Ronin Communications

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Keith Tse

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Mar 11, 2025, 3:48:02 PMMar 11
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Dear all, as you may have noticed, our Slack platform has been deactivated (almost immediately after the announcement of our new bylaws), which is very inconvenient as this used to be the hub of our Ronin community. We have been using Discord for close to a year now (almost immediately after the formal announcement of closure last April), and I rather like it, even though it is not as good as the Slack Premium subscription that we used to have (though it is significantly better than Slack basic which is really quite basic). I believe that US 501(c)3 organisations can enjoy a free subscription of Slack Premium which we may consider for RIIS 2.0. For the time being, if anyone would like to join our Discord server, please contact either me or John LaRocco for a time-sensitive invite link. There are many good discussions on Discord and we hope that as many of our members as possible can participate in them! 

Best, 
Keith 

Paola Di Maio

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Mar 11, 2025, 11:18:47 PMMar 11
to Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Thank you Keith
I am not on Discord - I dont know why  I dont feel comfortable on that platform but its great that people are using it

please relay any meaningful information/discussion pertaining to the plan forward that is happening there

At this stage based on Ruth's presentation, it appears that we have Alex, Jorrit and Jovita on board to start
the process of putting together a committee, incorporating and jumpstarting the org.
 Alain and myself have domain names ready to be
pointed to a host. We need to choose the best host and I d be  happy to hand over the keys to Alex since he has the infrastructure already in place
and knows the ins and outs
plus issuing emails. I am happy to pay an annual fee to contribute the server and incorporation costs, should not be too much

I d suggest we start a slack on the free plan nd upgrade to premium after incorporation

The only question I had at this point is that it did not seem very clear whey/whether this incorporation should take place in California

Either way, thanks for keeping everyone informed of the goings

PDM


--
This discussion group is low traffic, and intended to serve polite informed and to the point discussions to a broad community of independent scholars on topics of general interest It is generally unmoderated, but may occasionally tuned to moderated when the list becomes overwhelmed . Please be mindful and aware that your message may be relevant only to few members *when accepting an invitation to a meeting or LT for example, send your replies and notifications only to the organisers rather than to the whole list. But if a post of general interest is not distributed within 48 hours or so, either the moderators are away, or it was caught by some filter. Please alert the managers. Keep in touch with others also using Ronin Slack and Discord channels by contacting administrators.
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alain tam

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Mar 12, 2025, 6:13:34 AMMar 12
to paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
The plan is to incorporate in California, which was a close second to Colorado in the survey results. We are trying to keep ronininstitute.org as the domain name.

For budgeting purposes, if you are a Ronin scholar and you intend on joining the new Ronin Institute, could you please so indicate by responding to this message. The annual dues are unlikely to be more than $100/yr (US). 

Paola Di Maio

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Mar 12, 2025, 7:53:18 AMMar 12
to jgm...@rezozer.net, alain tam, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Of course it would be awesome if we could keep the domain, and we know that Jon holds the master key to admin the website

Because cashflow is an issue for many/some scholars
The way I d like to estimate the request for monetary contribution is as follows

cost of server and infrastructure PLUS 
cost of incorporation PLUS
 accountant fees  for a year PLUS
 a  petty cash 
DIVIDED BY number of people contributing to the cost
*insert formula

That would result in a fairly accurate figure for hard costs and should be paid in actual money *unless we decide there are extenuating circumstances
to be discussed. 
I also wonder what happens to  scholars who cannot advance the cash?

In addition to covering the live costs, Scholars could also make a work contribution *a work unit
or something like that

I understand how this may work is to decided after incorporation, but for the time being I am happy to contribute
a share of the costs provided I know what the costs are, and provided I have the availability to do so

On Wed, Mar 12, 2025 at 7:05 PM Jerome BENOIT <jgm...@rezozer.net> wrote:
Hello, thanks a lot for all your efforts.


On 12/03/2025 11:13, alain tam wrote:
> For budgeting purposes, if you are a Ronin scholar and you intend on joining the new Ronin Institute, could you please so indicate by responding to this message.

Yes I do.
Please put me on the list.

Best wishes,
Jerome

--
Jerome BENOIT, Ph.D. | jgmbenoit-at+rezozer*dot_net
https://www.rezozer.net/

Kathleen Stein-Smith

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Mar 12, 2025, 7:57:36 AMMar 12
to Paola Di Maio, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship, alain tam, jgm...@rezozer.net
Hi all,

If I have not already responded, please know that I would like to join the new organization.

Best,


Kathy 

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This discussion group is low traffic, and intended to serve polite informed and to the point discussions to a broad community of independent scholars on topics of general interest It is generally unmoderated, but may occasionally tuned to moderated when the list becomes overwhelmed . Please be mindful and aware that your message may be relevant only to few members *when accepting an invitation to a meeting or LT for example, send your replies and notifications only to the organisers rather than to the whole list. But if a post of general interest is not distributed within 48 hours or so, either the moderators are away, or it was caught by some filter. Please alert the managers. Keep in touch with others also using Ronin Slack and Discord channels by contacting administrators.
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ukko....@gmail.com

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Mar 12, 2025, 8:39:12 AMMar 12
to alain tam, paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship

Dear All – since beginning of the troubles, I kept RONIN on my Radar, being based in Germany. I consider that primarily the Ronins living in the USA must have the opportunity setting up a structure according to their needs. This seems to come through. I am happy to join into it.  – best regards, Martin

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Bohle, Wittengarten 6, D-33775 Versmold

 

ResearchGate D-4508-2014, ORCID: 0000-0002-8794-5810

  - International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG)

  - IGDORE, martin.bohle(a)igdore.org; martin.edgeryder(a)wittengarten.eu

Dr. ès sci.; Lifetime member of EGU & AGU, Edgeryders, Ronin Scholar

Associated Fellow of the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (Uni. Erfurt)

 

Call for contribution - Cultural Science Journal, Special issue: The Human Condition for the Anthropocene: Being more-than-human

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/kolleg/aktuelles/publikationen/zeitschriften-und-elektronische-ressourcen/cultural-science

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Lawrence

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Mar 12, 2025, 8:46:41 AMMar 12
to Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Here's the details on the Slack Pro subscription - free upgrade with 250 or fewer workspace members, 85% discount above that:


From: ronin-s...@googlegroups.com <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Keith Tse <keithtse...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2025 7:48:02 PM
To: Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Ronin Communications
 
Dear all, as you may have noticed, our Slack platform has been deactivated (almost immediately after the announcement of our new bylaws), which is very inconvenient as this used to be the hub of our Ronin community. We have been using Discord for close to a year now (almost immediately after the formal announcement of closure last April), and I rather like it, even though it is not as good as the Slack Premium subscription that we used to have (though it is significantly better than Slack basic which is really quite basic). I believe that US 501(c)3 organisations can enjoy a free subscription of Slack Premium which we may consider for RIIS 2.0. For the time being, if anyone would like to join our Discord server, please contact either me or John LaRocco for a time-sensitive invite link. There are many good discussions on Discord and we hope that as many of our members as possible can participate in them! 

Best, 
Keith 

--

Arkadiusz Jadczyk

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Mar 12, 2025, 8:48:30 AMMar 12
to alain tam, paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
" For budgeting purposes, if you are a Ronin scholar and you intend on joining the new Ronin Institute, could you please so indicate by responding to this message. The annual dues are unlikely to be more than $100/yr (US). "

Sounds good. I am for.

Arkadiusz Jadczyk

Tom Lawrence

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Mar 12, 2025, 8:52:51 AMMar 12
to Paola Di Maio, jgm...@rezozer.net, alain tam, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
If it does turn out to be $100 p.a. or less, count me in. If it ends up being over this, ask me again with a precise figure and I'll make a judgement then. (About 2 years ago, I'd have struggled with even this, but things are thankfully a bit more comfortable now.)
From: ronin-s...@googlegroups.com <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Paola Di Maio <paolad...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2025 11:52:37 AM
To: jgm...@rezozer.net <jgm...@rezozer.net>
Cc: alain tam <alain...@gmail.com>; Keith Tse <keithtse...@gmail.com>; Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Ronin Communications
 
--
This discussion group is low traffic, and intended to serve polite informed and to the point discussions to a broad community of independent scholars on topics of general interest It is generally unmoderated, but may occasionally tuned to moderated when the list becomes overwhelmed . Please be mindful and aware that your message may be relevant only to few members *when accepting an invitation to a meeting or LT for example, send your replies and notifications only to the organisers rather than to the whole list. But if a post of general interest is not distributed within 48 hours or so, either the moderators are away, or it was caught by some filter. Please alert the managers. Keep in touch with others also using Ronin Slack and Discord channels by contacting administrators.
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brandon

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Mar 12, 2025, 8:53:09 AMMar 12
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Hi,

On 12/03/2025 11:13 PM, alain tam wrote:
> The plan is to incorporate in California, which was a close second to
> Colorado in the survey results. We are trying to keep ronininstitute.org
> <http://ronininstitute.org> as the domain name.

This answers a separate question I had posted to the GH repo. Thank you.

> For budgeting purposes, if you are a Ronin scholar and you intend on
> joining the new Ronin Institute, could you please so indicate by
> responding to this message. The annual dues are unlikely to be more than
> $100/yr (US).

+1 I intend to join the new Ronin Institute.
/Brandon

Fuka, Daniel

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Mar 12, 2025, 9:00:54 AMMar 12
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
At $100 a year you can count me in and I'll throw another $100 into a scholarship fund for low income scholars. 

Dr. Daniel R. Fuka

Also need to update my google group as I'm no longer at VTech... 

From: ronin-s...@googlegroups.com <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tom Lawrence <t...@warpedandbroken.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2025 6:52:45 AM
To: Paola Di Maio <paolad...@gmail.com>; jgm...@rezozer.net <jgm...@rezozer.net>

Rami Saydjari

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Mar 12, 2025, 9:03:05 AMMar 12
to Fuka, Daniel, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
I am in


Thanks
Rami

Rami Saydjari
3 Pine Knoll Drive
Atkinson, NH 03811


Anne Thessen

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Mar 12, 2025, 10:06:53 AMMar 12
to alain tam, paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
I plan to join and the $100 is fine with me

Dana Rosen

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Mar 12, 2025, 10:11:50 AMMar 12
to Rami Saydjari, Fuka, Daniel, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship

Count me in.

Best,

Dana

 

 

Dana Rosen, Ph.D.

Institute for Globally-Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE)

+972.54.7108855

dana....@igdore.org

dana.g...@gmail.com

ukko....@gmail.com

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Mar 12, 2025, 10:51:13 AMMar 12
to Fuka, Daniel, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship

Hello Daniel, hello All – I join Daniel for ‘another $100 into a scholarship fund for low income scholars’. Regards, Martin

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Bohle, Wittengarten 6, D-33775 Versmold

 

ResearchGate D-4508-2014, ORCID: 0000-0002-8794-5810

  - International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG)

  - IGDORE, martin.bohle(a)igdore.org; martin.edgeryder(a)wittengarten.eu

Dr. ès sci.; Lifetime member of EGU & AGU, Edgeryders, Ronin Scholar

Associated Fellow of the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (Uni. Erfurt)

 

Call for contribution - Cultural Science Journal, Special issue: The Human Condition for the Anthropocene: Being more-than-human

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/kolleg/aktuelles/publikationen/zeitschriften-und-elektronische-ressourcen/cultural-science

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

Keith Tse

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Mar 12, 2025, 4:05:01 PMMar 12
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Dear all, thank you for all your messages of solidarity and support for RIIS 2.0. We would hope to retain as many of our members as possible, even though there is bound to be some attrition given the fiasco of last year. You may know this already but I have just discovered that our ronininstitute.org email domain no longer receives messages, as an email sent to a member has been bounced back, which is a more advanced state of deactivation than previously when we were no longer able to send messages but could still receive them. It is really great that we have managed to launch RIIS 2.0 just as the final steps in the dismantling of our old institute are being taken (Slack, website, email etc). This reminds me of the importance of having an institutional email (and website) for our new institute. Much remains to be done, and much excitement too! Let's look forward to the launching of RIIS 2.0!

Best, 
Keith 

Paola Di Maio

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Mar 12, 2025, 10:59:25 PMMar 12
to Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
@Alan can you please disclose on what basis you think we can retain the ronininstute.org domain name?
Have you been in touch with Jon, who is the registered owner, or with the registrar?
Otherwise, I d suggest we move on with the new domain names, we can always keep both
if the old one becomes available to us again.

Tom Lawrence

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Mar 14, 2025, 4:58:45 AMMar 14
to paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
As far as I'm aware, @ handles don't have any meaning in a Google group, so I'm curious: who was this email aimed at - who is @Alan?
From: ronin-s...@googlegroups.com <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Paola Di Maio <paola....@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2025 2:58:44 AM
To: Keith Tse <keithtse...@gmail.com>
Cc: Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Ronin Communications
 

alain tam

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Mar 14, 2025, 6:46:39 AMMar 14
to paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Hi Paola,
No, I have not been in touch with Jon. You are right, if we cannot secure the original name, we may have to look at options like ronin-institute.org, RoninInstitute.net, etc.
-Allan

Tom Lawrence

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Mar 14, 2025, 7:10:41 AMMar 14
to alain tam, paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship

alain tam

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Mar 14, 2025, 7:11:24 AMMar 14
to Tom Lawrence, paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Hi Tom,
Perhaps this was directed at me, Allan Tameshtit? (My email moniker is Alain.)

BTW,
Approximately 23 people responded "yes," one responded "no," and two responded "maybe." (Two people generously offered to pay twice the amount, so perhaps it should be 25?) The responses came on the Google, Discord and bylaws groups.
The question was:
"For budgeting purposes, if you are a Ronin scholar and you intend on joining the new Ronin Institute, could you please so indicate by responding to this message. The annual dues are unlikely to be more than $100/yr (US)."
-Allan

Paola Di Maio

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Mar 14, 2025, 7:11:51 AMMar 14
to alain tam, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Alain, 
If Alex is up for restarting the website, he has all the backups and i can hand over the domain. we could all have our emails and profiles back up
as soon as Alex has a moment to do it. and put down a sum to cover his costs. We do not need to wait until incorporation for this to happen and can always continue to use the old URL and email addresses if they are back into our control.

We all know that the domain was held by Jon until recently, together with the slack but now the domain is being transferred and the slack is down

everyone can get this info from WHOIS.  Unless you or some other scholar is in talks to get the old  domain from Jon, we should consider that someone unknown to us is having such communication with him with the purpose of taking control of the domain name *and possibly the new institute 
 without sharing information/details/discussions with scholars about what they are doing - I fear that those who looted and ransacked RI bank account may still try to control *from the backdoor what is going on

This is why it is important we are as transparent as possible. I would want to pay money to cover running costs,
 but not to pay unnecessary expenses


image.png

Paola Di Maio

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Mar 14, 2025, 7:27:00 AMMar 14
to alain tam, Tom Lawrence, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Hay, Alain

(I responded to Tom privately to denoise the list about the @   there is a long answer)

 Those numbers you give are a good start but we have 150 scholars on this list, I would hope that
most would want join the new RIIS, unless some conditions are imposed on them that may prevent/discourage them to do so
But you only asked a few days ago, so maybe it would take asking a few more times. and others can always join later

I am not sure if I responded or not or if you recorded my response
there are two questions 
  1.would you like to join the new RIIS  and 2.would you be prepared to pay 100 usd joining fee
so my answer is

1. OF COURSE I d like to join the new RIIS - *I hope others as well

2. the joining fee  that I am prepared to pay must be justified AND all decisions must be transparent logical (rather than totally absurd or without explicit rationale)

Cheers

alain tam

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Mar 14, 2025, 1:25:30 PMMar 14
to paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
It appears that thanks to the efforts of a couple of people, we are going to be getting our ronininstitute.org domain name back! This is a welcome development...to be confirmed.
-Allan

sucismita.chutia

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Mar 14, 2025, 1:36:54 PMMar 14
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Hi,
 
I  will like to join the new Ronin Institute and will pay the requisite fee.

With best regards,

Sucismita

The question was:

Keith Tse

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Mar 14, 2025, 5:30:00 PMMar 14
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Dear all, I like Paola's two part question: 1) Would you like to join RIIS 2.0? 2) Would you be willing to pay $100 USD as annual membership dues? I imagine that many people would say 'yes' to 1), while 2) might (well) deter a good number of them. We should then make known to them that we offer waivers on an individual basis and encourage those who say 'no' to 2) to review our requirements for them. This would be a much more nuanced and cautious approach towards offering membership to RIIS 2.0 to our members (existing and prospective). Could we reframe our membership question along these lines? 

Best, 
Keith 

thomas.j....@gmail.com

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Mar 14, 2025, 8:34:19 PMMar 14
to Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship

I want to join RIIS 2.0. $100 is ok.

 

- Tom

 

Thomas J. Buckholtz

t...@alumni.caltech.edu

 

From: ronin-s...@googlegroups.com <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Keith Tse
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2025 2:30 PM
To: Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship <ronin-s...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Ronin Communications

 

Dear all, I like Paola's two part question: 1) Would you like to join RIIS 2.0? 2) Would you be willing to pay $100 USD as annual membership dues? I imagine that many people would say 'yes' to 1), while 2) might (well) deter a good number of them. We should then make known to them that we offer waivers on an individual basis and encourage those who say 'no' to 2) to review our requirements for them. This would be a much more nuanced and cautious approach towards offering membership to RIIS 2.0 to our members (existing and prospective). Could we reframe our membership question along these lines? 

--

This discussion group is low traffic, and intended to serve polite informed and to the point discussions to a broad community of independent scholars on topics of general interest It is generally unmoderated, but may occasionally tuned to moderated when the list becomes overwhelmed . Please be mindful and aware that your message may be relevant only to few members *when accepting an invitation to a meeting or LT for example, send your replies and notifications only to the organisers rather than to the whole list. But if a post of general interest is not distributed within 48 hours or so, either the moderators are away, or it was caught by some filter. Please alert the managers. Keep in touch with others also using Ronin Slack and Discord channels by contacting administrators.
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John LaRocco

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Mar 14, 2025, 10:03:21 PMMar 14
to thomas.j....@gmail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Yes to both.

Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

Paola Di Maio

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Mar 19, 2025, 12:20:37 AMMar 19
to alain tam, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Thank you Alain,  yes it is great that we can have the old domain back 
I d like to know to whom the old domain name is being transferred to, and by what type of negotiation
Has Jon donated it to  whom? *since nobody has been officially in touch with Jon, except for Carolyn Sealfon, from what I remember
PDM

alain tam

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Apr 6, 2025, 12:09:24 PMApr 6
to paolad...@googlemail.com, Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Thanks to Alex's efforts, we now have a live ronininstitute.org website that no longer unceremoniously states that we have closed our doors, which, by the way, should not have happened without consulting members first. For now, the new website is a placeholder. If you have expertise in web design and wish to contribute to the design of the new Ronin Institute, please identify yourself.
-Allan

On Wed, Mar 12, 2025 at 10:59 PM Paola Di Maio <paola....@gmail.com> wrote:

Keith Tse

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Apr 6, 2025, 1:56:33 PMApr 6
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Thank you for the great news! I am sorry to have missed our last bylaws meeting. I too have experience in website design (WordPress, G-sites, Wix) and I wonder whether we could use our previous template on our current domain? I and many people really liked our old website which was so beautifully designed and we were able to directly edit our individual profile pages. Would it be possible to use this? If our domain has been secured and our old template has been saved, I imagine that the rest should be straightforward. Please let us know if there is anything that we could do to help and contribute. Thank you all once again! 

Best, 
Keith 

Paola Di Maio

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Apr 7, 2025, 12:01:35 AMApr 7
to Keith Tse, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Alain and Keith
Yes I scraped the old css, and have website management experience, happy to help

Anyone can scrape the old stylesheet css from ronin-institute.org,  this is why I put it up there

although perhaps we could/should change and renew some elements and obviously, update the wording

It depends on what role Alex wants to take

I d be glad if Alex took over the website, reinstatement, emails, and new temporary wording - maybe seeking feedback
and to be of assistance in related tasks

P

Tom Lawrence

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Apr 7, 2025, 6:52:16 AMApr 7
to ronin-s...@googlegroups.com

Just realised I sent the email below to Keith only – obviously that wasn’t the intention!

 

From: Tom Lawrence
Sent: 06 April 2025 22:53
To: Keith Tse <keithtse...@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: Ronin Communications

 

Allan, that’s good news!

 

Sorry to say, Keith, that your view isn’t universal. I never liked it. It was all gloomy dark blues and blacks, searches for scholars never loaded properly in my browsers and there was really nothing about the layout I liked. (Furthermore, in the CAMP group, we weren’t able to edit our individual bios on the CAMP page, or add links on it to our individual outputs – one member of the group had to be the editor for the whole of the page. I took this on from Tom Buckholtz I think about six months to a year before the crisis hit, in order to add links to presentations to the group, etc, and never got round to it.)

 

I don’t have web designer skills, but have worked with a web designer who has created both my websites to my specifications (for a surprisingly low fee), and I’m really delighted with both of them – I think they’re really cheery and visually appealing:

https://warpedandbroken.com/

https://trlinsight.co.uk/

 

If we are to have a new website, please please let it be better than the old one.

 

Tom

Keith Tse

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Apr 7, 2025, 5:26:42 PMApr 7
to Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Dear Tom, it seems that you and I have very different tastes in visual aesthetics (and I do admit that I like dark colours in the region of blue and green), which is totally fine, and I am glad that you have raised your concerns on our previous website which I am sure will be taken into account when we launch our new website. I think most of the visual aspects are tied to the WordPress template we choose, and once a particular template is chosen, there may be little room for changing and editing (please correct me if I am wrong). 
Aesthetics aside, I really liked the structure of our previous website and the pages it had which were clear and easy to navigate. I also loved our individual profile pages which were fully editable. Whatever changes we make to the new website, I hope that these can remain, though there will necessarily be changes to reflect our new bylaws and constitution etc. 
I do agree that our members search engine was insufficient, as I was unable to quickly find our members even when typing their names directly and exactly and I would often need to use their research fields to find them, which was not only frustrating but also peculiar. I suppose that we should mention any concerns and feedback we have on our previous website to the relevant people or on this thread so that we could all be made aware of them? 
Anyway, I am sure that our new website will look fantastic when it is launched eventually. I also look forward to the resurrection of our Ronin email accounts which I believe are tied to the same domain as our website, though this may take a little longer as we consider different services at our disposal. The good news is that we have now reclaimed possession of the domain of our website and can now do many things to it, which is exciting! 

Best,  
Keith 

Tom Lawrence

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Apr 8, 2025, 2:27:18 PMApr 8
to ronin-s...@googlegroups.com
Oops done it again!


From: Tom Lawrence <t...@warpedandbroken.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 8, 2025 2:10:00 pm
To: Keith Tse <keithtse...@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: FW: Ronin Communications

Thanks Keith, yes, it does sound like we have different tastes, and that probably is the main point of difference. I do hope that when we get the new site, CAMP members will all be able to edit the CAMP pages relating to their own bios and outputs without it having to go through one “editor” for the group – that would a practical implementation of a “do-ocracy”.

 

If we can get back our email accounts, that would be fabulous. I’ve just remembered that my Ronin email address is still my login for my MDPI account, and perhaps other sites – I’ve never got round to changing this. If this is likely to take a little longer, I might do so, in case I miss any service messages from the sites.

 

Best wishes

Paola Di Maio

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Apr 19, 2025, 2:14:53 AMApr 19
to Tom Lawrence, ronin-s...@googlegroups.com
Allaina Keith Tom and others

would like to add@

while I am happy to help Alex maintain the website, I would like to know who owns the domain name
before doing so- 

would not want it it to be owned by shrewed  scammers who may still be manipulating the new institute behind the scenes

Regarding the website design, I was happy with the old one but had to ask Alex to make changs/updates
that is surely an unnecessary  bottleneck,  if the values stated in the bylaws are implemented we need to survey members
regarding the desired features for the new website -

asking questions such as
would you be happy with the same/similar site
what changes would you suggest for the new website


managing our own profiles , events and resources is totally desirable for me

I am sure I asked before, who owns the domain name now?
was it donated by Jon, or was it  obtained via  legal dispute/blackmail/extortion
because that would make a difference to some Scholars

PDM


Arkadiusz Jadczyk

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Apr 19, 2025, 4:20:21 AMApr 19
to paolad...@googlemail.com, Tom Lawrence, ronin-s...@googlegroups.com
Adding to Paola's question: what is the status of the domain? Has the domain name been paid for years in advance? Or, instead, it is in debt of payments? The same about the server.

Ark

Vesselin Gueorguiev

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Apr 19, 2025, 11:25:34 AMApr 19
to paolad...@googlemail.com, ronin-s...@googlegroups.com, Tom Lawrence, Walter David
Hi All,

I am sure that Alex and others are aware of tools for non-profits, never the less I will remind the community that there is Google for Nonprofits.
https://support.google.com/nonprofits/ but to be fair there is also Microsoft for Nonprofits, and Zoho for Nonprofits, and even Slack.
Here is a CahtGPT comparison of the top three: https://chatgpt.com/share/6803c017-97bc-8002-b2c8-6d6728be873c

All the best,
Vesselin
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