jack up the price, I
certainly am not under the impression that our current proposed pricing
is a "first time signup" special price. 

* Will this in any way lock us into a long-term commitment with the
company that has made this offer? 

The term is a 1 year contract, renewed annually. Those responsible for
LPedia could certainly seek out alternatives and if they are interested
they should probably start in the July timeframe to provide for a
migration plan prior to the expiration of the 1 year. 

* Has the IT Committee (or any other committee) had any discussions
about this as a committee, or have some committee members been out of
the loop? 

The IT Committee, as it exists, has spoken with staff and all agree this
is a good solution. 

* If there have been committee discussions, are there any minutes of
those discussions? 

We have communicated in email but the committee isn't fully formed yet.
That should happen soon, but in the mean time we're trying to fix as
many technical issues as possible. I personally hope the committee can
be forward-focused rather than looking backward. 

* Who will have top-level administrative access, and what will that
person or those persons be empowered to do with regard to the site that
others will not? 

I would assume staff (Likely, Robert Kraus) would be the top admin. He
would then grant admin access to the would-be committee in charge of
LPedia and let them run it. 

* Have there been any announcements that we were seeking hosting or
other services for LPedia.org [1]? 

No. An extensive search showed that this was really the only provider
that would fit our needs. Some provided good architecture but no
support. Some had support but questionable architecture. Many were
"free" but have ads all over the site. This provider gives us support,
architecture, advice (experience), and no ads! 

* Has there been any competitive bidding process to find contractors to
provide needed services for LPedia.org [1]? 

There has not, and while I would normally want to go through this
process, the price is (relatively) low and the goal is to get off of
Rackspace to save us a lot of money. I used lists of Wiki hosting
providers to narrow the choices. Here are the two lists that provided
reasonable results: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services [2] 
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hosting_services [3] 

* Will transitioning to a new hosting service for LPedia.org [1] result
in any loss of data or other changes to the actual content or appearance
of the website? 

No! They will move the wiki for us, so it's important that LPedia is
"fixed" at the outward appearance. So, the missing 1984 platform, for
instance, should be restored prior to the move. 

* If the answer to the above question is represented as being "no", but
in the end turns out to be "yes", what plans are in place to ensure
accountability? 

I have a dump of the database already. It's a monstrous 36GB, and we'll
keep that DB until such time that those in charge of LPedia management
assure us that all content has made it. It's one of the check-offs
before we shut down Rackspace (the other being all data restored to the
new LP.org). Ideally we'll have everyone's blessing on the new
LPedia.org before shutting off the old LPedia.org. 

* In plain English, for the lay folks reading this (or those unfamiliar
with the details of the proposal), what does a "corporate plan with a
Virtual Private Server with DDOS protection" include, and how does it
differ from what's in place now? 

Today we're hosting this on our own implementation of the wiki software
that is approaching a decade old. When we hose our own solution, we are
responsible for maintenance; that maintenance hasn't been done. There
are security fixes, stability fixes, and new features in the newer
version. It's the same software, but the modern version. We're getting
the biggest plan they offer because it offers the best stability and
best support. The provider will keep the software current for us. DDOS
is the annoying practice of flooding a website until it goes down; the
provider will act to prevent them. 

* Is there a proposed contract, and if so, can it be posted here? 

We have a proposed price. I will be happy to publicly share the
correspondence with the company after it is signed, and I will privately
share the information before that. 

* Will there be an opportunity for other potential hosting providers to
beat this offer that we have received? 

I looked and looked for a provider that met all the requirements -
stable, maintained, supported, no ads, etc. This was literally the only
one I found that was a complete solution. The primary impetus is to get
off of Rackspace. After that, alternatives can be sought for a Jan 2018
vendor switch, if the LPedia maintainers so choose. 

* Does this idea include, or is it related to, any plan to add the
information lost from LP.org [4] during the overhaul of that website, to
LPedia.org [1], and if so, what are the details of that plan? 

Ideally, the blogs and issue pages will make it from the old (2008-2016)
site to the new site. If someone wants to archive old candidate pages on
LPedia I guess we could do that. Also, I haven't even fired up the
"really old" (2002-2008) site to see what might be there and
salvageable. If information from the "really old" can't be imported into
the new LP.org, LPedia could be a place to host that information. We
also have the option of using the proposed archive.LP.org as discussed
at the previous LNC meeting. This corporate hosting account also
includes the ability to host some limited websites, so it may be
possible to just move the "really old" LP.org to the hosting account. 

* Are there any deadlines associated with any of this, and if so what
are they? 

There are 2 sites on Rackspace - the old (2008-2016) LP.org and LPedia.
The sooner we get these services offloaded, the sooner we will be done
with Rackspace and the sooner we can save that monthly expense. 

 * Will this solution allow any LP member to easily establish an account
to edit LPedia (or do so without establishing an account) at least as
readily as anyone can edit Wikipedia? 

That's the goal! We'll likely need to disable anonymous editing, as
political wikis are ripe for people being idiots. Creating an account
means someone with an admin account will approve an account before they
can post. This will help prevent the horrible spam issues on the new
LPedia site. 

---
Ken C. Moellman, Jr.
LNC Region 3 Alternate Representative
LPKY Judicial Committee 

On 2017-01-04 03:02, Starchild wrote: 

> I hope so too, Caryn Ann. New hosting that saves money could be an improvement even if there's no resolution of the basic issue I mention below, but I haven't heard what we're paying now, only that this new hosting would be less than $500 a year. Depending what our current costs are, and what else this would change, that could be great, or it could be terrible, I just don't know. Certainly reducing spam is good if it's not done at the expense of access, and of course you as well as Ken vouching for the change is encouraging (I do appreciate you pushing to make something happen with LPedia), but I'd still like to hear more details. 
> 
> Here are some specific questions regarding LPedia.org [1] in general:

Links:
------
[1] http://LPedia.org
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hosting_services
[4] http://LP.org
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