Wilhelmina,

To answer your two questions.
1) yes, during the 30 day expiration period when registration lapses your site will typically become unavailable
2) this isn't just about one person at OSU.  Ryan Ordway is our sys admin, but c4l is supported by a number of folks at the institution in various capacities...up to the director.  Were Ryan to leave, the process for maintaining the infrastructure would simply fall to someone else at the Library.

Tr



*************************************
Terry Reese, Associate Professor
Gray Family Chair for
Innovative Library Services
121 Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331
541.737.6384
************************************
________________________________
From: Wilhelmina Randtke
Sent: 12/18/2012 2:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib.org domain

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
>>>
>>>
>>
>>