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
>>>
>>>
>>
>>