As you know GICC was down for several days this week. Normally these type of outages can be corrected in a short time through the Greenspun webmaster, but this is no longer the case. As of now Greenspun does not have a webmaster to correct the problems. The following was received from Philip Greenspun.

Subj: Re: Regarding greenspun.com -- thought you'd like to know... Date: 10/24/2001 11:14:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: philg@mit.edu (Philip Greenspun) To:

Jin is going to go out there tomorrow morning and reboot it. But the service is dying. There is nobody to maintain it anymore.

So it looks like if there is a crash, there won't be anyone to fix it. I guess we just have to hope that everything goes smoothly or look for another home.

Any suggestions?

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 26, 2001

Answers

Why not try EZ-Board? It is still up and functioning despite Dennis Olson's dire warnings.

-- Jim Davis (JD1642@aol.con), October 26, 2001.

Martin -- EZ board charges $5 a month ($30 for 6) for a board that has no advertising.

I, for one, would gladly chip in to cover a low cost board.

For those that charge -- and have no advertising -- $5-$10 a month is about it. If a free one won't work, $60 to $120 a year seems "doable" to me. Let me know and I'll send a check.

I would suggest getting one that allows you to require registration to POST (reading is different) to guard against spamming, DOS attacks, and those anonymous "folks" that come just to disrupt.

Anyone else willing and able to keep this going?

If EZ board is not the one to go to, I did a very quick web search and found several free or low cost boards -- here is just a few.

Try these links --

http://www.message-boards.net/

http://www.thefreesite.com/Webmaster_Freebies/Free_message_boards/

http://www.eboards4all.com/

http://www.instantmessageboards.com/forums/index.php

http://www.boardbot.com/

http://www.thefreesite.com/Webmaster_Freebies/Free_message_boards/

-- Jackson Brown (Jackson_Brown@deja.com), October 26, 2001.

Jackson -- Thanks for your research. It looks like there are some valid choices out there. Greenspun has been a great host, but its demise appears to be a matter of "when", not "if".

How can we coordinate to set up a new site when needed?

-- John Littmann (johntl@mtn.org), October 26, 2001.

How can we coordinate to set up a new site when needed?

First, IMO, it would be best to send e-mail addresses to someone to collect them and make a private list, known only to one person...like Martin (if he is willing). That way, if this board disappears all can be notified and called to a new one if this board dies before the new one is set up.

Second, it may makes sense to me -- given what Phil Greenspun said -- to move very soon. Why wait for this one to die and then try and switch over.

I would like to see what Martin has in mind.

In any case, I would urge him to change, soon!

Also, there is no law that says he has to bear the time burden (or the costs!). To the people that value this hugely valuable resource, NOW is the time to speak up and let Martin know what you are willing to do to help.

Martin, could you let us know what you want to do or consider.

JB

-- Jackson Brown (Jackson_Brown@deja.com), October 26, 2001.

I would also pitch in to keep your site going; I've added this to my favorites and am in the habit of checking it often lately. (Found it quite by accident) I would miss the decent articles/opinions and all that. It is perfect for people that want real information and not just a bunch of garbage.

-- Stacy Burris (stacy_burris@yahoo.com), October 27, 2001.

Just let us know soon.

-- Rick V (rickv@mc.net), October 27, 2001.

Why not set up a website for it?

A website similar to http://www.chicagoinaction.org could be set up for $27 (domain registration and 1st month's hosting) & $10/month (hosting) .

News would be posted to the message board (with any number of forum- categories).

infocc.org and grassrootsnews.org are both available, for example.

This message board having its own website (with all the people here to maintain it) would attract many more people. It would also be much easier to find.

I would volunteer to build the site (for free, of course).

-- ThohT (mensa259@yahoo.com), October 27, 2001.

Also, there is a way to "archive" current postings and have them available on the new site.

(There is software that can go through this site and save all pages that the 'main page' links to. One would then upload it to the new site and provide links to those "saved" pages.)

This would take about 6 hours for all of the posts here.

-- ThohT (mensa259@yahoo.com), October 27, 2001.

Is it not possible to set up a group on Yahoo? Isn't it free over there.

I participate on Cory's dc-y2k-WRP forum and it seems to work well.

Not sure of the pro's and con's though, as I have never looked into setting up a Yahoo group.

John

-- John (jhhunt@magma.ca), October 27, 2001.