Pay for it shouldn't be an issue. It's like $10 a year to register the domain, right? So, don't make a big deal out of OSU paying for it. The fee is negligible. The key concern is how committed to OSU is Ryan Ordway, and what's the climate there like. I see this as transferring to the people who are currently technical contacts at OSU, not to a faceless organization. If they already hold several other URLs, and have a policy and timeframe for tracking and renewing these then that's a plus. Also, I asked before, and I'm going to ask again, will the domain stop working (so stop pointing at nameservers) during the redemption period? If so, then a worst case scenario is not too bad, because there will be some warning and a late fee assuming the registered owner can be contacted, rather than just loosing the domain if the bill isn't paid. -Wilhelmina Randtke On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I definitely see what you're saying, but think there are pro's and con's > both ways. > > OSU is already responsible for the bulk of our infrastructure too, adding > the DNS would be minor. > > But there are definitely pro's (as well as con's) to individual and/or > non-institutional ownership/responsibility/**management, compared to > institutional. > > In the end, as with much Code4Lib, as with much volunteer projects -- what > it comes down to is who's offering to volunteer to do it. OSU is offering > to volunteer to do it (and pay for it, apparently?), and we obviously find > OSU to be generally responsible, since they host the rest of our > infrastructure. > > Someone offering to do it right now, someone we find generally responsible > -- always beats the hypothetical other solution that has nobody actually > volunteering to do it. > > So, Wilhelmina, are you volunteering to run the DNS instead? :) (and pay > for it, or fundraise to pay for it) If you are, then we might have two > options. Otherwise, we've got one, and no reason to reject it unless we > thought OSU was not trustworthy with the responsibility or something (which > if we did, would be a big problem, since they already responsible for a lot > more than that). > > > On 12/18/2012 4:34 PM, Wilhelmina Randtke wrote: > >> I'm for individual ownership and management over organizational. >> Organizations tend to not have written documentation, and to rely on >> institutional memory. I see two things going wrong: Contact at OSU >> leaves >> OSU and no one thinks to renew domain, or OSU doesn't have a dedicated >> contact and at some point they don't renew because they don't see the >> value. >> >> Also important: OSU is on state funding cycles, so may have some rule >> against renewing for more than a year at a time. So, the deadline to >> renew >> will come more frequently than it would with unrestricted funds and the >> ability to renew for 5 or 10 years at a time. >> >> When the domain expires, it will go into a redemption period of about a >> month. I remember what the whois record looks like for domains in the >> redemption period, and whois does give the contact information. Does the >> URL stop working during this period? If so, then that's great because if >> there is a problem with a renewal then many people will notice the URL not >> working, and be able to check the status of the domain and get on it. >> >> -Wilhelmina Randtke >> >> >> On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Ed Summers <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> HI all, >>> >>> I've owned the code4lib.org since 2005 and have been thinking it might >>> be wise for to transfer ownership of it to someone else. Sometimes I >>> forget to pay bills, and miss emails, and it seems like the domain >>> means something to a larger group of people. >>> >>> With Ryan Ordway's help Oregon State University indicated they would >>> be willing to take over administration of the domain. They also have >>> been responsible for running the Drupal instance at code4lib.org and >>> the Mediawiki instance at wiki.code4lib.org -- so it seems like a >>> logical move. >>> >>> But I thought I would bring it up here first in the interests of >>> transparency, community building and whatnot, to see if there were any >>> objections or ideas. >>> >>> //Ed >>> >>> >> >>