Hosting Websites

[Kato]

What do you all think about the hosting of Writer project websites? Although I'm sure it will be the downfall of us eventually, at the moment we have the space and bandwidth to do something like that. We could provide explorers with a GoW project a Wordpress blog and a subdomain.

Anyway, I have a few explorers who are wanting a subdomain for their project, but I do not think this decision should be made without a Council discussion--it's quite a slippery slope

-Kato

[BAD]

We had discussed this a little bit before.

I think it's a great idea. If it gets out of hand we can campaign for donations to keep things running. As things get bigger and better, I am sure more people will step up to help out anyway.

[Kato]

Yeah I was thinking maybe a donation button or, maybe, for a few bucks a month we could get them a domain and an FTP account. What about that?

-Kato

[Tsar Hoikas]

[whishfulthinking]
I really wish we could get enough to purchase our own dedicated server. That might be a bit unreasonable though. The cheapest that I've encountered being a pretty nice Linux box for $80 per month. We might look into collocating a server... I'm sure we could get a good server put together... I'm rambling.
[/wishfulthinking]

I would prefer for us to have a bit more of a "dedicated" environment before we commit ourselves to providing more than this forum and the SVN... But I can't think of any real reason against this other than bandwidth usage should be monitored carefully.

[zib_redlektab]

Would this be like a much deeper version of the writer journals?

[GPNMilano]

Would this be like a much deeper version of the writer journals?

Sort of. Instead of a sub forum with individual journals, each person (or group) would have their own website, with a blog devoted to that project.

As an example:

A person, or group, gets together and decides to make a large age or series of ages for a storyline. Instead of a journal or forum devoted to the project, they'd help fund the website, and in turn get their own subdomain, like www.guildofwriters.IlluminationProject.com

On that site, they would have a blog, a info about the project, concept art whatever, you'd like.

[Whilyam]

Currently the Maintainers host Age files for free. So I think the thing the Writers could offer is to host the project itself, not the project files (which should use less bandwidth, right?). Perhaps those who get a domain, etc. should be required to pay a small fee? Would people be willing to donate a token amount per month?

[zib_redlektab]

I think most groups are (or are going to be) relatively small, 2-4 people maximum in most cases...unlikely that they'll want to pay for webspace when they could easily get a free wordpress site. I know that I would be hesitant to pay for a hosted site here when I could get a free hosted site elsewhere. If I had to spend money, I'd invest it in my own domain name...otherwise I'd go the free route.

I think the sites should be offered for free, and then add extra perks for those who pay (a premium service). Perhaps a basic site would be just a wordpress blog, and then premium would allow ftp access and a gallery? Something like that. I think people would be a lot more likely to join up if they can get a free taste beforehand.

This might be what you're suggesting, Whilyam - groups who pay for the premium service would get a domain name to go with their site (a subdomain or maybe even a full one)? For basic accounts, we could just use guildofwriters.com/projects.php?project=projectname or something equally annoying to type out that would make people more willing to pay for premium...or is that too devious?

[Whilyam]

What do you all think about the hosting of Writer project websites?

I can't reply to the forum where this appeared. I'm just sending this as a reminder: OpenURU.org already offers such things as subdomains for project websites, etc. I guess the catch might be that all content and activity must be entirely legal; no shades of grey.


Regards,

JW

[Lontahv]

That is quite a catch. Especially since at this point anything to do with actual age-building for Uru are in shades of gray.