[clue-admin] Notes from Tuesday meeting

[Jed S. Baer]

On Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:50:09 -0700
Collins Richey wrote:

> Here are the notes I took at the Tuwesday meeting.

Allow me to elaborate.

1) The immediate question is the continuation of hosting, as our current
account expires on Jan 28th.

Resolved, to renew our hosting agreement with Spry/VPSLink, by purchasing
6 months of the Link-4 plan, which will upgrade our memory to 512MB. This
will require, if I understand their billing correctly, an initial outlay
of $192.90.

 * The higher memory gives us headroom for running MySQL, expanding
Spamassassin coverage, ... other possibilities.

 * The 6 month period, during which we will primarily continue operating
as we have, allows a time frame for more fully exploring future
requirements and options.

 * Implementation details not fully discussed:
  - We are currently running CentOS 4, and our current environment does
not allow an upgrade path. (Our current VPS runs under OpenVZ.)
  - Crawford has mentioned in the past that switching to a XEN VPS would
have benefits in terms of better monitoring tools.
  - Crawford has also suggested "migrating the VPSLink over to Linux
ETC's accounts (easier to maintain on our end since we have 3 client's
VPS systems here plus our own)" and I'll let him elaborate on that.
  - 1 benefit of upgrading to CentOS 5 would be the availability of a
newer version of Dovecot, which has a "deliver" script which will
accomplish a slightly smoother deliver of mail to IMAP folders.

 * We will need a migration plan, and volunteers to perform various tasks.

I suggest we start a seperate thread specific to the accomplishment of
the above, so that the various details don't get lost in a more general
discussion.

2) Funding

* VPSLink accepts payment via credit card.
* We need a means to accept donations other than in-person at CLUE
meetings.

David Willson has volunteered to be the donation person, and to use his
CC for payment of the VPSLink account.

David has also volunteered the use of his PayPal account for the
acceptance of donations.

We will need to put a PayPal donation button on the website, linked to
David's account.

3) Hosting Requirements

Our requirements for hosting involve 2 general things, the website, and
the mailing lists, which are interconnected in that the mailing list
archives are web-accessible.

Getting the easy-to-state pieces out of the way:

* Mailing lists: Currently, we use GNU Mailman, which requires a server
which provides Python and an SMTP server.

* Mail delivery: in addition to the above, we receive mail at the CLUE
server for various function-related aliases, such as President, Speakers,
and Sponsors. As a mail host, we also have a Postmaster address, and we
should have an abuse address.

 - Suggested we investigate the feasibility of offloading some mail
processing to managed services.

* Functions the website fulfills, and suggestions for improvements:

* Mailman archives. Comes with Mailman out of the box. Minimal
configuration required, and IIRC the Mailman package supplies the
necessary Apache config stuff

* Meeting / event information
 - CLUE meetings
 - Installfests
 - Others - in the past, we've had auctions, booths, what else?

 - Suggested that we provide automated e-mail notifications of upcoming
events.

 - Suggested that we implement a calendar function. (I have some php code
for a calendar display floating around someplace -- contributed by Dave
Hahn -- I just have to find the right old backup)

 - Suggested we explore using a managed service for calender functions

* Announcements of interest to participants and visitors

 - Solicitations for volunteers
 - Announcement of new volunteers for various roles

* Suggested improvements:

   - Meeting and event reports - particularly attendance count. (This is
of interest to sponsors, who like to know the size of the audience they
are, or would reach, by sponsoring CLUE.)

   - Sponsor activity acknowledgement - post a news item on receipt of
any sponsor contributions

   - Other donation acknowledgement?

   - Any other improvements to make CLUE more attractive to sponsors?

   - ability for CLUE participants to submit articles for
publication
    + Might be served by wiki or similar software

   - Ability for CLUE admins to directly update content

* In keeping with the above funding model, we need a donation button.

4) Other general requirements

* backups - Since it appears that we will be moving forward with a VPS
solution, the current backup scheme can continue to operate. Any changes
need to be done with an eye towards our ability to backup our data.

* version control. Content posted to the website should be done with some
sort of version control.

5) People. CLUE still could use some volunteers.

 - Greg Knaddison has volunteed to be Sponsor Coordinator

 - A gentleman whom I currently know only by his e-mail address has
volunteered to be DTC Speaker Coordinator

 - A suggestion to form a system admin team, to distribute the workload.
  + Mail administrator: might or might not be the same person who
receives Postmaster mail - would handle config of Postfix and Spamassassin
  + Abuse mail recipient
  + Mailman administrator
  + Additional backups -- I have a nighly rsync, but it wouldn't hurt to
have a 2nd copy

  + David Willson volunteered to receive Postmaster mail. Not sure what,
if any conditions attend to that. David and I can discuss this offline, I
think.

6) Software choices: Many were suggested

 - mediawiki
 - wordpress
 - roll-your-own
 - drupal

I suggest that we create seperate discussion threads for various items. I
might see if I can find a wiki platform someplace to host a more formal
documenting of requirements and planning. I don't currently have a
hosting account to use for this, and I might attempt to see whether our
current VPS will support a wiki without bogging. I think that will mean
using a flat-file wiki. But if someone who has a hosting account would
like to host a planning wiki, that'd be fine too.

jed
-- 
Ok, so we should be thinking of a lovable, cuddly, stuffed penguin
sitting down after having gorged itself on herring. Still with me? 
 -- Linus Torvalds