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<div>Starchild asked me to try to answer each of these questions. Here's the best I can do.</div>
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<div>• Would the tech support mentioned be unlimited, or is there a cap on the number of hours or other limitations?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Who would be able to call the tech support number mentioned in order to get help using the site?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• How much are we paying for LPedia right now, and what all is that money getting us?</div>
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<div>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. </div>
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<div>• Exactly how much would we be paying for LPedia under this proposal, and what would that money get us?</div>
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<div>I'm still going to respond with "under $500 per year".</div>
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<div>• Would we be looking at any further additional costs down the road associated with the proposal?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Will this in any way lock us into a long-term commitment with the company that has made this offer?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• 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?</div>
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<div>The IT Committee, as it exists, has spoken with staff and all agree this is a good solution.</div>
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<div>• If there have been committee discussions, are there any minutes of those discussions?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• 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?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Have there been any announcements that we were seeking hosting or other services for <a href="http://LPedia.org">LPedia.org</a>?</div>
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<div>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!</div>
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<div>• Has there been any competitive bidding process to find contractors to provide needed services for <a href="http://LPedia.org">LPedia.org</a>?</div>
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<div>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:</div>
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<div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services</a></div>
<div><a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hosting_services">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hosting_services</a></div>
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<div>• Will transitioning to a new hosting service for <a href="http://LPedia.org">LPedia.org</a> result in any loss of data or other changes to the actual content or appearance of the website?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• 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?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• 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?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Is there a proposed contract, and if so, can it be posted here?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Will there be an opportunity for other potential hosting providers to beat this offer that we have received?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Does this idea include, or is it related to, any plan to add the information lost from <a href="http://LP.org">LP.org</a> during the overhaul of that website, to <a href="http://LPedia.org">LPedia.org</a>, and if so, what are the details of that plan?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>• Are there any deadlines associated with any of this, and if so what are they?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>• 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?</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>---<br />
<p>Ken C. Moellman, Jr.<br />LNC Region 3 Alternate Representative<br />LPKY Judicial Committee</p>
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<p>On 2017-01-04 03:02, Starchild wrote:</p>
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<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>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. </div>
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<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Here are some specific questions regarding <a href="http://LPedia.org">LPedia.org</a> in general:</div>
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