[wplug-internet] Internet Committee Report (draft)

[Michael Semcheski]

Hello,

Here is a draft of the Internet Committee report for the upcoming
board meeting (either 2/4 or 2/5).  If you can forsee any questions,
if there is something I'm addressing that you want to discuss, or if
there is something I'm not addressing that you want to discuss, let me
know and I'll make sure it is included in the final version.

(the idea here is to publish an agenda ahead of time, so that we have
something to stick to during the actual meeting.)

Report:

The Internet Committee attempted to meet after the last board meeting
but was unable to.  The next scheduled meeting should run during the
February 02 install-fest.

Status of Migration:
With regard to the WPLUG web presence, things are very good.  There
are one or two odd bugs in the wiki, but its very usable.  The only
thing keeping us from retiring the old website is the fact that the
DNS records point at penguin.  There may be interactions with the
mailing lists and mail services if we change the DNS at this time.

With regard to the migration of the mailing lists and other mail
services, we are moving very slowly, but there is some progress.  We
put out a general request for assistance to the WPLUG community.  To
date, we have received one offer of assistance.  However, some people
who could not offer assistance but who had relevant experience
indicated that this should not be particularly difficult to
facilitate.  Currently, we are still investigating how to migrate
mailman and the mail services, and formulating a plan of attack.

DNS issues:
Currently, Beth Lynn is the only person able to modify the WPLUG DNS
records, and it has been difficult to reach her through email.  Part
of the migration will involve planning times to try switching around
the DNS, and possibly switching back.  Therefore, it will be important
that there either be better communication, or multiple people with
access to the DNS records.

One solution would be to use Linode's DNS servers.  Each board member
should have access to the Linode account, so this takes care of the
immediate issue, and makes it more likely that if one person were
unavailable we could still fix problems as they arose.


New Initiatives:

There was discussion a few months back about increasing the number of
owners on each mailing list.  Sometimes, the owner of a list may be
unreachable, and it is impossible to get list requests processed.  If
there were at least two owners of each list, it would make this
situation less likely.  We may make a push to sign up more list owners
after the lists are migrated.

An aggregation of news feeds related to WPLUG and its members is being
set up.  Currently, there is a website:
wm-eddie.info/planet which hosts the feed.  We are in the process of
setting this up on the new server.

A possible long term goal is to be able to host surveys for the use of
the Board or WPLUG committees.