Yet another archive update - and a request for volunteers

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

I expect you are getting bored of these updates by now, but...

We have now established that we are not in possession of the necessary account/payment verification required to permit us to financially support the archive with the current web host.

margot_iris has let us know that she has back up files of the site, meaning that the archive could be re-established with a different web host when the current period ends in June next year. However, alex_quine then raised the issue of rugbytackling.com being part of govi20's estate and therefore covered by probate, meaning that any future work on the site might require contact with her executors. To be honest, just the possibility of this scenario makes me feel very uncomfortable, and I personally am not prepared to investigate the matter further. Others might feel differently of course, so...

I am looking for a volunteer (or volunteers) with the relevant web skills to a) explore what will be required to keep the RT archive available from next June onwards, and b) providing all requirements are met, to organise its transfer when the time comes. Clearly, a decision will need to made as to whether the archive continues to be a live one (i.e. someone taking on responsibility to update it as Carol did) if that is possible, or a historical one - which is what would have been the case had we simply been able to continue to fund the existing host site. Another important issue is to manage donations from members who have said they wish to help pay for the archive (through a paypal account seems to be the obvious choice). For your information, I understand that Carol paid around €45 in total (€8 for the domain name and the rest for hosting the archive).

I am also taking this opportunity to let you know that I am standing down as maintainer/owner of rugbytackle; my lovely friend and co-maintainer moldava has already stood down. I have been thinking about doing this for a while and the sad deaths of Carol and Jeanne have only confirmed my need to take more than a few steps away from all things fandom related. Besides, I have been mod here on RT for the last seven years and a change is well overdue. Any takers please? If there are a number of volunteers, I can name all of you as maintainers but you will need to agree who is the owner (since 2011, this has been a Livejournal requirement); see here for details. Under normal circumstances, the role of community maintainer is far from onerous! I was maintainer when milochka kept the archive and when govi20 took it over, so the owner/maintainer does not need to be the same person who looks after the archive, though obviously it could be.

Please let me know (lj message me) or leave a comment here if you would be willing to take on either the RT archive role or the maintainer role or both. I will not be taking part in any future archive or community development, so if you want to make sure the archive is transferred successfully, then please come forward and nail your VigBean colours to the mast, so to speak!

Thanks
Heath

Comments

[margot-iris.livejournal.com]

I have the relevant web skills and am happy to help set up a new version of the site. From there, maintaining it is very easy - no special skills required. If you can send an email, you can do this. I'm happy to lend a hand when more technical help is required, as I did for Carol, but since this isn't really my fandom I'm not going to take on the day to day. But as said, running it is very easy: I think that since 2009, Carol has asked me to help maybe once or twice when her host made minor changes. Anyone thinking of taking this on but worried about skill level -- you can stop worrying.

As for the probate issue, I agree that I wouldn't feel comfortable at all taking over Carol's accounts. But I don't think Carol can claim full intellectual ownership of the site. I did a my share of programming and customizing, the design I followed is the one that's in use here at livejournal which, Heath, I believe is your work, and of course the stories she archived are the intellectual properties of the authors. Much of the archiving work that's gone into the site to date was done by previous archivists. It's a group effort, therefor it's group owned, so I don't see a issue with setting up a copy by the remaining members.
Carol's estate of course currently owns the domain name rugbytackling.com, but if her heirs let the domain expire, it'll go back on the market and will be available for anyone to claim. And anyway, I don't think the goal here is maintain the domain rugbytackling.com, but rather the site that is there. If it were to continue at rugbytackling.net or some such, I don't think that makes all that much difference.

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for this valuable information! I agree that what we are trying to save is the site, rather than the domain name and I also value your explanation that running the archive shouldn't be too onerous a job for whoever takes it on. Likewise, your offer to help set the site up and to lend a hand with possible tech issues that might arise is much appreciated.

Thanks again. I am sure that the members will be seeking you out for advice and assitance in the future.

[afra_schatz]

Ignore the last PM I sent you, I should learn to check my flist before sending them :). I'll send you a new one now!

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I shall ignore it forthwith. ;)

[nverland]

1-Ownership of any writing remains in the hands of the person who wrote it. Being archived did not convey ownership to the archive owner and only permission to share your property with others.

2-How sad is it that when two people who loved this fandom dies that the entire thing falls apart and people run from it likes rats from a sinking ship. I feel that both Carol and Jeanne are looking down in sadness at what has happened with everything.

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

thank you most sincerely for your extraordinarily unhelpful comment on my desire to move away from fandom. I really appreciate it - and feel so much better for knowing you feel this way.

[nverland]

It wasn't aimed at you specifically but an observation of the entire fandom. But thank you for taking the time to spread such joy and sunshine.

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

My pleasure.

And I apologise for upsetting you by feeling bad about two friend's deaths and needing to have some time away from a fandom in which I have participated and fully supported for over ten years. Shame on me...

[splix.livejournal.com]

1. Presumably a writer can contact the new archive owner to remove their stories if they so desire. I'm not certain what your intent is with this comment.

2. Fandoms wax and wane. If those still invested want to keep it going, they need to step up to the plate. Vague accusations and manipulative emotional statements help nobody at all.

[loucifer67.livejournal.com]

I might not be a prolific writer but my efforts to maintain Carol's Sean Bean sites will be on going. I don't think anyone is fleeing like rats from a ship it's more like the fandom has dwindled as was to be expected, when no new film material of said fine actors fires the imagination to write then new material becomes scares. Our tastes and attendance dwindle over time so it think your comment was a little misguided nverland. There are lots if fine people on the fandom ( yourself included) who contribute regularly but like Remembrance Day the numbers get less each year. We all miss Carol and Jeanne and if Carol had thought about it I'm sure she would have approached another person to take on the task of the RT archive but it was not high on her priority list

[rubyelf.livejournal.com]

How odd, because it appears to me like this is all about people making an effort to figure out how to keep this going instead of just abandoning it. I seem to be missing the part where people "run from it like rats from a sinking ship". And your attempt to guilt-trip people into doing what you think they should do, but are, I notice, NOT offering to do yourself, is manipulative and utterly unhelpful to those people who are attempting to actually accomplish something.

[splix.livejournal.com]

Heath, sorry you're getting flack for trying to be proactive about preserving the website.

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Alex - much appreciated. But if some people feel better by chucking in unhelpful comments, then so be it.

[rubyelf.livejournal.com]

I would also like to express my condolences at the unfortunate remarks that certain people felt it necessary to make, obviously knowing exactly what is best for it AND knowing what is best for you. May all such self-important individuals' lives be inflicted with a dose of their own keen awareness.

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

thank you - much appreciated.

[painted-horse.livejournal.com]

Sometimes people bite when they are hurt by events themselves. That's sad, but a fact of life. Dear Heath, don't let it get to you too much. We all of us hurt, and each one deals with it in their own way. *hugs*

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

We all of us hurt, and each one deals with it in their own way. I know that. And thanks - but I don't see this person's second comment in that way. It was personal, unhelpful, unwarranted and inappropriate - and it did a great dis-service to the members of this community.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

I don't have technical skills to speak of...have long since given up trying to embed pictures on pages...but if there's something else I can do in the mod-ing line, I'm happy to
help. I think that it would be a fine thing to enable Rugbytackle/ing to go on, perhaps with the archive being updated...perhaps not. The ebb and flow of our cultural lives is
under-pinned by RL and reflects it too.

We've all of us been recipients of the hard work and good will of others and we don't thank them often enough, I certainly am guilty of sometimes taking
things for granted and the shock and upheaval of the deaths of Jeanne and Carol has shaken this small part of our worlds. It is hardly surprising that folk who were
privileged to know them for longer than I was should feel the loss particularly keenly and wish to step back to take stock...hopefully not for good. Whatever, I support their
decisions and hope to see and hear from them from time-to-time.

[rifleman-s.livejournal.com]

Oh no, not bored at all – thank you ever so much for all that you’ve done in your investigations on our behalf.

” To be honest, just the possibility of this scenario makes me feel very uncomfortable, and I personally am not prepared to investigate the matter further. Others might feel differently of course, so...

Yes, I can understand that completely; it might get very complicated, and not really what the spirit of the Rugbytackling Archive is all about. Being pretty clueless on the internet I can’t volunteer, but I do hope there’ll be someone with the relevant knowledge who can help us out. Of course that’s easy to say, for it will mean technical work for that ‘someone’!

Obviously the fandom has waned in numbers over the years, but our dedication is never in question and I'm delighted to see that several people have offered their technical and other expertise. It will be great if any part of the site and archive can remain in whatever form.

I quite understand you wanting to step down, and I’d like to say many thanks to you for all your work as maintainer/owner in the past; it is a wonderful site and has been beautifully run and I'm proud to be a member.

Hoping for positive news in the future.

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

Have we thought at all about migrating fic to the AO3? They're done other projects to pull archives that were going down into the AO3 to maintain them.

[makamu]

I am with Barb on this one - I believe that the OTW's Open Doors project was created precisely for this kind of situation. Plus, no one person would be obliged to do all the updates by themselves.

And thank you,Heath for sorting this out for all of us *hugs*

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Given my current lack of stability, I'm probably the last person anyone would want taking point, but I'm willing to do so if someone more together and with more site experience isn't available (and will find someone, even if it's just my sister, to work with to make sure I stay on track). The same applies to the comm although that's less worrisome for me since I've at least done that before and am familiar with LJ.

I appreciate your gathering the information we have so we know what needs to be done to retain the site.

[makamu]

Oh, and although this would be the first time for me, I'd be willing to help one other person as maintainer of the community as well - who knows, that might be the impulse my muses need to write again... ;)