Legalectric

My grey hair is showing… what’s a “database dump and a g’zipped tarball” …

So who’s leaning on them, Tom Micheletti or Karl Rove?

Just in:

Carol,

NCO last week made the decision to cut support of all hosted weblogs
on Northfield.org. This will allow us to better focus our technical
side toward the main website. I have signed on to handle the migration
of the blogs off Northfield.org.

Basically, you have three options for your blog:

Commercial hosting
This isn’t free — you’ll probably spend about $100/year — but it
allows you a lot of freedom. You’d have your own domain (e.g.,
http://caroloverland.org) and you’d have options to upload and share
larger files and other things that you couldn’t get anywhere else.
With this option, I would install the blogging software (it won’t be
Movable Type — the software you currently use — it’d be WordPress),
upload your files, and import your old posts.

WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a completely free option. You’d get a subdomain
(e.g., http://caroloverland.wordpress.com). I would still import all
your posts, but you will need to upload all of your files (like
pictures you used in your posts) yourself. The interface of the
software you’d be using is identical to the Commercial hosting option.

Dissolve it
If you’re no longer interested in blogging, we’ll provide you with an
archive of your posts and files, which you can restore later if you
change your mind.

One more option: if you’re comfortable with handling this all
yourself, you can choose to do so. I can provide you with a database
dump and a g’zipped tarball of your files.

Please respond as soon as possible: there are many people who need to
be migrated, and it’ll go a lot more smoothly if I can schedule them
seperated out a bit.

I am sorry that we won’t be won’t be able to host your weblog anymore.
As long as you continue blogging, though, your posts will still appear
on the “Blogosphere” page. Your old address
(http://northfield.org/blogs/caroloverland) will redirect your new
blog address for several months after you are removed.

Any blogs that have not been migrated will be removed August 14.

Thank you

I fired off a few points, of course:

Questions – please forward to the board:

1) “better focus our technical side toward the main website.” In what way are blogs such as mine detracting from that focus? Techinical demands, time for training and questions, etc? (on other than mine, I know I’ve had no training and few questions).

2) What is basis for decision?

3) What is cost per blog to nco?

I doubt you all have any idea how much this means to have this repository of documents, and how it makes it possible to get this information out to a broader audience (and in most instances there is ZERO money brought in to me on it, Mesaba is big exception, and the Waseca plant). This to me is what the web is about and a 501(c)(3) mission: provision of information and educaiton. By closing this down, you’re changing the shape, and my bottom line is that I don’t think this is taking resources, either in time or $$$$. Hence 1 and 2 above.

It is a valuable tool with serious political implications that is being silenced. Now I don’t know what northfield.org’s mission is, but this shift in an age of media constraint and strangulation, the policy silences voices when I think the organization’s purpose is to give community a voice.

Carol