Making Web Server a Threat Again!

[dan]

it seems like you have answered what you want man.
reviews with a sample song would be great.
they could even be included in interviews, or would that be too much?

i'll still contribute loads of interviews etc.

I don't want to totally abandon the zine or label but this is looking like an attractive alternative more and more every day.

As far as actual content... I think that bands that are interviewed should be allowed to have one or more songs featured as part of the interview. I think videos, photo galleries, etc. should also be just as much a part of the experience. We need to stop thinking in terms of what is possible with a magazine and look at the wide-open possibilities a web format will bring. If we are in control of the server there's no limit to what we can theoretically do.

I would love help with content and it will be great if you can still help with interviews.

In fact we can actually set up work flows so ANYONE can submit an interview online and an editorial collective can prepare / approve it for final publication completely on the web site. Wanna be an editor?

[delinquent0youth]

This sounds wonderful, but I'd rather pay a higher subscription fee/cover price and still have the hardcopy of the zine. Remember that not the whole world has fast internet and downloading fancy pages with lots of photos and videos and gimmicks will be painful for whoever dials up from the middle of nowhere. That's not to say it won't be wonderful for those with fast connections. I guess whether 3rd world punks have problems downloading or getting hardcopies of the zine is about the same.

[dan]

I think there will still be hard copies of the zine, but no more making them look nice for retail. It's back to tiny type and newsprint.

As for the web version, all those added items (photo galleries, video, etc.) will all be linked items so waiting for them to download will be optional.

And which Third World punks are you referring to? Most places outside the US actually have faster / better internet connections than we do. While our telecommunications companies are still trying to cram the internet down their copper wires the rest of the world has gone faster and cheaper with fiberoptics. I would make a fair guess that the average punker in Kuala Lumpur has a faster and cheaper internet connection than I do. Funny to think we have gone from "First World" to "Third World" in a single generation.

[deleted]

If I posted the back issues for free would you donate $1 per issue you download? I'd rather keep everything voluntary!

i would do that.

[delinquent0youth]

I think there will still be hard copies of the zine, but no more making them look nice for retail. It's back to tiny type and newsprint.

As for the web version, all those added items (photo galleries, video, etc.) will all be linked items so waiting for them to download will be optional.

And which Third World punks are you referring to? Most places outside the US actually have faster / better internet connections than we do. While our telecommunications companies are still trying to cram the internet down their copper wires the rest of the world has gone faster and cheaper with fiberoptics. I would make a fair guess that the average punker in Kuala Lumpur has a faster and cheaper internet connection than I do. Funny to think we have gone from "First World" to "Third World" in a single generation.

Tiny type and newsprint has always been my favourite format of zine (S&L, PE, all of em) so that's good news that the zine will still be in print.

I dunno, I guess the South African punk scene is too small to really register as a scene, but I was speaking from own experience with a fucking slow, ridicuously expensive, capped connection. Things may have changed in SA since I moved, but coming to the US has been like getting from (walking) a dusty two track road to speeding a 6 lane information highway. Maybe it was just my shit connection.

[markoloka]

What amazes me is that nobody figure out that you can comment on and discuss the stuff on the main PE web site too. Or maybe they don't care.

I didn't know that was possible. Maybe there is other options/possibilities here we don't know about??

Maybe we should continue w/ donation thing aka option 1 or 2. I would miss this board way too much it if this would vanish in the air. Also it would mean i actually should be working at my job instead of trying look like i'm doing something real.
Donations... if it would be possible to get certain amount of donations for next 6-12 months and not be "afraid" if plug is gonna be pulled off next week. Maybe all news about PE shutdown this and that confuses people. Me at least.
Just an idea: something extra for those who donate. Dunno what that could be.

[crustedge]

it seems like you have answered what you want man.
reviews with a sample song would be great.
they could even be included in interviews, or would that be too much?

i'll still contribute loads of interviews etc.

I don't want to totally abandon the zine or label but this is looking like an attractive alternative more and more every day.

As far as actual content... I think that bands that are interviewed should be allowed to have one or more songs featured as part of the interview. I think videos, photo galleries, etc. should also be just as much a part of the experience. We need to stop thinking in terms of what is possible with a magazine and look at the wide-open possibilities a web format will bring. If we are in control of the server there's no limit to what we can theoretically do.

I would love help with content and it will be great if you can still help with interviews.

In fact we can actually set up work flows so ANYONE can submit an interview online and an editorial collective can prepare / approve it for final publication completely on the web site. Wanna be an editor?

If you are asking me, yeah, i would love to be a co-editor.
i'll continue to submit interviews, reviews, columns and stuff.
a smaller version of the zine, back to the way it was before would be great - if it proves more financially feasible.

[Slobodan B]

I'd love to help editing or writing content (online or offline) for free...I already do a fanzine and have tons of material on my hands...

As for the server question, I think, to begin with, good free alternatives do actually exist:

-there's blog engines that you can use to create a regularly updated website with a blog element (for news and announcements for eg) and which you can customise the layout so doesn't look like a cheapo blog -to take one example from the top of my mind, the following site (scholarly texts on William Burroughs) uses the Wordpress engine, see: http://realitystudio.org/

-for the hosting of PE Pdfs you can use http://www.issuu.com, I've seen mainstream commercial mags use that website for it which should here be a confirmation that it is serious. And of course last week I started experiementing with issuu for wwwpunksishippies.com and have seen some very high numbers of hits on all zines uploaded...whatever that means...

-for the forum, there's reasonably cheap and free ones to use (like the current one)...

For the physical server, well is it not possible to buy a secondhand server that will host the websites and all files (with probably space left over to host other scene websites), admittedly I am not too sure what the costs (admin or other) would be to have an own sevrer but I am assuming that what you need to pay is pretty much the initial purchase and then the internet access...as opposed to dedicated serves and virtual server space etc.

I'd love to get punksishippies.com onto if not its own server (where there'd be no more need to use mediafire etc for hosting of fanzine scans) then onto some sort of indy-DIY kept server...I was mightily impressed by the Berlin, Germany, squats who had their own server in the building and those who lived there had each a share on it...I heard similar anecdotes about squats elewhere...Indy-Media is another example of this...

[Monsieur Pfischer]

I could make them register to download. That way they have to agree to accept spam from us in the future. hahaha!

That is actually a very good idea

I have done way to many email newsletters etc

It makes it a bit easier to manage the bandwidth that is going out. Or at least predicting what it might be

[dan]

OK... I have some good news but first some responses to points raised above.

I didn't know that was possible. Maybe there is other options/possibilities here we don't know about??'

Yes, I'm trying to make the whole PE web site to be more community interactive. You can even make anonymous comments (i.e. you don't need to be registered) for the main PE web site and the Events List. It's quite possible this will attract some idiots, but
we will always have a safe haven in the board

Donations... if it would be possible to get certain amount of donations for next 6-12 months and not be "afraid" if plug is gonna be pulled off next week. Maybe all news about PE shutdown this and that confuses people. Me at least.
Just an idea: something extra for those who donate. Dunno what that could be.

PE goes in these big boom and bust cycles. We'll do really well for a while and confidence builds. Then we over-commit ourselves to too many expensive projects and inevitably get fucked when one little thing goes wrong. I'm trying to break that cycle in two ways...

1. Not do any more really expensive projects unless we have all the money lined up in advance (and then some). Once the current crop of unfinished projects is out PE will only be doing coop releases - meaning we only commit to a few hundred copies and don't accumulate any long-term debt. It's going to be tough refusing when one of my favorite bands comes to me with a must-release project, but I'm going to have to stick to my guns and only release it if I can find other labels to partner with.

2. Offer coop memberships. A basic membership is like a year subscription to the magazine plus donation ($60). The next level up (Black and Red) is a $15 donation on a monthly basis. Right now we have 39 members and more than half are Black and Red (or "Friends of PE" which is no longer being offered). The more and more memberships we have, the strong PE will be in the long run. Monthly donations = monthly security and less and less of the boom / bust cycle.

3. Paying off PE's debts once and for all. In spring 2006 PE was about $70,000 in debt, mostly to credit cards and credit lines. We did too many expensive projects and too many people living off of PE's expense. By doing PE alone (and being supported by my wife) I've managed to pay more than $40,000 of that off in the last 2 years, but that obviously still leaves a lot to pay off. The interest PE is paying on what's left is enough to pay at least one full-time worker minimum wage. If PE is going to get back to being self-supporting than returning to zero debt is crucial. Right now I could solve the financial crisis with the zine by using a line of credit, but I refuse to take a backwards step...

a smaller version of the zine, back to the way it was before would be great - if it proves more financially feasible.

Yes, that's the only way forward I think. I spent a lot of time and money trying to make it look professional and more mainstream paletable in hopes of getting wider distribution. So far this has achieved a gain of 360 additional copies sent out each issue. On the downside is it has created only a negligible amount of increased revenue after returns and other expenses are factored in. The magazine is going to go back to a a bare-bones approach and I'm only going to print enough copies for subscribers and a few reliable DIY distros (probably only 1000 copies of the print version!). No more glossy cover and nothing fancy at all.

I'd love to help editing or writing content (online or offline) for free...I already do a fanzine and have tons of material on my hands...

Awesome - can use the help. I have to set up the site infrastructure to make editing areas and set up user permissions for editor level users. I've gotten pretty picky about grammar and sticking to set styles so we'll all have to get on the same page there.

As for the server question, I think, to begin with, good free alternatives do actually exist:

-there's blog engines that you can use to create a regularly updated website with a blog element (for news and announcements for eg) and which you can customise the layout so doesn't look like a cheapo blog -to take one example from the top of my mind, the following site (scholarly texts on William Burroughs) uses the Wordpress engine, see: http://realitystudio.org/

I'm familiar with Wordpress. Problem is Wordpress is not as scalable or flexible as we need. The current site is powered by Joomla, which is also a free CMS, and is our best hope at a seamless, fully integrated site (one login gets you access to the main site, the message board, and the web store). The coding isn't 100% there yet but all the elements are coming together quickly. I have been experimenting with a lot of the components for what will eventually be the new PE web site and the current site is basically a test platform.

-for the hosting of PE Pdfs you can use http://www.issuu.com, I've seen mainstream commercial mags use that website for it which should here be a confirmation that it is serious. And of course last week I started experiementing with issuu for wwwpunksishippies.com and have seen some very high numbers of hits on all zines uploaded...whatever that means...

Space and bandwidth aren't an issue for us but it might be worth putting a mirror of our PDFs on that site because it sounds like it has a lot of traffic.

-for the forum, there's reasonably cheap and free ones to use (like the current one)...

For the physical server, well is it not possible to buy a secondhand server that will host the websites and all files (with probably space left over to host other scene websites), admittedly I am not too sure what the costs (admin or other) would be to have an own sevrer but I am assuming that what you need to pay is pretty much the initial purchase and then the internet access...as opposed to dedicated serves and virtual server space etc.

We're keeping the board version we're using now so that's not going to change. There is a team of developers working on a bridge that will allow us to integrate with the rest of the web site (users, ranks, etc.) and that's coming soon. I will be customizing the skin so it looks like the other parts of the PE web site and adding one or two new mods like Fast Reply.

I did look into using our own machine and the weak link is the connection. I have a cable modem at the house and it's fantastic for personal use. However, there is a mandatory cap on upload speeds for non-commercial connections. My connection can handle the bandwidth but big downloads would be slooooooow, especially if more than one person was downloading a file.

I did price quoting yesterday and found the current minimum upgrade to a commercial connection is $100 more per month for commercial cable and $3-400 for the next level up (unrestricted DSL or a shared T1 loop. Or we could go as high as $1000+ per month for a dedicated T3). On the other hand we can have our machine parked in someone else's secure server farm for about $100 per month. I have an old G3 Mac and a P3 tower that could make a great servers, but they're so big they would probably charge me the rate of several server bays to host it. Running our own machine from my house is going to be at least $100 per month just for a minimally acceptable connection. And I think we could do better than a 10 year old Mac or P3 running it. And hosting it here just seems like an excuse for the cops to come pay a visit. I have kids and dogs here and don't need the heat snooping around and scaring everyone to death.

I'd love to get punksishippies.com onto if not its own server (where there'd be no more need to use mediafire etc for hosting of fanzine scans) then onto some sort of indy-DIY kept server...I was mightily impressed by the Berlin, Germany, squats who had their own server in the building and those who lived there had each a share on it...I heard similar anecdotes about squats elewhere...Indy-Media is another example of this...

OK, this could be your lucky day. I spent a good chunk of the day researching our options and found a place that will lease us a dedicated server with fast internet connection and a cPanel license for about $100 per month. Having the cPanel license means we will be able to easily parcel out server space and IP addresses for domains and services (such as SQL databases and email accounts) and basically rent out the unused portions of the machine. It's pretty much a no-frills machine but hey offer contracts as short as month-to-month and tons of ala carte services (like it may be worth the extra $20 per month for getting a second drive for a RAID backup installed). This sounds like something I want to make a move on as soon as PE #58 gets to the printers. I think we can arrange something like $5/month web site hosting for DIY punk projects such as yours...

[Slobodan B]

Brilliant! Count me in on renting server space for that price, absolutely no problem. Ditto for content and/or editing.

Re: community interaction
I am very interesting in seeing what you come up with. Obviously quality control is the key to all this but it seems this is at the top of your mind...one good example of community interaction is the http://www.swedishpunk.com website which allows people to easily add new bands, records, zines etc and this appears to be a seemlessly...

Re: anonymous comments
As long as you have moderators who know what they're doing then no problem...if some moron posts something genuinely offensive then all that is needed is deletion of that comment...however remember that the whole board will suffer if there are people who get *banned for crimes against opinions*....

[dan]

I'm not really into banning response to content unless it contains something racist, homophobic, etc. or something that could shut us down or fire-walled like bomb-making instructions or pornography. Exceptions may have to be made in the case of continued disruptive / abusive behavior.

[Slobodan B]

Yeah, true, was just saying...as I know some people were a bit, errr, upset earlier this year, no biggie obviously...lets leave it at that.

Anyway, let me know if there is any way I can help with things, be it moderating, editing or contributing by writing stuff...

[Home made napalm]

I'm not really into banning response to content unless it contains something racist, homophobic, etc. or something that could shut us down or fire-walled like bomb-making instructions or pornography. Exceptions may have to be made in the case of continued disruptive / abusive behavior.

How does porn get you shut down? Hosting agrrement or something?

[deleted]

well people posting on here arent all 18 or 21 so posting porn is illegal in that aspect

[Home made napalm]

As if I do recall the last law they tried to have that effect got shot down in the courts.

[dan]

Porn won't get us shut down necessarily, but it will earn us a pornography flag from various firewall services and ISPs. Such a flag means our IP will be blocked from from viewing by a LOT of people who come on here during work hours and our email will be blocked. So while it may not get the server shut down, it will cut us off from a lot of people. Same thing in the end.

[Slobodan B]

Incidently, according to latest data porn is no longer (i.e. for the first time ever) the largest internet activity. Social networking have jumped to the lead...

[nervouscorps]

I would vote for option #2. I do think like Dan said it is more feasible than we may think, it would just require a little more work and cash but I think we are up to the task, despite some assdragging amongst punks I think we can do it!

[dan]

We did end up leasing a brand new web server. All the shared (i.e. cheap) hosting solutions weren't good enough to run a dynamic site such as PE's. On the other hand, we now have the ability to sublease our excess server space for web sites, blogs, etc. If anyone wants to cut the MySpace cord and get a "real" web site get in touch with me. Here is the list off applications than can you can quickly install on your domain using Fantastic Delux:

4Images Gallery
AccountLab Plus
Advanced Poll
b2evolution
Coppermine Photo Gallery
Crafty Syntax Live Help
CubeCart
Dew-NewPHPLinks
dotProject
Drupal
FAQMasterFlex
Gallery
Geeklog
Help Center Live
Joomla
Joomla 1.5
LimeSurvey
Mambo Open Source
Moodle
Noahs Classifieds
Nucleus
Open-Realty
osTicket
OS Commerce
PerlDesk
PHP-Nuke
phpAdsNew
phpBB
phpCOIN
phpESP
phpFormGenerator
PHPlist
PHProjekt
PHPSurveyor
phpWebSite
PhpWiki
PHP Support Tickets
Post-Nuke
Siteframe
SMF
Soholaunch Pro Edition
Support Logic Helpdesk
Support Services Manager
Templates Express
TikiWiki
TYPO3
WebCalendar
WordPress
Xoops
YaBBSE
Zen Cart