This forum has been up for almost 6 months now and it is great to see that there is already a lot of activity (80-90 registered users visit the forum every day). Discourse has proven to be a great forum platform so I’m really glad that we tried it.
Unfortunately I have very little time to spare so I have decided that it is probably better if someone else takes care of the forum. I am looking to hand over the ownership of the domain and the control of the forum to someone that the community feel that they can trust. I will give it away for free but if you want to continue using discoursehosting.com for hosting the forum someone will need to pay the $40/month that they currently charge.
I will continue to hang around here of course but I won’t be the one in charge anymore. Please post in this thread if you are interested in taking over or if you have a suggestion of who should. Or send me a PM.
I think MaidSafe should be paying this until others are up and running. Perhaps if it was run between Montreal and San Francisco it would be good. We can easily manage this from MaidSafe as well if required/simpler, but it seems it would be better spread out. I think we can take the cost hit easily though David, and I think you need reimbursed for the time you have been paying this, seems only fair.
Your admin abilities and decision making are pretty exceptional and extremely balanced, I hope you can continue there.
Sounds good. One way would be to let one of the groups own the domain while the other is responsible for hosting.
No worries about the money, I’m mostly looking to get rid of some responsibilities - not having to worry about the forum being down while trying to handle work, other projects, family etc.
I echo @dirvine’s comments @David, you’ve shown me how a forum can be managed well. I wrongly assumed MaidSafe were footing the hosting bill, so thanks for that too. Very generous.
I think having a small group, two or three people, with the necessary knowledge and permissions to administer the hosting and domain could alleviate things.
I’d have the same concern if I were in your shoes - as the website grows, and particularly during key phases such as launch - it will be important to have someone who can drop things and attend to issues, and I can’t guarantee that. With a small team, that should be achievable.
It makes sense to me for MaidSafe to cover the hosting cost, and to draw admins from different PODs.
I would be happy to be a reserve admin, or part of such an admin group. I have web hosting experience, though I expect Discourse make it easy enough for most if not any of us here to do the necessary.
So if others fancy stepping forward I’ll happily stick with my mod role. The more of the community involved in running things the better: we are decentralists are we not!
Thanks for all your help @David, as others have said an exceptional job on your part. I agree that we should be paying the hosting charge and would be happy to repay you for the 6 months you have paid for out of your own pocket to this point, I think that is only right. PM me and we can take care of that.
I volunteer to take charge of the hosting of this forum and become one of the administrators (I am currently a moderator).
I already have some experience installing and configuring a Discourse forum. A few months ago, I was working on a project called “Bitcoin Montreal” and I wanted to build a sort of local Bitcoin marketplace with Discourse. So I have experience using discoursehosting.com (it’s the hosting provider currently being used by this forum) and I’ve also experimented with hosting Discourse on Digital Ocean. Therefore, if we decide we want to move away from DiscourseHosting.com, I would be capable of doing the transition to another service. I am also familiar with the Discourse codebase and the technology that it uses (Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Ember.js). I’ve been a big fan of Discourse since it was first announced two years ago and it’s one of my favorite projects. It would be a real pleasure for me to manage the hosting
I also have a lot of time to dedicate to Project SAFE. I currently volunteer almost all my time to Project SAFE. Since last Friday, I haven’t been as active as usual because I was in San Francisco to visit @dallyshalla and @culexevilman from Infinity Algorithms and to talk about the SAFE Network and safecoin with the Executive Director of the Seasteading Institute and also about my project to build an international SAFE Pod as part of the Floating City Project.
It’s been an amazing trip. I am currently at San Francisco International Airport and I am about to board my plane back to Montreal. I will catch up on the forum when I arrive tonight! I am working on some amazing projects that I share with all of you soon
Yes, I attest to @frabrunelle as a person who is genuinely sincere about his motivations. He has shown that he is dedicated to Project SAFE. Having communicated for almost a month on slack and in the forum and personally; his resolve remains unaltered. He also introduced me to many concepts in the free software world, and in the decentralization philosophy in terms of the ideas and people who are centered around such projects. I know that the forum would gain further light, and Project SAFE would reach more prolific adoption with Francis as an Admin because he is capable of such a committment.
@happybeing coincidentally there is still just one slice left
Just so that everyone knows, the forum is now in the hands of @frabrunelle. Current status:
@frabrunelle is responsible for keeping the forum up and running. He owns the accounts related to hosting.
I still own and control the domain name. So, basically I control the DNS settings that make sure that everyone who directs their browser to maidsafe.org ends up at this forum, but I can’t take down the forum.
I will stick around as a forum admin for now. There are 3 admins: me, @ioptio and @frabrunelle
