Next Steps for Managing the Forum
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Currently, the management for the back end hosting of the Forum is run on Jack Waugh's personal Lidode account and is managed by Jack. This was always intended to be a stop gap so we could start building the forum itself without waiting to do the long and hard work of creating the bylaws and agreements and getting the archives from CES.
The Forum Council voted at the last meeting to coalition with Equal Vote and to have them help with management, paying fees, collecting earmarked Forum donations, bookkeeping, and the like. This is all very specifically a coalition service that we are offering to the Forum, with all parties in agreement that the forum is autonomous and will stay that way. Since it can be a bit of a liability (as CES learned) this is the best for everyone. We are all also in agreement that having the Forum be a neutral space for reformers from across the movement is important and valuable. Recently Equal Vote (which is a c3) applied for and got a nonprofit grant from Azure for web hosting, so we're planning on moving star.vote there. If desired we can also host the Forum there.
Jack Waugh: "The equal.vote people say they are have hosting for some websites on a firm called Azure. So, maybe there will be a project to move the server from Linode to Azure. And maybe they will let me help with that; I don't know. But they have not committed to such a plan. Maybe instead, they will take out an account on Linode and I will transfer the VM from the account where it currently lives, which has my credit card.
I can confirm that we're willing to commit to that plan if it's okay with you, and we will need your help to do that transfer. We're also open to setting up a new account on Linode or just adopting your account if that's easier or better for some reason.
We have gmail g-suite pro account which allowed us to create a forum.admin@equal.vote group email for the account login. The council can then decide who it would like to have access to that login and the email admins can be updated over time if people come and go from the project. Forum admins would be documented in writing to address any concerns. We would then put the account on the equal vote debit card with autopay (with a backup card just in case) so that costs are covered.
For that transfer, Evans Tucker, one of our Software Dev people who helped with the votingtheory.org domain transfer, is available to assist. He's traveling internationally this week but will be back next week. Arend Peter is also willing to help with that. Mike Franze is our Equal Vote Software Dev Chair (and the California Chapter Chair) so he can assist as well if needed, as can other volunteers. Admin keys will not be shared with tech volunteers unless authorized
I see this as the simplest path forward to finish the process that the council already authorized and asked us to complete. I apologize that it's taken this long to do so and that it's caused so much stress, but I'm available to do it now with your help.
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@sarawolk Very well. What is the next step of concrete action, and who must take it? If others have to assist, I think they should come to this thread and give their thought.
The account at Linode under which the VM is provided has one user, and that user's login name is "votingtheory". Currently, the e-mail address for recovery of the password is one of the e-mail addresses that are under my control.
By the way, Linode has been taken over by Akamai. They are in a process, I believe, of technical integration between the assets historically controlled by the two companies. The last time I checked, that had not yet affected how things look to Linode customers. However, the look of the controls etc. could change as the personnel of the merged company continue with their integration.
A VM ("Nanode") costs $5/mo. But adding a periodic backup of all the files as part of the service would bring it to $7/mo.
One of the options on the control panel is "Add Payment Method". It looks as though one cannot delete the last remaining payment method. Another option is to edit the "Billing contact", which currently gives my name and snail address. The e-mail address for the billing contact is already forum@equal.vote.
I see that it is also possible to add a user to the account. This requires a username (= login-name) and an e-mail address.
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@jack-waugh Can you add forum.admin@equal.vote as a user for starters? For now that's just in my name. ForumAdmin is a good username. I'll make sure Evans and anyone else we recruit to help comes and posts here to keep us all posted.
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Clarification: On Linode, an account does not have a name. Nor do they give a number to identify the account. Accounts have users, and users have names. "votingtheory" is the name I have been using for the user on which I have been logging in. But this can be changed. E. g., to "jack_votingtheory", maybe.
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@sarawolk said in Next Steps for Managing the Forum:
forum.admin@equal.vote ... ForumAdmin
It accepted those coordinates and said it will send you e-mail so you can set your password.
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Maybe you can add an equal.vote debit card and then delete my credit card.
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If you can't log in as "ForumAdmin", try it in all lowercase. It looks as though they project usernames to single-case.
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@jack-waugh Okay. I'm in. Thank you. I'm going to bed for tonight but we can do more later.
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@sarawolk I changed the permissions and then added the Equal Vote Card and a backup card for payments going forward. I'll look through it with Evans when he's back and then we can schedule a time to meet with you @Jack-Waugh to go over the Linode platform and see about which next steps make the most sense. Thank you for doing this.
For people who want to get to know the Equal Vote Software Dev Committee (who I'll be asking for help if volunteers from the forum itself are short) I'd like to invite you all to attend a Software Dev monthly meeting if you'd like. They are 3rd Mondays at 6pm Pacific. I'll also be encouraging them to post here if they are willing to help, as well as to share more about their main project Star.Vote 2.0.
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@jack-waugh Yes. I changed your billing access to Read Only, deleted your card, and added mine and Equal Vote's. The Equal Vote card is the default card now. We can go over the permission settings together when we meet if any changes are needed. I won't make any other changes in the Lindoe.
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