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Index of Subjects
Index of Subjects Hi Bob, This rather long communication, attemps to provide: 1) some background on the discussions (which I consider still preliminary) relating to CCN's services offered to IP's and the implications these changes might have with repect to editors and their relationship/role; and, 2) information about (and my personal reaction to) recent and surprising changes to the IP registration process. ---- First the background that leads/relates to discussion of a dedicated FTP account. The rational for considering this type of account lies in CCN offering a level of service that can be compared to the services offered by other ISP. If all other ISP provide direct FTP access to the website it can be very confusing to a potential IP if we start throwing a completely different system at them without clearly identifying specific benefits resulting from those diffreences. The CCN system has it's roots in the days when almost nobody coming to us knew what the web was or how to get there. We had a text based interface when the world was switching wholesale to Windows/Mac and we needed a system that facilitated access, with a large focus on preparing an IP for the process of getting the website constructed. In this day and age, we have a significant number of people/organizations arriving on the doorstep with a good idea of what they want and an interest in getting things done quickly. While volunteers such as the editors previously to devote a lot of effort in facilitating the establishment of websites I personally think it's time (the world is largely ready, and there is a need...) that the focus shifts to making the IP information content more available. --- Having said all that, I agree with you that there are a lot of unanswered questions which need to be thought through very carefully. --- The new IP 'membership' options include some form of ftp access to an organizational website, one text dial-up account or two PPP dialup accounts (seems to moving around... I though it was three). **It makes sense (to me) for the PPP accounts to have FTP access that does not _require_ them to learn about the text dialup... especially when an organization has a web designer who is not necessarily a member of the organization and is used to interacting with commercial ISP's. At the same time organizations/editors who are currently comfortable with the text interface should be able to establish a new website using that option... and maintain the website in a similar manner as others under their charge. ---- The design of the IP registration process most recently in use, included considerable interaction between the editors and the IP to ensure that the IP was sited properly within the Community. 'Editors' were able to work with the IP to slot them in the right category, identify suitable names for the mailing lists, confirm that they had the necessary technical skills to establish the website, etc... We now live with the reality of the 'zipless' website... five minutes and a credit card will get you a web site with any number of providers. People (some people at least) want it now! And for those that do, the CCN IP registration process probably seems, complicated and time consuming. Streamlining the registration/IP creation process and centralizing it in the office makes a certain amount of sense but it still needs considerable review. If some of the 'up-front' work previously undertaken by the editors is transfered to the office some provision has to be made to provide continuity through staff changes. While at the moment the office/Andrew may be able to provide some of the facilitation that editors handled in the past there is certainly no guarantee that subsequent office staff will come to work with an understanding about any of this. ----------------------- If we look at individual parts of the IP registration process, several decisions have a long term impact, are difficult or inconvenient to change, and need a decision to be made 'up-front', + an appropriate directory name/jump name, and + the names of any mailing lists, ...come to mind. In addition, there will always be a need to locate the IP within the community, Churches with other religious organization, etc... Although we have not yet identified the specific software tools, it is likely that we will find ourselves in a position to 'physically' locate IP anywhere within the 'info/' tree and, using a combination of the IPDB (See note 'a') (or it's succesor) and 'META TAGS' locate the IP appropriately within the community. Note 'a': IPDB refers to the Information Provider Data Base - in the past this has been the main source of information for administering/managing the Information Provider Resource) An analogy might be that all churches need not be built on Church St.... This probably involves building second/third pages dynamically, every evening, or after an addition/change in the IPDB. As I previously noted, ***we do not yet have these tools in hand*** so there is still a need to retain important elements of the previous registration process. Recent Events ====================== It has recently come to light that several weeks ago, a significnt change was made to the IP registration/creation process. This basically involved discontinueing the use of the IPDB, and registering IP's as individual users with filespace allocated under the 'home/' tree with urls in the form of: http://chebucto.ns.ca/~HAPCS rather than http://chebucto.ns.ca/Technology/HAPCS *** At the same time, the office stopped notifying editors about the receipt of IP agreements. *** These changes have several administrative and technical implications. For one, the integrety of the IPDB has been weakened without a suitable replacement identified... and further that this change was 'silent', there was no announcement. An urgent requirement to implement a new registration process seems to be the justification for making these changes without first obtaining consensus from the IP and Technical committees. However, no request for specific improvements to the process/IPDB were made prior to the changes and the 'silent' nature of the changes could be viewed as an attempt to conceal these events for as long as possible... Although I came away from the a meeting last Tuesday with the impression there had been a 'flood' of IP's signed up, it appears as if only 4 new accounts (with an income of $175) were created in the two weeks before these changes came to light. --- In previous correspondence to the CCN board I have described these events thus: "The recent changes to the IP registration process were arbitrary and flawed in process, they seem to reflect questionable technical judgement, and evidence a lack of regard and consideration for other stakeholders." --- I believe that these events run counter to the long tradition of full discussion and concensus building that has serv