Council Members,
Members of the Community,
as per council resolution #14[1], I had worked out a first plan[2] for a
new official website for the SPF project, and solicited hosting offers as
well as comments and suggestions on requirements and potential software
solutions from the community. My first report and recommendations are as
follows.
Requirements
------------
It seems that my initially proposed requirements were acceptable for the
very most part, so few changes here.
The website must fulfill most of the following requirements (in no
specific order):
1. Reliable and secure.
The site must of course withstand medium to heavy load, e.g. from DoS
attacks, and it must be secure against other sorts of attacks, too.
2. Multiple editors possible.
For maintainability reasons, multiple editors must be supported in a
convenient way.
3. Informative and concise.
The site must have a clear structure, and all SPF-related information
must be directly accessible from it.
4. Current.
The site must be kept current. Having multiple editors is a good
basis for that.
5. Inexpensive (including bandwidth).
The site must be affordable for the project, so donations of hosting,
bandwidth, and domains are required.
6. Independent.
The site must not depend heavily on the goodwill of individual
persons. That is, regular backups must be made and the site's domain
must be owned by the project or a person trusted by the project.
Hosting
-------
In the past there have been several offers for the hosting and
maintenance of, and donation of domains for, an official web site for the
SPF project. Unfortunately, despite my explicit request, only few have
reaffirmed their hosting and domain offers. Following are those whose
hosting offers, I think, can be safely assumed to stand:
* Meng Weng Wong
* John Pinkerton
* William Leibzon
At first glance, all of those offers appear to constitute solid hosting
environments, although closer examinations will have to be conducted on
how well they fulfill the above requirements. I will take care of that
within the next few days.
Webmasters
----------
I recommend the following:
The council shall be held accountable for the effective maintenance and
the content of the website, and all council members shall have edit access
to the website. However, for regular operations, two equal webmaster
positions shall be delegated by the council. These webmasters shall be
trusted by the council and take care of the day-to-day technical
administration of the website as well as of regular content editing.
The webmasters shall act in mutual agreement and cooperation with the
community, without requiring explicit specific consent of the council, but
shall always be bound by the council's explicit directives, issued by any
council member, or through council resolutions. They shall consult the
council on any significant issues that are propably controversial. Any
material conflicts that the webmasters cannot resolve among themselves
must be brought to the council's attention without undue delay.
After this or a similar proposal has been adopted by the council, I will
solicit nominations for the webmaster position(s).
Software
--------
Only the following software solutions have been proposed:
* Mambo
* Enhanced UseMod Wiki (what the council website[3] uses)
* TikiPro
Of those CMSes, I personally have only ever administrated the UseMod-based
wiki software. Also, of those CMSes I know personally, this is the one I
recommend. However, other solutions are still being solicited (hint, hint!),
and the final choice for a CMS may be subject to certain limitations,
depending on the chosen hosting environment and the specific skills of the
delegated webmasters.
Domains
-------
I recommend the following:
Official domains for the project website must be owned and paid for by a
trusted person chosen by the council through majority vote without
explicit dissent. Monetary donations are of course most welcome and
should be directed at the chosen trustee.
Only two to four official domains seem adequate, consisting of no more
than two second-level-domain variants and two top-level-domain variants
(e.g. foobar.org, foobar.com, foo-bar.org, foo-bar.com). Additional
domain variants (SLD and TLD) may be donated (i.e. paid for and perhaps
also transferred), but shall not be considered permanent assets of the
project.
In any case, if possible, spf.pobox.com shall, for the time being, remain
a permanent asset of the project and one of the official domains through
which the website can be accessed.
After this or a similar proposal has been adopted by the council, I will
solicit nominations for the official website domains.
Julian Mehnle,
SPF Council Member.
References:
1. http://spf.mehnle.net/Council_Resolution/14
2.
http://archives.listbox.com/spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com/200502/0322.html
3. http://spf.mehnle.net