Website and Emails are Down

[Des Moines Maker Space]

Our domain name, area515.org, is not working right now. Until it is restored, you won’t be able to access our website or use any email address ending in “@area515.org”

• Memberships, keys, and ability to access the space are unaffected. 
• Nobody’s personal or payment information has been compromised. 
• To request training (or communicate with the board) please contact us using area5...@gmail.com.
• Slack communication is unaffected (likewise our Google group)

What happened: A few days ago our lease on the “area515.org” domain name expired. (For us non-techys, it’s paying so that when someone types that address into their web browser, they get directed to our website.) The domain was on auto renewal, but we forgot to update with our new payment info. We did receive emails warning of the expiration, but we missed them.

     By the time we realized what happened, someone else had bought the domain name, and put it up for resale on a site called sedo.com. Sedo.com is an auction site for domain names (like eBay, but specifically for domain names). The minimum bid for our domain was set at $500. (Normally our domain name only costs $11 per year.)

     On Saturday afternoon we placed our bid for $500 to get the domain back. Our bid is good for 7 days. Nobody has bid against us. Since we've gone 24 hours with no response so far,  I have a feeling that we won’t hear anything back until closer to Sept 6 - the end of the 7 day deadline. When we know more, we’ll post it here on our Google group here.

Questions & Concerns: Post them on our Google group here! It’s a thread specifically about this. I and the other board members will try to answer your questions and concerns as best we can.

Legally, everything that’s happened is above board. No laws have been broken. We made a mistake, somebody saw an opportunity to exploit it for financial gain and they took it. We, on the board of directors, screwed up by not making sure our payment info was up to date and not regularly checking the email account on the domain registration. This was not one person screwing up, it was multiple people making mistakes, and we are doing our best to make it right.

Thank you for your time,

Brad Freese

Secretary, Board of Directors

Area 515 Des Moines Makerspace