Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 22:32:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Web page Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> At the last meeting, Lee Strong asked me what happens to our website if I were to die or otherwise leave WSFA. The short answer is that WSFA.ORG belongs to the club, not to me, and so long as WSFA, WSFA members, or anyone else continues to pay the hosting and registrar costs, it should remain up indefinitely. Presumably, our hosting company does regular backups, so they can quickly restore our site if the disk holding our files were to crash. Probably they are running RAID disks, as most sites are these days. RAID disks hold the same information on several disks, so that even if one disk fails, there's *zero* downtime, so long as they replace the defective disk before a second (or in some cases, third) disk also fails. Our site *has* gone down, but only due to misconfiguration, which can be "fixed" by anyone willing to spend enough time playing phone tag with either our hosting provider or our registrar (depending on which is at fault). Hopefully, in the case of my absence, someone would also volunteer to take over maintenance, so that our site remains up to date. One advantage of old WSFA Journals, details about past Disclaves and Capclaves, and other archival material, is that it should seldom if ever need maintenance. Unlike our calendar of upcoming events, which I sometimes need to update more than once per *day*. I'm in excellent health, and come from long-lived stock, so don't expect me to kick the bucket any time soon. However, all it takes is one careless motorist. I did come very close to leaving the club 13 months ago, due to a very ugly incident, which most of you on this list are aware of. But it has been made clear that the person in question does not speak for the club, so it's unlikely that I'll leave the club so long as it retains its present overall character. While I am currently searching for a new job, I am not open to relocation or to anything which requires 80+ hours a week, so I will remain in the area and will continue to have sufficient free time. It's possible that our hosting company could have a fire, tornado, or other disaster, and have no offsite backups. In that case, our website is gone unless someone has a copy. I have *several* copies. The whole site is mirrored at http://keithlynch.net/wsfa/, which has a different provider and is in a different state. (WSFA.ORG is in Massachusetts. KEITHLYNCH.NET is in Minnesota.) Not only can files be quickly copied from one site to the other, but both sites are on the web, so anyone who knows about the mirror site can view our pages without waiting for our main site to be restored. I also have a complete copy of the website on each of the two disks in my PC at home. This PC is running NetBSD rather than Windows, and is never directly connected to the net, so it's immune from viruses and worms. It's not immune to disk crashes of course. One of the two disks *did* crash last September. I replaced the bad disk and copied all the files over from the other disk. Nothing was lost. I frequently back up all files on my PC onto CD-ROMs, several of which I store offsite. Including some buried in the woods a few miles from my apartment. I also have a complete copy of the website on my DEC Alpha, which is running the OpenVMS operating system. I regularly back up the Alpha onto 8mm tapes, several of which I store offsite. I also have a copy of just the text files (not the graphics, PDFs, or log files) on PANIX.COM, which is in New York. However, all these backups are linked to me. If I am run over by a bus, and then our hosting company has a major fire, and has no offsite backups, ... Well, ok, in that case someone could restore our site from my mirror site on KEITHLYNCH.NET. But not if several years had gone by, and KEITHLYNCH.NET had been shut down for non-payment. (Not that it would have to be. Someone else could pay, or maybe the hosting company just wouldn't get around to pulling the plug. I know of several people whose personal websites have outlived them by years.) So I encourage others to regularly download our website. Or I can provide it for interested people on CD-ROM. Of course that CD-ROM would become obsolete almost immediately. I continue to add another back issue of the WSFA Journal to the site each week. And, of course, a new issue comes out each month. The site includes the archives of this list, which avergaes several new messages per day. (Granted, at the moment there've been none for three days, but that's unusual.) And there's the calendar of upcoming events, the current and future Capclave pages, etc, etc. If Ivy Yap is staying in the Philippines, she's a good person to keep a copy on CD-ROM. The further offsite, the better. Some disaster or war could wipe out Washington, Boston, Minneapolis, and New York, after all, but might spare Manila. The version on my PC, including various non-public files, currently totals 8195 files of 421 megs without compression, of which 180 megs are log files, 154 megs are scratch files in the log file directory, 50 megs are WSFA Journals, 18 megs are the archives of this list, and 19 megs are other stuff. There are just 17 PDF files, but they total 9 megs, i.e. they average more than ten times the size of other files, including graphics files. There's no easy way to tell exactly how much we have on WSFA.ORG, but it's certainly more than the 50 megs we're supposedly paying for. This is a potential source of trouble. I do keep a copy of all the old log files there, but they're compressed. They can be removed if necessary. As can all the PDF files. I believe that Sam's collection of old WSFA Journals pretty much starts with 1978, with few issues since then missing, and even fewer issues before then NOT missing. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) If my brother and I can maintain our current one-month-per-week pace, we should finish in about four and a half more years, at about the time of the Kansas City or Los Angeles Worldcon. If, however, the issues continue back to 1963, we'll finish early in the next decade, at about the time of the proposed Australia Worldcon. Of course I'd also like to get old Disclave program and souvenir books and fliers online. And pretty much everything else our club has ever produced (other than the WSFA Press books). Can anyone tell me about pre-1978 WSFA Journals? Does anyone have copies? Were there years when none were printed? Is it true that the first one was printed in 1963? Thanks. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.