Please Read: RPG Bloggers Network Changes

[Dave Chalker]

Dear RPG Bloggers Members & Readers:

Over the coming weeks the RPG Bloggers Network will be undergoing some
major transitions. First and foremost the application and admission
process has been closed for the time being while we work things out.

In addition some leadership changes have occurred - Phil has stepped
down from the board and as Community Manager, Dave will be stepping
down as leader of the board to a more secondary role as the Network
moves forward, Graham will be stepping down as Technical Director, and
Danny may still be involved in minor ways with the Network but not to
the same extent.

We are searching for new leaders for the Network from amongst our
membership and we welcome you to speak up if this is something you'd
be interested in helping out with. While we would like to be involved
in the process of who will take over the Network, we can also sit
aside from that process if it is the will of the collective Network
membership.

One of the biggest hurdles for running the Network is hosting. CPU
requirements are considerable, even with supercache enabled. It
basically has to load all of Wordpress just to retrieve an RSS feed.
We experimented with a number of solutions, including shared server
space, but ultimately did not find a best solution with the budget
that had been available to us. So anyone wishing to take it over will
need to carefully consider their hosting situation.

If a suitable new situation is presented, we will work to hand off all
the data to make the process as seamless as possible, and sell the
domain for the $20 we paid for it. Otherwise, we will probably have no
choice but to shut the RPG Bloggers Network down.

Thank you,
The Former RPG Bloggers Network Board- Dave, Phil, Graham, Danny

[Robert Sandlan]

:O

[Mike Evans]

I am truly saddened to hear that it has come to this.  I have found tons of valuable information, and wonderful like minded individuals. 

 

I think that all of you have done an amazing job running RPGBN and I'm am sorry that you were not given the credit you desereved and that a showing of appreciation. 

 

If there is anything to make you all reconsider, great!  If not, due to the recent events that have have emerged, while saddened, I understand. 

 

Again, Dave, Phil, Graham, Danny, and anyone else who made RPGBN amazing and a fun place to be, thank you so much.

 

Mike (wrathofzombie)

--
"And a bounty of suffering it seems we all endure..  And what I’m frightened of
Is that they call it God’s love." (Bad Religion)

--Mike Evans
http://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/

[Zachary Houghton]

Is that why I'm getting a database error when attempting to access the
site?

On Oct 20, 8:37 am, Mike Evans <ihaveangeriss...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am truly saddened to hear that it has come to this.  I have found tons of
> valuable information, and wonderful like minded individuals.
>
> I think that all of you have done an amazing job running RPGBN and I'm am
> sorry that you were not given the credit you desereved and that a showing of
> appreciation.
>
> If there is anything to make you all reconsider, great!  If not, due to the
> recent events that have have emerged, while saddened, I understand.
>
> Again, Dave, Phil, Graham, Danny, and anyone else who made RPGBN amazing and
> a fun place to be, thank you so much.
>
> Mike (wrathofzombie)
>

[Dave Chalker]

The database error is an unfortunate coincidence and unrelated.

-Dave

[Philippe-Antoine Menard]

Just so everyone knows, we all discussed it and we all have our reasons to step down.  Personally, I'm doing it because I want to focus more on freelance writing project.. the clash we had last week, while not a huge thing empirically, accelerated my decision. If I'm going to attract flak as a RPG designer, I have no intention of being exposed to similar outbursts on a voluntary basis. 

Also, we're a group of good friends, when we started talking about doing it, we all went "but it just wouldn't be as fun without you" and that played in our individual decisions.

To a certain extent, I think that new blood will be a good thing, if only to show others what it was like being an admin of the network.  Hopefully new ideas and fresh energies will bring the whole thing to it's next level.

So I wish the best of luck to the next generation...  Some of you already proposed some very good suggestions and even the beginning of a vision.  I'd be happy to see these people step forward and go to bat for some time.

Best of luck, I'm very proud of what we did. 

Philippe-Antoine (ChattyDM) Ménard

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Zachary Houghton <mail.r...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

Dave,

Thank you for the information. I'm sure this was not an easy decision for anyone on the board. However with the stress of the last few recent situations has surely caused, I'm not surprised nor shocked at these decisions. After all when you do something for fun and it stops being fun, then it's time to call it.

That said, I'm not sure how the network will proceed. I'm sure many will come up with a variety of way to "SAVE" the network. The problem as you clearly stated is finding an acceptable one. Politics aside, for anyone trying to take it over the two biggest issues will be technical and money. After that will be all the political stuff that crops up while trying to solve the first two issues.

I'm sure at this point many of are thinking what can we do to help. I'm sure many do not understand that it's a full time job to help run the network. So, I'd suggest anyone that want to help need to look at the amount of time that they will be able to apply to the problem at hand.

While, I don't want to take over any technical director position (unless there is no other way), I do propose for those that may be interested that a small, say 3 or 4 person technical committee be formed to try to work out a technical solution. I'd be more than happy to serve on that committee.

Next, I'm going to suggest something that may anger some people (and I'm sure it will), I'm thinking some sort of membership dues might be the best way to fund the network. To pull at some wild ass number, say something like 1 USD per month or 12 USD per year? Or maybe just make it a flat 10 USD per year. I know this is something the network has tried to avoid but it seems like it may be the best option.

Anyway, I'll be watch the list and see how things shake out.

[Viriatha Cordova]

hell with the number of people here, even 1$ a year could maybe do it

Dave, what ARE the financial obligations over a year's time, anyhow?

--
Viri Cordova

The Bard of Valiant
http://bardofvaliant.com/

[Dave Chalker]

> Dave, what ARE the financial obligations over a year's time, anyhow?

Domain name ($10 a year) plus whatever kind of hosting you can come up
with that's powerful enough to host the software. We wanted to
eventually invest money in programming a better system and in
advertising, but only the domain name and hosting are essential to
keeping it running as it has.

-Dave

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

And Hosting costs can get expensive, so people should factor that in.

[Chris Tregenza]

Dave and Everyone,

I'm provisionally willing to host the RPGN (subject to further information).

My server, which is used for 6d6Fireball and several of my other blogs
has a reasonable amount of capacity. I would also consider increasing my
server's capability to cope with the extra load.

The quid pro quo of this arrangement would be a small (e.g. 200 x 200
pixels) advert saying something like "6d6 Fireball, proud sponsors of
the RPGBN".

The management of the RPGBN I would leave entirely up to the members. I
would propose the election of officials and turning it into a true
member driven non-profit organisation. If the officials decide to move
the RPGBN to another host they would be free to do so. 6d6 Fireball
would claim no ownership or control over the network.

These are just ideas off the top of my head so nothing is concrete.

It would be useful if the RPGBN could give some information about page
views and MB server etc so can we can all assess the technicalities.


Chris
6d6Fireball.com

[Viriatha Cordova]

I think that's very reasonable. I'm willing to help with drudge chores
and fund-raising. Costs should, and can be, shared.

The real question is technical.

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

Chris - I think that is very kind of you. Of course as you pointed out, it would be interesting to see what the technical requirements are. That is going to influence quite a bit. I like the idea of group with real organizational charter, if for no other reason than to help prevent some of the issues that have plagued us in the past. 

Viriatha - Which is why I proposed a small technical committee and perhaps small membership dues or fees.

[Graham Poole]

Actual technical requirements are tricky.

Our current server was generously provided, as a personal favour to one of the board, but is a black box and we have lost touch with the owner.  I don't have much I can tell you in concrete terms.

We have tried placing it on a shared hosting account, which didn't work well enough.  CPU limits were a worry, and timeout limits while gathering rss feeds were hit very often, making it infeasible to operate with as many feeds as we have.  This is one of your general $6/month hosting plans.

The system could potentially be rewritten, or done using other programs, to eliminate this, but we haven't have the time nor ability to do so.  If it is not, it will need a more flexible hosting plan.


I'd also like to preemptively quell any rumours (which I know have already started):

Phil and I leaving has not been caused by in-fighting or any of the other board members.  It has been a pleasure to work with these guys, and I expect we will collaborate on more in the future.  I'm proud of what we accomplished here.

Phil has listed his reasons.  Mine is that I just moved across the country, am starting a new job, and have no desire to deal with accusations, name-calling, and snark.  This past week especially has caused stress that has started to affect my life and health, and that isn't something I'm willing to accept from a paying job, let alone a volunteer one.

I will remain a network member (getting out of this position may even allow me to post more regularly again), and I will offer any technical help required for relocating the server.


I've met some great people through the RPGBN, and I hope to continue doing so.

Graham Poole

[Dave Chalker]

> It would be useful if the RPGBN could give some information about page
> views and MB server etc so can we can all assess the technicalities.

As Graham said, we don't have a lot of information about our server,
other than it's better than other servers we've been on. That ended up
being part of the price of free hosting. The additional problem here
is that analytics as a result were spotty. I've exported a 7 month
period this year where I think it was working pretty well and included
it in the attached document if that helps.

-Dave

[Chris Tregenza]

This is an open thread for identifying the issues that need to be
address. I suggest discussion of each item be handle in separate thread.

1) Gather Information
Several questions need to be answered before a plan can be made

1a) Timescale
One for the current RPGBN team. How long are they willing to keep things
going until the new team gets its act together?

1b) Technical Details
What is the current server load in MB/month and similar stats.

1c) Stock Take: What has the RPGBN network's name on it?
Obviously the main web site, this Google Group and the forums. Is there
anything else we need to sort out?

2) Transition
Depending on the timescale set by the current RPGBN, we may need to move
quickly.

2a) Volunteers
People who are willing to put a short burst of work in to get us passed
the transition phase.

2b) Money
There may be one-off costs. Some people may need to stick their hands in
their pocket.

3) Long Term

3a) Charter
Working out what the RPGBN should be and drafting a charter towards that
end.

3b) On-going Finances
How to ensure that the RPGBN is financially stable.

3) Election of officials
What and how to be defined by the Charter.

What else do we need to sort out?

Chris

[Graham Poole]

Answers:

1a) A month or so, which should be plenty of time.  If it's just hosting, we can discuss it more.

1b) Unknown, and no real way to know.  It's a black box server, as I mentioned.  Dave posted Google Analytics stats in the other thread.

1c) A twitter feed.  A google calendar.  A LinkedIn group.  A Facebook group.  A Wizbook group.  All should be transferrable easily if need be.

Graham

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

That was very interesting to say the least. I have to say after looking at that, I'm wondering about the worth of the categories for the feeds. Seems that only two categories even break above the 1% hit mark. I'm not saying that we don't continue doing that, but it seems like from a cost benefit pov, it just doesn't seem worth it.

[Dave Chalker]

In case it helps that issue, attached is the feedburner stats for each
of the feeds as well.

-Dave

[Chris Tregenza]

Thanks Dave

I have no problem with that server load under my current arrangements.
It looks like about 1000 pages per day which is nothing, especially as
they are mostly text.

If its running on Wordpress 2.0+ I can take over the hosting quickly and
easily.

Chris

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

I will not say it helps the issue one way or the other, but whoever the new board is going to be, may want to look it because, it could help whomever the technical team is going to be to come up with a viable solution for the growth problem.

At any rate, I'm wondering if writing a stand alone custom feed aggregator would not be the best way to go, long term of course.
It would be interesting to see what the actual loads are for processing.

[Graham Poole]

@Jeffrey -

The category feeds should, in theory, be used far more.  But they have been difficult to find.  One of our major goals for the redesign we were planning was to bring them front and center, to increase the usability of the site.

@Chris -

Latest version of wordpress is its base, and it is running Supercache.  The load and server strain doesn't come from traffic, though.  It comes from hourly updates of every rss feed.  This is not cached, and as such loads up the entire wordpress code in order to get one feed, I believe.

Graham

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

Chris - From what I gathered, most of the resources has been taken up by the aggregating of feeds and not displaying pages. Dave, does that about some it up?

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 7:29 AM, Chris Tregenza <ch...@6d6fireball.com> wrote:

[Graham Poole]

A standalone feed aggregator would, indeed, be a good option.  We have considered it, ourselves, but server limitations and limited coding ability have always prevented it.

Word of warning, feeding the standalone feed aggregator back into the current system again for display may or may not be possible, as it may lose the "feed source" attribute, and thus not be able to link to the proper website, or assign it to the proper author, though it would still link to the proper article.  The best way I could see getting around this would be to assign the source site as the user name in the feed aggregator, or displaying straight from the aggregator, but we can discuss that later.

Graham

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

I would not mind being on the technical team to help explore that option.  Hell, maybe I'll work up some sort of rough design for discussion. If we wrote our own aggregator, I'm thinking that we would have to write a custom front end to remove that issue that you are talking about. Again, this would all be up for discussion.

[Kristian Serrano]

I have very limited knowledge of Google's APIs, but could the Google Reader API (or any other Google API) facilitate this some?

[Berin Kinsman]

My .02:

As a friend of mine noted, any priviledge will be interpreted as a
God-given right within about five minutes. I can read "this isn't worth
the crap we have to take" between the lines.So I think there are some
serious philisophical changes that need to be made to make this viable
going forward.

I'd propose that whoever takes over has to be a complete hardass about
it. Set clear guidelines for admission. Charge an annual fee to join, to
cover costs of operation and even some compensation for the folks
moderating it. That'll kill off a bunch of casual wannabees and
infrequent posters. The board gets to make the rules, because it ain't a
democracy and they're the ones investing time and money to do it, even
if members pay dues. Set clear feed guidelines -- if you're not set up
right, you're suspended. If a bunch of non-RPG stuff comes through the
feed that the board has to filter manually, you get suspended. Do this
stuff too often, you get banned... and you don't get your dues back.
Period. If the board has time, they'll tell you why. If they don't,
well, read the guidelines and figure out where you dropped the ball. the
responsibility is on you to make sure you're configured correctly and in
compliance with the rules. Takes away the pain of running the network,
and puts the onus of good citizenship back on the members.

I have neither the technical expertise nor the money to take over the
network, but I'll gladly throw my hat into the ring to be the
above-named hardass and policy enforcer.
Because i believe in the network, but I'm goddamned tired of listening
to people bitch and whine about these four guys who volunteered their
time and money to make something awesome, and I don't want the next
batch of board members to get stuck with the same shit.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Viriatha Cordova]

I'll sign up to be your back-up when you can't make it.

Because requirement #2 is "don't be bothered by drama". If you cannot
imitate a duck and shed it like water, don't try to do the job.
Someone will hate you. If you let it get to you and affect your life,
you're just going to avoid the job.

[Philippe-Antoine Menard]

Thanks Berin,

Coming from you, it means a lot.  Were I to do it again, I'd go with a similar plan... we just never expected to become so popular so fast.

Phil

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Berin Kinsman <blo...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Chris Tregenza]

I'm a pretty competent PHP coder and I've work on aggregators before so
the pure technical issues are not a worry. Certainly with help from
people like Jeff they will be easy to overcome.

If the hourly aggregation is too much, then the obvious approach is to
cut down the frequency to every 2 or 3 hours. Possibly ranking blogs by
update frequency so we check the regularly updated ones more frequently.

But these are short term solutions and the long term issue will need to
be addressed by the new RPGBN management. There are obvious
opportunities for premium memberships here.


Chris

[Berin Kinsman]

Thank you, all of you, for doing this in the first place. The fact that
it became so popular means that A. you did it right, or as well as you
could with the resources you had, and B. you're just that much more
underappreciated.

-b.

[Quinn Murphy]

"Get away, I'm telling you, or I call the Brute Squad."
"I'm on the Brute Squad."
"You are the brute squad."

I'll vote Berin as RPG Enforcer.

--
Quinn Murphy
http://omnivangelist.net/

They want us dead or alive / without the alive!

(Aesop Rock, "Mars Attack")

[Kristian Serrano]

What about using the PubSubHubbub protocol? Doesn't that alleviate the need for polling by allowing one server to ping the other whenever an update is available? Blogger supports this, but I'm not sure about WordPress.

http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/

[Berin Kinsman]

Chris, how about ranking blogs by popularity rather than posting
frequency, at least for agreggator time? I'm thinking about the newbee
who spams the network by making a dozen posts per day and thus dominates
the front page, vs. established blogs that post once per day? I'd check
hourly to see if ChattyDM has posted something new, but I'd peek in on
the new guy daily to see what he's go going on.

This of course leads to the question of how to determine popularity, and
also probably showcases my technical ignorance. I'm thinking along the
lines of measuring click-throughs. if a ton of people click through to
read, say, ChattyDM, that blog moves into the "agreggate often" tier. If
no one clicks through to Joe Gamer's generic Newbee Blog, it falls to
the "check ever 24 hours" tier.

Yeah, it's a popularity contest driven by the readers. I'm okay with that.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Quinn Murphy]

Joking aside...

Thanks for the work already placed forthe from the founders.  It's been awesome and we have all benefited greatly from your work.  I look forward to seeing what is next in store for all of you!

-Q.

[Berin Kinsman]

That's it, I want my title to be RPGBN Brute Squad.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Stargazer]

I think having 6d6Fireball sponsor the network is probably a good
idea. Chris seems to have the necessary technical skills to get the
technical side working and I don't think a small banner will be such a
big problem. But I don't think stricter rules and membership fees as
Berin proposed are the right way to go.

On 20 Okt., 17:08, Quinn Murphy <quinn.mur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Get away, I'm telling you, or I call the Brute Squad."
> "I'm on the Brute Squad."

> "You *are* the brute squad."

> Quinn Murphyhttp://omnivangelist.net/

[Viriatha Cordova]

That would be up to whoever ends up running it to decide.

[Chris Tregenza]

Berin,

I'm have a very different idea of where the RPG Network should go.

The current success of the network is down to its openness and its
tolerance plus a lot of hard work by the team.

Now whatever happens, the people doing the day-to-day stuff will have to
do a lot of work and put up with sh*t. Nothing is going to change that.
What is important is that the sh*t does not become overwhelming and the
people doing the work know that the bulk of the members support and
appreciate them.

This is best done through the election of officials and a charter that
supports them.

The RPGBN should be run by the members for the aim of promoting RPG
blogs and the hobby of tabletop role-playing games. To achieve this
goal, membership of the network should remain free and open to all. Even
to the casual wannabess and the people who are simply a pain in the ass.

People who break the rules of the charter should be suspend or expelled
but this should not, must not be done by some arbitrary group making
unexplained decisions. It is exactly this arrangement that has led to
the current problem.

The next phase of the RPGBN life must be based on openness and democracy.



Chris

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

Have to look at the API in question. The issue here of course, is that whatever happens, has to be useable by every blog out there.

[Viriatha Cordova]

write a charter outline already, Chris :P Just an outline, though,
then people can chime in with what they'd like to see included, etc

I volunteer to be Network Gadfly lol

[Chris Tregenza]

You have highlighted a real problem, e.g. new members posting to often,
but I'm against 'popularity contest' as a solution.

How about an 'polls per day' allowance?

Well established blogs (anything with 3+ months history of good
behaviour) gets polled 12 times every 24 hours.

New blogs or 'troublesome' blogs only get polled 4 time per 24 hours.

A number of posts limit can be factored in here as well so that a new
blog can only have 2 new posts in every 24 hours.

This keeps the server load down and promotes/rewards good behaviour.

Chris

[Viriatha Cordova]

The problem becomes enforcement; the more rules you make, the more
work for whomever has to enforce those rules. If you can create
software for it great, but most people don't have time for something
like this.

[Jake Fitch]

You may want to wait until you know what the actual technical
limitations are before you try making up rules to work with them.

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Chris Tregenza <ch...@6d6fireball.com> wrote:
>
>

[Mike Evans]

@ Chris Tregenza- I think that is more than fair. 

 

The problem I have with the popularity contest, albeit I understand the suggestion of it, is that it will sufficate lesser know blogs or make it harder for them to get traffic. 

 

Just MO though.

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Chris Tregenza <ch...@6d6fireball.com> wrote:

--
"And a bounty of suffering it seems we all endure..  And what I’m frightened of
Is that they call it God’s love." (Bad Religion)

--Mike Evans
http://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/

[Kristian Serrano]

I thought that was my title.

[Philippe-Antoine Menard]

Chris,

We've crossed swords in the past and we're known for not seeing eye to eye on things but we've always managed to talk it out.  So I'll be candid and call you out again. :)

As I see it, now a mere member of the Network, you are the one that brought the most structured vision and set of tools to drive the network forward.  Yet I've sensed that you have been careful to explain that you have no time to handle more than giving advice.

Yet I recognize leadership when I see it, and I see it in you and in Berin.  Two philosophies that are valid...

...yet I tend to believe in Berin's vision more because he stepped forward and proposed to be at the bat... something you have not done yet. And with no one to drive this platform you built, Openness and Democracy are meaningless words.

But you have a more structured proposal than Berin's and clearly you have the conviction to do it.  So I propose that you step up and propose to do the job you feel so strongly should be done.

So unless you step up and propose to drive the network, at least till it gets to the point where all your reforms are in place, I will side with Berin and even propose an election based on those two platforms.

Otherwise, please sit down... we need candidates, not Richelieus.

My personal 2 cents as a member.

[Graham Poole]

Chris,

The problem wasn't even always server load (though that is not insignificant). Many shared hosts have low timeout limits, so queries for feeds continually timed out, even with few active feeds.

Graham

[Mad Brew]

While I like being a hardass as much anyone, I think the best route to
go here is Chris Tregenza's route, a chartered organization with by-
laws, board member elections, and whatnot.

I dig the "by the bloggers, for the bloggers" approach. I am not so
hot on mandatory dues, though perhaps a tiered membership could be
created including free and premium memberships. What premium
memberships would get you would be determined when ratifying any
charter, but ideas might include "featured" posts, more votes, etc.

I volunteer to help with the tech stuff, though I don't have a lot of
experience with PHP, my experience lies with ASP.NET, C#/VB, XHTML,
CSS, JavaScript, and T-SQL.

[Jake Fitch]

Democracy and Hardass are not opposite ends of any spectrum. The
Network can be democratic, and still have hardass enforcers.

As for free.. the Network should have to pay for itself. Its nice
that someone is willing to offer hosting for now, but what happens 6
months down the line when they stop blogging, or lose their own
hosting or whatever. Whether its membership dues, or advertising the
Network needs to be able to support itself.

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Viriatha Cordova
<viric...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Berin Kinsman]

Well Chris, I think too many cooks will spoil the broth. I think that in
an enterprise such as this, the buck has to stop somewhere, with someone
accountable. Let the membership vote people in to moderate. A republic,
rather than a democracy. Someone needs to be the face on this, the "shit
filter", so the people on the back end can be left alone to do their
work without having to put up with distracting crap. If everything has
to be put up for a vote, nothing will get done. If thee's a charter and
written policies, and people in place to follow that charter and enforce
those policies, I don't see where you and I are much in disagreement
philosophically.

As for free, well, someone has to pay for it, and I appreciate your
volunteering to host, but I don't think some sort of membership fee is
unreasonable, whether it's to compensate you for your bandwidth or to
pay for other resources like hiring a programmer to write the dream
agregagator people want. It's a service, and a valuable one judging by
the number of members and the number of people clamoring to join.

At the very least, I think if you want to elect people and so on the
network should either get registered as a business or become a
non-profit, so there are offiicial rules and regs in place not only for
membership requirements but for those running the network.

As for "arbitrary group making unexplained decisions", um, four guys who
built the damned thing, on their time, at their expense, is not an
"arbitrary group". They did not, and do not, owe anything to anyone for
the FREE service they provided, As far as I'm concerned, it was their
toy to play with, they run it, they spent money on it, they put their
time into it, they get to make the rules, period. If you want to change
the way it works going forward, and if you get selected to run the show,
then by all means, do it your way with my blessing, you'll have that
right. But I'm SICK and TIRED of this pompous crap that Phil, Dave, etc
OWE anyone who GOT SOMETHING and INVESTED NOTHING a DAMNED THING.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

Chris Tregenza wrote:

[Wyatt Salazar]

I would agree with anything that's done, as I just don't want to lose
the environment the RPGBN creates. I myself read a lot of blogs by
subscribing to the RPGBN feed. Without it I'd only really be able to
read what's on my blogroll, which isn't bad, but it'd keep me sort of
secluded from a larger world. So as both a user and a member of the
network, I just want to see it live. As for dues, I'd be willing to
pay as long as it isn't too much a year. Right now I get enough
donations to pay for subway sandwich every three months.

[Philippe-Antoine Menard]

Oddly enough that's about the price you get for writing a D&D 4e adventure.

Just kidding...

It pays for about 5. :)

Phil

[Viriatha Cordova]

I agree with most of this but 2 things.

1) I think it should be open to everyone. Just charge a nominal fee
and people who pay it can be part of the "council" that makes
decisions.

Put your money where your mouth is.

2) Yes, Dave, etc got some guff. but people got very defensive just as
fast. Having admin'ed for a group of 150 people in the past, having a
thin skin to criticism isn't good either.

And very little about last week was anything other than people having
an opinion and some criticism.

[Berin Kinsman]

Jake,

That speaks to my point. Even if someone volunteers to host it for free,
they say that without any clear projection of what bandwidth use and
server resources will be like in a month or a year, and they may end up
biting off more than they can chew. I would much rather see some sort of
fee, to pay for hosting and bandwidth, so that the network, whether a
democracy, republic, or dictatorship, is not beholden to one person and
is truly independent. If the network grows and needs more resources,
then more resources can be purchased. If there's a surplus of money from
dues at the end of the year, lower dues the next year. If there's a
shortfall, raise dues or find alternate means of raising funds.

The fiscal side of this can't be ignored. I know people want "free", but
there are expenses involved that will only grow as the network grows.
I'm just being realistic.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Kristian Serrano]

Thank you, Viri, for keeping the perspective on this, especially the second part of item #2. I see a lot of lashing out at the critics from last week's discussion via the Google Group, which wasn't much more than expressing concerns. Very little of it was bashing the RPGBN entirely. There were a few that went too far, but I think most were civil during the conversation and were still respectful of the RPGBN admins.

[Dave Chalker]

> 2) Yes, Dave, etc got some guff. but people got very defensive just as
> fast. Having admin'ed for a group of 150 people in the past, having a
> thin skin to criticism isn't good either.
>
> And very little about last week was anything other than people having
> an opinion and some criticism.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this. If that was all there was
to it, we probably could have worked it out. But there were several
personal insults thrown around towards me and people I care about. I
and my friends got called names not just here but on several different
locations around the internet, as well as a lot of questioning of our
motives behind it all. At least one site I know of that supported us
got trolled by anonymous comments.

I think that at that point, it went beyond having a thick skin and
moved solidly into the "not worth it" camp.

Thanks,
Dave

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

I think that's why I suggested that maybe some sort of membership dues may be the way go. I'm not sure how many members there are, but lets go with 100 members. if you charged a yearly memebership fee of say 10 USD that's only 1000 USD per year. If you charged say 5 USD, that would 500 USD. If you were to do dedicated Hosting, you can easily spend 200 USD per month or 2400 USD per year.

Now, I'm not say that we do charge memberships dues, but it does alieavate the issue of funding the network.

[Viriatha Cordova]

Dave, I mean nothing but respect for you. In this case, I may well be
bringing my perspective as a former forum moderator for a very large.
active forum several years ago.

And last week was nothing on that scale.

However, that said, I will freely admit I cannot imagine what it was
like for someone who has little experience with flame wars.

[Danny Rupp]

I have to take issue with Chris' original e-mail in this thread:

"People who break the rules of the charter should be suspend or expelled
but this should not, must not be done by some arbitrary group making
unexplained decisions. It is exactly this arrangement that has led to
the current problem."

The "arbitrary group" was the people who started the whole thing, without Dave, Phil, and Graham specifically (I'll designate myself as tertiary to the whole thing) the RPGBN would not exist as it is today.  I believe that takes them out of being in the arbitrary group category.  Second, the decisions were FAR from unexplained, in fact they were explained VERY clearly and in a concise manner.

The current problem stemmed from public airing of grievances and accusations that led to more of the same, which led to a downward spiral of decreasingly intelligent conversation and respect.  Let's be clear about what happened before we start talking about what will happen in the future.

Danny
--
http://www.Critical-Hits.com/

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:59 AM, Dave Chalker <da...@critical-hits.com> wrote:

[Berin Kinsman]

Um, yeah, the fact that most of the current board are stepping down or
stepping back because all the fun got sucked out of it is telling.

Berin Kinsman
UIncleBear.com

[Mad Brew]

You are assuming that 100% of the membership will stick around and pay
dues. Perhaps we should poll the membership and:

1) See if they are willing to pay dues
2) See how much they are willing to pay
3) See if they could be enticed with additional benefits for premium
memberships

I think this would require an email to all current members if that is
possible.

[Chris Tregenza]

Berin,

I just want to pick up in one point in case there is any misunderstanding.

> But I'm SICK and TIRED of this pompous crap that Phil, Dave, etc
> OWE anyone who GOT SOMETHING and INVESTED NOTHING a DAMNED THING.

All the way through the discussions of the last few days I have
repeatedly said that Phil etc have done a great job and that it is their
toy to do what ever they want with.

And one of things that they have done with it is encouraged open and
honest discussion. Unfortunately when you do that, people will say
things that are critical, sometimes these are justified and sometimes
they are not.

I and many other people have engaged in that process but do mistake
discussion (including criticism) for a lack of respect of the time and
effort than has gone into getting the RPGBN to this stage.

Chris

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

You do bring up a good point about the concept of dues. Think this would be a good email to send out. Maybe use some sort of survey software to gather it up.

[Robert Conley]

On Oct 20, 11:24 am, Chris Tregenza <ch...@6d6Fireball.com> wrote:
> The next phase of the RPGBN life must be based on openness and democracy.

In principle I agree, however I found over the past 20 years of
working with various volunteer organizations (RPGs and related
organization) that this doesn't really work.

Basically the situation is that when enough votes goes against the
leader (or leaders) they lose interest and the organization winds up
back in the same boat that it started in. Further problem results
because the person who steps is not the person that supported by most
of the membership but the person willing and able to do the work.

Berin has it half right about someone being a hardass. What is needed
is a person to be a hardass, willing to the work, able to do the work
and can be trusted by the current members. Not necessarily liked but
trusted. The individual needs to also exhibit a mature attitude, and a
sense of leadership.

This setup doesn't have to rely on a single individual it could be a
small group of two to four individuals. I recommend three if that what
everybody wants.

The setup of this new organization should be as open and democratic as
can be. The hard ass part comes after the election.

[Brett]

This is so very true. This recent spat is one of the saddest things I
have ever seen in what was a fantastic resource. It has been a
remarkable and useful tool since its launch and for thanks the
creators get insults. My thanks to Dave, Phil, Graham, Danny for
creating something wonderful, I sincerely doubt the snarky people who
drove them away will do anything nearly as good. One of the great
things about the community had been the lack of forum style stupidity,
but I guess that time is gone now. Dave, Phil, Graham, Danny thanks
for running such a classy service to the community,

Brett Abbott
www.weneedthexp.com

[Berin Kinsman]

Put up or shut up time.

I'm willing to buy the network off the lads and run it as a business. A
private concern. You've all heard ideas. I'm looking for financial
backers to buy independent hosting, to hire a programmer to write the
dream agreggator, and to pay a full-timer or a couple of part-timers a
token wage to run things so it's not dependant on when a volunteer has
time. Yes, I'll impose a membership fee to join the network to cover
costs of operation. I would give the founders free membership for life,
I would give existing members a discounted rate, and new members would
pay full price.

Like my plan? Contact me off-list.

Don't like it? Make a counter-offer. But remember, this isn't some free
thing up for grabs, this is IP that's owned by people.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Chris Tregenza]

Phil

Touché and enguarde! ;)

Thank you for the compliments.

My reticence is nothing to do with a lack of time or motivation. I'm
British so I'm genetically too polite to push myself forward.

So thank you for your invitation, I will forward a proposal. Just give
me time to get a coffee, and get writing.


Chris

[donn...@msn.com]

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. No smiley though.

"He who is giveth an inch - then taketh a mile."

I'm sorry it had to come to this - you guys are still the best.
I can only hope that this "transition" is more smooth than, oh say
any other IT transition I have has the "priviledge" of being a part
of.

I've a lot of other things that want to be said, but I'll leave it at
this - and keep watching.

[Viriatha Cordova]

I posed a different take but... my message has yet to be seen.

[Graham Poole]

This is my last post in this discussion aside from technical answers, but I must make this clear.

Those of us who are leaving are not, I repeat NOT leaving because of criticism. I am personally leaving because of personal attacks, accusations, questioning of motives, loss of trust, and name-calling, not all of which happened in the discussion thread last week.

Now please, drop it. It is unproductive.

Graham


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Tregenza <ch...@6d6Fireball.com>

[Viriatha Cordova]

oh, and I do think we should give this 48 hours for the shock to wear off.

[Berin Kinsman]

Nope, I'm pretty confident about what I want to do, and I'm solicitng
backers to do it.

Berin

[Viriatha Cordova]

I cannot in good conscience back this. My sticking point is the
subscription model.

[Quinn Murphy]

I'm not being contentious when I ask:  What would the goals of RPGBN qua for-profit venture be? 

Of course it seemed some expected too much of it as a non-profit.  But what can members expect from the network in return?  If you pay for something, you've then earned the right to expect a certain level of traffic, a certain level of response, etc. 

What are you going to give members if it becomes a pay service? 

I'm not personally against it, but I think that needs to be developed going forward.

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Berin Kinsman <blo...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Quinn Murphy
http://omnivangelist.net/

They want us dead or alive / without the alive!

(Aesop Rock, "Mars Attack")

[Berin Kinsman]

Fair enough. Do you have a counter-proposal on how costs of operation
could be covered? I'm open to ideas.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Zachary Houghton]

I'd agree with Rob. Election first, decide on a plan, then get your
enforcer. We can't have mob rule on every issue. Hold an election,
and then give that person/persons time to work on the network. A term
of office, if you will. These need to be people ready to take the
hits, and not take their ball and go home at the first sign of snark
or offense (and to respond appropriately when that stuff gets carried
away).

I'd be wary of putting down funds in support until I knew what form
the new venture was going to take. Right now, I'm down from 70-80 of
my views a day coming from RPGBN at its peak to perhaps 20-30; while
my overall hits have increased nicely, the percentage of them coming
from RPGBN has dropped sharply. I don't know if this is from getting
lost among too many rapid-posting members, or if those using the site
increasingly skew towards topics/editions my blog doesn't support
well.

I think the RPGBN staff did a great job forming this community, and
I'm very indebted to them for that, but I'm curious to what these
different options would mean for my site and networking going forward.

I would also be fine with 6d6 Fireball sponsoring in some capacity.

Best,

Zachary Houghton
RPG Blog 2
www.rpgblog2.com

[David Pinilla]

Gents-

Most of you probably don't know who I am, so I'll take a brief moment
to introduce myself. My name is Adam David Pinilla, the current
moderating host of The Podge Cast and the owner of the Spooky Outhouse
Productions podcasting network. Professionally, I'm a project manager
and coder. Unprofessionally ;), I've been podcasting and active in
the RPG community for four years, being one of the long-running
members of Fear the Boot.

I've got server space, I've got server load and I've got money to back
it. I've got experience running several successful communities,
especially those with an RPG focus.

I've got a technical background, and I'm fluent in both PHP and
the .Net languages, as well as being extremely familiar with RSS,
Wordpress, XML and all of their various eccentricities.

I don't think going to a subscription model, except for premium
content, is the way to go. As a content producer, I don't think I
could ever bring myself to pay to be part of a network, no matter how
awesome they may be. Premium content is a great idea, but without a
clear-cut idea of what that is, you're essentially stating that you
have no plan, so while it's fun to talk about, without a concrete
service you can offer content producers you're essentially just
talking to talk.

So, where does that leave this community?

Right now, the major leaders are stepping down, and everyone is
descending to claim their spots. The vote for a new Council is a good
idea, but without some more clear cut definition from the existing/
stepping down Council, everyone in the thread, including myself, is
still just talking to talk.

What I think the existing Council should do is set out their goals,
what they had envisioned for the project and then pick the candidates
that align themselves closest to that vision. This is a large-ish
organization.

Thoughts?

[Viriatha Cordova]

Take a look at http://mormonblogs.org/

This is one of the best aggregators I've ever seen. Make something
similar then make a section across the top that is as wide as the
entire page for posts by "sponsors". You can pay a yearly subscription
to be included in that section.

To this end, I'll pledge 70$.

[Berin Kinsman]

I'm currently gathering data so I can put together a formal business
proposal. Give me a few days to a week. At the very least, the same
thing you're getting now, but with a token membership fee to cover costs
and insure continuity of the network. It may be a matter of tiered
services, with free and fee-based options. It all depends on what the
costs of operation are estimated to be, how much capital is available
for investment, and what kind of returns on investment can theoretically
be realized.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[donn...@msn.com]

Democracy sucks. IT is a constant watering down of core concepts,
compromises and bitter pills "for the good of all".
250 screaming voices will have 250 different ideas that lump together
on generalities before becoming something completely different from
where it started. I submit the U.S. as a great example of great
ideals being turned to shit after a run through the sausage machine of
public opinion and appeasement.

This network will come to a screaching halt if every decision has to
be run past a vote, and to not do so for any and all decisions makes
it something other than a democracy.

Someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be the "big boy". You
cannot cover your ass by foisting the tough calls onto the backs of
the folks that just don't care, and just want to write their blogs.

I'd support a loose charter and annually elected hosts...BUT

I have to wonder how many people in the network have both A. the
technical know-how, and B. the equipment to handle the network? That
kind of limits the whole "democracy idea" right out the get-go -
doesn't it?

Dave, Phil, Danny, Graham - you guys got out just in the nick of time,
methinks (through no fault of your own). I am saddened to see you
guys go - but if it makes any difference, I would have done the same
thing.

[Zachary Houghton]

Hi David,

Zachary here, from RPG Blog 2. I'm interested to hear your opinion on
the direction this should take. It sounds like you have some solid
experience with some of these issues. What sort of model would you
favor, if any?

[David Pinilla]

Without the input of the Council, I don't want to speak for them when I talk about the goals of the organization because frankly, their goals are their goals.  But, I think we can infer what the group's goal was in its inception by its execution, and talk a little bit about its future from the eyes of a content producer.

What is the goal?  As a content producer I look for a few things in a group like this:  cross-advertising, minimal work/investment on my part, and an active, friendly community.

These are things I would expect for free.  Hands down, no negotiation.  

These are things the community already does.  And I think that moving forward, the organization should maintain these things since they are what it does best and changing that model is going to upset the community.

Moving forward, though, things have to expand.  There's a lot of talk about the costs and the money involved.  It's a huge concern.  But, you should listen to a lot of what the plans are here.  There's a major leadership change, a major direction change all happening in the next month.  Is the right course of action to change the subscription models and start charging?  

I don't know, but as a content producer, I'd be leery of how things were unfolding.  Major leadership shakeup and now they're asking for cash?  I'd need some good faith that the guys in charge (no offense to anyone angling for the job here) weren't going to waste my time, money or content.

If you're asking me if I have a million dollar idea to keep the RPGBN alive and making oodles of cash for the new leaders, then no, I don't have that.  If you're asking me how best to maintain the organization, then I think that's a pretty simple 3 step process (without minutia, obviously):

1.) Identify the vision

2.) Transfer the vision to new leaders

3.) Maintain and Expand the Empire

David

--
Thanks,

A. David

[Berin Kinsman]

Some questions, answered:

I'm pulling info together for a business proposal, to see what is and is
not viable, but here's my vision. none of this is set in stone, this is
just how I'd like things to play out.

Hosted server space and a new agreggator. people have pitched me
possible solutions off-line. If there's a way to transfer data to a new
agreggator I'm for it, but if getting a stable platform means a complete
do-over and people having to re-register their blogs, then we roll the
hard 20 and do it for the long-term success and stability of the network.

Free membership. No dues for most bloggers.

A token "setup fee" to join, around $5. This covers the admin cost of
reviewing the blog to insure it meets published criteria for membership,
and adding it to the network. No charge if you're rejected.

Accepting advertising and sponsorship from publishers, so that we don't
have to charge any dues or fees for basic members. operational costs
have to come from somewhere.

Accepting publisher blogs, but they must pay to join the network.
They'll be tagged/categorized as such, and there must be ways to filter
then, just as there must be ways to filter all content.

This is all evolving. Again, it will be several days to a week or more
to get a business plan together.

Berin Kinsman
UncleBear.com

[Robert Conley]

I don't know whether you will succeed or not. The fly in the ointment
is the membership fee. Because of that whatever you come up with is
not going to be perceived as the RPG Blogger successor. It just how
Internet communities work. The fee will be a dividing issue for the
current group.

My alternative is this.

1) We take Chris up on his offer.
2) We find out how involved Chris wants to be involved in the
administration of the network
3) Create a draft charter.
4) Set out what a no vote to the charter means. I suggest a two
question vote.
a) Do you approve the proposed charter
b) If you voted no to a will you continue to be a member under the new
charter.
5) Vote on the charter. If the vote fail by a 2/3rd vote the charter
will be redrafted and voted on again.
6) If a second vote fails to win 2/3rd members and if there are
significant issues remaining then the RPG Bloggers Network will be
dissolved and current member should feel free to attempt to setup
successor networks (plural)
7) If the new charter passes then the new governing structure is setup
and voted on. As well as the technical structure.

If we get a charter and new leadership out of this process then the
result will be the RPG Bloggers Network is continued without a major
split.

Comments that are my PERSONAL opinion.
-----------------------
2/3rd majority is critical, otherwise you just get splinter groups
with only a majority vote.

If we can't get 2/3rd of us to agree on a new charter then whatever
happens is not the successor to the RPG Bloggers Network as it
stands.

The charter and the membership should recognize that this is a
volunteer organization that those who do the most work have the most
say in the day to day administrations. The way to check abuse is to
have periodic elections of officers.

The voting membership is defined as anybody who made a post in X time
before an election I suggest six months.

Furthermore in most volunteer organization I been a part of there is a
great deal of inertia in regards to the election of leadership. Mostly
because people either don't want to rock the boat or don't want to do
work (for a variety of reason). I recommend two things that would help
with this situation.

There will be annual review of policy which is separate from the
charter. Anybody can propose changes, debate, and then vote. Any
changes will be need a 2/3rd vote of the voting membership. This vote
is held BEFORE the election of officers (say a month). This way if the
current leadership is unhappy about new policies then they can decline
to run a month later.

The annual review of policy is not the only source of policy change,
the leadership can change policy after they are elected in response to
circumstance.

Of course a social shitstorm will happen if policy is changed at the
annual review and the elected leader changes it two months later. All
I can say is that other solutions are not much better. And those who
desire to be leaders should know better.

The heart of the issue is editorial oversight. The internet has been
with us for a better part of two decades. I think we are all savvy
enough to know that without some minimal control then RPG Network Feed
will degrade and become useless. Hence the need for strong leadership
both administration and technical. The network should remain volunteer
run and free to join.

[Micah (from Obsidian Portal)]

It saddens me greatly to hear that the members of the board will be
scaling back. You guys have done a great job with very little
resources and the results speak for themselves. Still, I know
personally how taxing these kinds of things can be, to the point that
you just can't take it anymore. The RPGBN has been good to Obsidian
Portal, and we'd like to help out if we can.

I don't know a lot about shared hosting, other than that if you do
more than a simple blog, you're pretty much screwed. High CPU
requirements mean the hosting provider will kill your process all the
time and generally just cause headaches. We host Obsidian Portal on a
virtual private server (VPS). Essentially, it's your own Linux machine
to do with as you will.

If the RPGBN can fit on a small VPS (256MB of RAM), then we'd be happy
to sponsor it. That would run us about $300/yr, which the RPGBN is
definitely worth. We can provision a VPS on our account and then give
over control to the technical committee or whoever it's decided will
manage it. We would even be happy to help things get up and running
with a standard Apache/MySQL stack. Unfortunately, past that we can't
offer any sort of tech support, as we can barely keep up with the
support requests on Obsidian Portal as is. So, whoever runs it will
need a decent amount of Linux sysadmin knowledge, or be willing to
learn as you go. No better way to learn than jump in with both feet.

We'll pay the bills as long as someone else can keep the thing
running. Note, however, that the host we use (BlueBox Group) has very
good support and will do most sysadmin tasks for you if you just
submit a ticket.

In return, we'd just like a graphic on the homepage mentioning our
sponsorship, plus a mention in emails that go out to new members to
the effect of "we're sponsored by Obsidian Portal, send them a note at
b...@obsidianportal.com since they love meeting new members of the
network" (which we do, in fact).

Note: I know someone else (Chris Tregenza) has already offered
something similar. I'm just tossing our hat into the ring as well, in
case people want another option or the hosting costs are too
burdensome for a single person.

Again, we're very sorry to hear about the changes but hope that the
RPGBN can survive and continue to thrive, and we'd like to help in any
way we can.

Micah
mi...@obsidianportal.com

On Oct 20, 8:16 am, Dave Chalker <d...@critical-hits.com> wrote:
> Dear RPG Bloggers Members & Readers:
>
> Over the coming weeks the RPG Bloggers Network will be undergoing some
> major transitions.  First and foremost the application and admission
> process has been closed for the time being while we work things out.
>
> In addition some leadership changes have occurred - Phil has stepped
> down from the board and as Community Manager, Dave will be stepping
> down as leader of the board to a more secondary role as the Network
> moves forward, Graham will be stepping down as Technical Director, and
> Danny may still be involved in minor ways with the Network but not to
> the same extent.
>
> We are searching for new leaders for the Network from amongst our
> membership and we welcome you to speak up if this is something you'd
> be interested in helping out with.  While we would like to be involved
> in the process of who will take over the Network, we can also sit
> aside from that process if it is the will of the collective Network
> membership.
>
> One of the biggest hurdles for running the Network is hosting. CPU
> requirements are considerable, even with supercache enabled.  It
> basically has to load all of Wordpress just to retrieve an RSS feed.
> We experimented with a number of solutions, including shared server
> space, but ultimately did not find a best solution with the budget
> that had been available to us. So anyone wishing to take it over will
> need to carefully consider their hosting situation.
>
> If a suitable new situation is presented, we will work to hand off all
> the data to make the process as seamless as possible, and sell the
> domain for the $20 we paid for it. Otherwise, we will probably have no
> choice but to shut the RPG Bloggers Network down.
>
> Thank you,
> The Former RPG Bloggers Network Board- Dave, Phil, Graham, Danny

[Cheri Arbuckle]

I just wanted to chime in with the general "sorry to see you go". Without you guys, Evil Machinations would probably still be scrambling for it's first 40 readers or so. Thanks for everything you've done for us.

I honestly can't blame you for stepping down. It's like the advice I give to every GM -- if you're not having fun, stop the game. It doesn't matter how much your players are enjoying it. If you're not loving it, you're going to start resenting it and that will bring it down faster than than anything else.

I don't have the technical expertise (especially with PHP) to take it over, but I think Chris would do a great job at it, so count on my support in that area. As far as other things discussed -- I'd be happy to pay a small amount of dues to keep it viable. $1 a month (Canadian or American? ;) ) is more than affordable and I'd be happy to pay it to keep this alive. If I can be of any help on a non-technical end, I'd love to do that.

Cheri "Jade" Arbuckle
Evil Machinations: http://www.rpggm.com/blog/

[Robert Conley]

I think that a technical group should get together and make a list of
technical options for the membership to vote on. Chris and Micah for
starters. In addition Berin stuff we are getting some solid proposals
that should be looked at.

Rob Conley

On Oct 20, 1:37 pm, "Micah (from Obsidian Portal)" <fanm...@micah-

[Chuck]

Wow. Right now there's so much chaos. I think we need to take a
moment and get organized for just managing the transition. At least,
get some sort of voluteer wrangler.

Thanks to 6d6 for hosting and Uncle "The Brute Squad" Bear for being
the bouncer.

While I'm no expert in PHP etc, I'm more than willing to help any
other way I can.

OK, gotta go back to the day job. More later.

On Oct 20, 10:44 am, Jake Fitch <milam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Democracy and Hardass are not opposite ends of any spectrum.  The
> Network can be democratic, and still have hardass enforcers.
>
> As for free.. the Network should have to pay for itself.  Its nice
> that someone is willing to offer hosting for now, but what happens 6
> months down the line when they stop blogging, or lose their own
> hosting or whatever.  Whether its membership dues, or advertising the
> Network needs to be able to support itself.
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Viriatha Cordova
>
>
>
> <viricord...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > write a charter outline already, Chris :P Just an outline, though,
> > then people can chime in with what they'd like to see included, etc
>
> > I volunteer to be Network Gadfly lol

>
> > On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Chris Tregenza <ch...@6d6fireball.com> wrote:
>
> >> Berin,
>
> >> I'm have a very different idea of where the RPG Network should go.
>
> >> The current success of the network is down to its openness and its
> >> tolerance plus a lot of hard work by the team.
>
> >> Now whatever happens, the people doing the day-to-day stuff will have to
> >> do a lot of work and put up with sh*t. Nothing is going to change that.
> >> What is important is that the sh*t does not become overwhelming and the
> >> people doing the work know that the bulk of the members support and
> >> appreciate them.
>
> >> This is best done through the election of officials and a charter that
> >> supports them.
>
> >> The RPGBN should be run by the members for the aim of promoting RPG
> >> blogs and the hobby of tabletop role-playing games. To achieve this
> >> goal, membership of the network should remain free and open to all. Even
> >> to the casual wannabess and the people who are simply a pain in the ass.
>
> >> People who break the rules of the charter should be suspend or expelled
> >> but this should not, must not be done by some arbitrary group making
> >> unexplained decisions. It is exactly this arrangement that has led to
> >> the current problem.
>

> >> The next phase of the RPGBN life must be based on openness and democracy.
>

> >> Chris

> > --
> > Viri Cordova
>
> > The Bard of Valiant

> >http://bardofvaliant.com/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Brian Fitzpatrick]

Thought I'd chime in here...

Honestly this sounds pretty reasonable. Unfortunately, I tend to agree
with Robert Conley talking about the membership fee being the fly in
the ointment... Even at $5 for a "review fee" you'll probably get a
lot of pushback. Most folks don't blog for the $$, so even to ask for
$1 might be viewed poorly by the community at large.

However... The concept of a small publisher-sponsored network appeals
to me. I'm certainly not making much money as a small, one-man RPG
publisher (maybe earned $20 so far), but the idea that I might be able
to not only help fund a hobby that I have loved since I was a kid,
write on a topic I love, and potentially promote my own products now
and then definitely has its charm.

Multiple questions come of this then...

1) How many small publishers do we have in the network that would be
willing to chip in to support it?
2) Would there be enough willing to pay enough to support the effort?
3) What benefits would such sponsors receive?
4) How would such sponsorship and benefits be perceived by the
membership-at-large?

The benefits to the membership-at-large might be along the lines of
what folks like Zachary has already done on his own blog such as
offering product discounts to readers. Or they may be free SWAG given
to folks who agree to review products... etc.

I'm a very small (tiny) fish in the sea here and a new one to the
network at that, but I would hate to see this amazing conglomeration
of talented, creative, and inspiring writers flee elsewhere. The
founders have done an amazing job of herding cats to this point and
I'd like to think there are enough tech-savvy and social network-savvy
individuals among the network members to keep it afloat.

As a side note, I'd be willing to volunteer my time as a
writer/editor/proofreader to the network if it's needed (ex-technical
writer with a degree in Tech. Journalism who's turned to development
over the last 10 years or so).

Thanks
--Fitz
http://blog2.moebiusadventures.com

--
Brian Fitzpatrick (aka "Fitz")
Lair of the Green Knight (Blog) - http://writer.fitzhome.com
Moebius Adventures Games (Blog) - http://blog.moebiusadventures.com

[Graham Poole]

Micah,

It is currently on a VPS, so something similar should do. Dedicated hosting is far beyond our needs.

Graham

[donn...@msn.com]

Open question that has been passed up a couple of times.

How many RPGBN members actually have the technical know-how and
equipment to do this?

Seems silly (among other words) to bother with all this voting and
other nonsense if the reality is only 10 of us have what is REQUIRED
to have any kind of active role managing the network.

By extension, these 10 will be the ONLY ones who can ever do it.
There's a few other -cracy words that cover that. Democracy my ass.

[Viriatha Cordova]

Several of us have the equipment to host it. I could myself on nothing
more than what I'm already paying.

A couple of people have mentioned having the knowledge and willingness.

[donn...@msn.com]

"A COUPLE of people have mentioned having the knowledge AND
willingness." Emphasis mine.

And this is my problem. A couple of how many bloggers?

> The Bard of Valianthttp://bardofvaliant.com/- Hide quoted text -

[kd7...@gmail.com]

I have the know how and maybe the equipment(it depends on the solution of course). I suspect there are quite a few with either the know how,the equipment, or both.

-----Original Message-----
From: "donn...@msn.com" <donn...@msn.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:03:32
To: rpgbloggers<rpgbl...@googlegroups.com>

[Robert Conley]

Yes but they can't do it by themselves either. You set up the
capability and nobody comes what the point? So the new charter has to
involve the membership and not just a select few.

Rob Conley

On Oct 20, 2:03 pm, "donny0...@msn.com" <donny0...@msn.com> wrote:
> Open question that has been passed up a couple of times.

[donn...@msn.com]

Enough so that we arent just passing the hosting torch around the same
group of buddies? That's where "good old boy" patronage networks get
established. Then any vote is just gonna be more of the same with a
different face. That isnt democracy or any other type of
representative admin. Thats rule by "the elite".

"Gee donny, you're a great blogger (it's my daydream, bear with me)
and you have vision aplenty, we'd love for you to be president of
RPGBN...you DO have a C+ cert, right? And know PHP and .NET
protocols? You have a decent machine too, right - that can handle the
load? How's your HTML skills? You can do 24-hour tech support on the
fly? No? Well then back to the salt mines with you."

Does anyone get where I am coming from? Have I become the crazy old
hermit?

> There's a few other -cracy words that cover that.  Democracy my ass.- Hide quoted text -

[Jeffrey Uurtamo]

I think we know where you are coming from, so your not quite a crazy old hermit yet!

[Jake Fitch]

There is more to the Network than the technology required to run it.

The president of the Network doesn't have to have the tech knowledge
to run it. I'm pretty sure that Dave didn't do all that stuff. Thats
why there was a Technical Director to deal with it.

There is alot more work to the Network than just the programming.
Approving new members is not really a technical job. Sure some
know-how would be required, but I would guess mostly just filling out
a web form or something similar.

[Kevin]

Ok, I'll bite. I'm definitely a small fish here as well as what could
arguably be considered a new guy. I blog as a hobby. I have yet to make a
single dime from my RPG-related activities, so understand that's the main
reason for my single answer to all three questions.

Am I willing to pay dues/How much am I willing to pay/What would it take
me to get you into this car today?
That depends. Sorry I can't be more specific. But there's a lot of factors
that come into play here. For example: What's in it for me?

And before you start heating the oil and plucking the
chickens, consider that I see this as a hobby. I already sink a fair bit
of my paycheck into this and related RPG activities as I'm sure most of
you do as well. So unless someone can identify valid and tangable benefits
of membership, then I'll have to be a non-menber. It's not that I don't see
some small benefit from the marginal traffic I get by being a member,
rather that the current ROI doesn't rise to the level of paying a
membership fee.

Kevin

On Tue, 20 Oct 2009, Mad Brew wrote:

>
> You are assuming that 100% of the membership will stick around and pay
> dues. Perhaps we should poll the membership and:
>
> 1) See if they are willing to pay dues
> 2) See how much they are willing to pay
> 3) See if they could be enticed with additional benefits for premium
> memberships
>
> I think this would require an email to all current members if that is
> possible.
> >
>