RadioRob

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.
 
While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.
 
As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.
 
I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.
 
Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.
 
I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.
 
I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.
 
While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.
 
As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.
 
I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.
 
Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.
 
I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.
 
I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.
 
While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.
 
As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.
 
I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.
 
Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.
 
I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.
 
I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.
 
While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.
 
As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.
 
I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.
 
Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.
 
I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.
 
I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.
 
While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.
 
As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.
 
I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.
 
Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.
 
I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.
 
I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.

We have moved the forum to a new server as of a few minutes ago. I have not had a chance to work on the review site yet. That will eventually happen. In order to do that, I'll need to setup a different website for daddysreviews.com since we don't (yet) control the domain's DNS settings. I'll most likely set it up temporarily as https://reviews.m4m-forum.org until we can get control of the domain's DNS.
 
I still need to work on a few other things such as setting up automatic backups, etc. I just wanted to get the site back online ASAP so I took a bunch of shortcuts to get things online and then going back to do the stuff I skipped.

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.
 
While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.
 
As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.
 
I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.
 
Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.
 
I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.
 
I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.

We have moved the forum to a new server as of a few minutes ago. I have not had a chance to work on the review site yet. That will eventually happen. In order to do that, I'll need to setup a different website for daddysreviews.com since we don't (yet) control the domain's DNS settings. I'll most likely set it up temporarily as https://reviews.m4m-forum.org until we can get control of the domain's DNS.
 
I still need to work on a few other things such as setting up automatic backups, etc. I just wanted to get the site back online ASAP so I took a bunch of shortcuts to get things online and then going back to do the stuff I skipped.

I have an idea about how to handle the review site later once we have control of DNS. Ideally it would be as easy to administer/moderate as the forums are.
 
If done right, reviews simply are hidden until accepted by a moderator. It would automatically update all of the various links on the site and be searchable, etc.
 
The biggest undertaking will be moving the old reviews into the new system. If I can’t figure out a way to automate it, I’ll solicit assistance in some copy/paste help from the forum.

We have moved the forum to a new server as of a few minutes ago. I have not had a chance to work on the review site yet. That will eventually happen. In order to do that, I'll need to setup a different website for daddysreviews.com since we don't (yet) control the domain's DNS settings. I'll most likely set it up temporarily as https://reviews.m4m-forum.org until we can get control of the domain's DNS.
 
I still need to work on a few other things such as setting up automatic backups, etc. I just wanted to get the site back online ASAP so I took a bunch of shortcuts to get things online and then going back to do the stuff I skipped.

I have an idea about how to handle the review site later once we have control of DNS. Ideally it would be as easy to administer/moderate as the forums are.
 
If done right, reviews simply are hidden until accepted by a moderator. It would automatically update all of the various links on the site and be searchable, etc.
 
The biggest undertaking will be moving the old reviews into the new system. If I can’t figure out a way to automate it, I’ll solicit assistance in some copy/paste help from the forum.

Works for me. Let's coordinate with Orin and Cooper, etc. That way there is a consensus. In a day or so when things settle down, I'll be able to pull together a list of estimated costs anticipated with running the site. This includes keeping the Xenforo license updated, hosting, DNS, extra security stuff (since I do cyber security for a living), etc.

I have an idea about how to handle the review site later once we have control of DNS. Ideally it would be as easy to administer/moderate as the forums are.
 
If done right, reviews simply are hidden until accepted by a moderator. It would automatically update all of the various links on the site and be searchable, etc.
 
The biggest undertaking will be moving the old reviews into the new system. If I can’t figure out a way to automate it, I’ll solicit assistance in some copy/paste help from the forum.

I have an idea about how to handle the review site later once we have control of DNS. Ideally it would be as easy to administer/moderate as the forums are.
 
If done right, reviews simply are hidden until accepted by a moderator. It would automatically update all of the various links on the site and be searchable, etc.
 
The biggest undertaking will be moving the old reviews into the new system. If I can’t figure out a way to automate it, I’ll solicit assistance in some copy/paste help from the forum.

I am willing to help maintain the server and keep the site online. Right now this site is running on my personal server. Long term it will be important to move it into its own island separate from my personal situation as I refuse to have the same thing that happened to this site twice previously occur again if something were to happen to me. I've spoken with Orin about this and have outlined some ideas around how to document what is needed for someone to take on "survivorship". This will include documenting all critical service logins (such as for the Xenforo software, for the domain hosting, for the domain DNS, etc)... how to access it, etc. It will also include having the site being self-contained where it's separate from the administrator personally. This role can also be shared with any other sysadmin who is comfortable with linux system administration and web services (apache, mysql, php, etc.)
 
What I do *not* want is to have any direct control over any sort of money. In the interest of this being a community, it would not be good for me to have control over everything. Whomever is going to be in charge of the money can make payments on behalf of the site, etc. I personally see it as a checks/balances thing. I'm NOT Daddy/Hooboy and I would never try to impose myself as such. Instead my goal is to simply do my part as a member of the community to ensure the site survives.

I am willing to help maintain the server and keep the site online. Right now this site is running on my personal server. Long term it will be important to move it into its own island separate from my personal situation as I refuse to have the same thing that happened to this site twice previously occur again if something were to happen to me. I've spoken with Orin about this and have outlined some ideas around how to document what is needed for someone to take on "survivorship". This will include documenting all critical service logins (such as for the Xenforo software, for the domain hosting, for the domain DNS, etc)... how to access it, etc. It will also include having the site being self-contained where it's separate from the administrator personally. This role can also be shared with any other sysadmin who is comfortable with linux system administration and web services (apache, mysql, php, etc.)
 
What I do *not* want is to have any direct control over any sort of money. In the interest of this being a community, it would not be good for me to have control over everything. Whomever is going to be in charge of the money can make payments on behalf of the site, etc. I personally see it as a checks/balances thing. I'm NOT Daddy/Hooboy and I would never try to impose myself as such. Instead my goal is to simply do my part as a member of the community to ensure the site survives.

The tech side won’t be too hard to maintain long term. I don’t mind helping on that front as it’s not a lot of effort required once things are stable. I think the bigger thing is thinking through succession planning. How do you document everything, and have details on what tools are used, where those tools are, passwords etc and have it stored in a way that does not compromise security?
 
For example I could put all of the info in a safety deposit box, and list a few folks as authorized to access it. It could be stored in an escrow account. I could put the details in the server itself. It could just be given to a few trusted people with the hope they never abuse the contents of that file. There are MANY ways of doing this, but what is the BEST way is what still needs to be determined. (Again, it would be 100 percent the keys to the kingdom.)
 
My goal is to think through how to make the community as self-sustaining from a physical access process as possible, but also not opening the community to unnecessary risk.

My personal server (and now this site) is also in Atlanta. So apparently it was not a far move! However once things settle down, I'll be setting up a separate one just for everything related to Daddy's. That way it's only me helping administer it going forward and not me owning it.

We're lucky in that we were able to save EVERYTHING. Thanks to the work of Orin and "Team Washington", they were able to get root level access to the server. That allowed me to export the entire forum entirely as-is and move it to a new server.
 
I have not had a chance to export other sites such as the review site. I'll attempt to work on that later.

The tech side won’t be too hard to maintain long term. I don’t mind helping on that front as it’s not a lot of effort required once things are stable. I think the bigger thing is thinking through succession planning. How do you document everything, and have details on what tools are used, where those tools are, passwords etc and have it stored in a way that does not compromise security?
 
For example I could put all of the info in a safety deposit box, and list a few folks as authorized to access it. It could be stored in an escrow account. I could put the details in the server itself. It could just be given to a few trusted people with the hope they never abuse the contents of that file. There are MANY ways of doing this, but what is the BEST way is what still needs to be determined. (Again, it would be 100 percent the keys to the kingdom.)
 
My goal is to think through how to make the community as self-sustaining from a physical access process as possible, but also not opening the community to unnecessary risk.

Works for me. Let's coordinate with Orin and Cooper, etc. That way there is a consensus. In a day or so when things settle down, I'll be able to pull together a list of estimated costs anticipated with running the site. This includes keeping the Xenforo license updated, hosting, DNS, extra security stuff (since I do cyber security for a living), etc.

I am willing to help maintain the server and keep the site online. Right now this site is running on my personal server. Long term it will be important to move it into its own island separate from my personal situation as I refuse to have the same thing that happened to this site twice previously occur again if something were to happen to me. I've spoken with Orin about this and have outlined some ideas around how to document what is needed for someone to take on "survivorship". This will include documenting all critical service logins (such as for the Xenforo software, for the domain hosting, for the domain DNS, etc)... how to access it, etc. It will also include having the site being self-contained where it's separate from the administrator personally. This role can also be shared with any other sysadmin who is comfortable with linux system administration and web services (apache, mysql, php, etc.)
 
What I do *not* want is to have any direct control over any sort of money. In the interest of this being a community, it would not be good for me to have control over everything. Whomever is going to be in charge of the money can make payments on behalf of the site, etc. I personally see it as a checks/balances thing. I'm NOT Daddy/Hooboy and I would never try to impose myself as such. Instead my goal is to simply do my part as a member of the community to ensure the site survives.

The tech side won’t be too hard to maintain long term. I don’t mind helping on that front as it’s not a lot of effort required once things are stable. I think the bigger thing is thinking through succession planning. How do you document everything, and have details on what tools are used, where those tools are, passwords etc and have it stored in a way that does not compromise security?
 
For example I could put all of the info in a safety deposit box, and list a few folks as authorized to access it. It could be stored in an escrow account. I could put the details in the server itself. It could just be given to a few trusted people with the hope they never abuse the contents of that file. There are MANY ways of doing this, but what is the BEST way is what still needs to be determined. (Again, it would be 100 percent the keys to the kingdom.)
 
My goal is to think through how to make the community as self-sustaining from a physical access process as possible, but also not opening the community to unnecessary risk.

The tech side won’t be too hard to maintain long term. I don’t mind helping on that front as it’s not a lot of effort required once things are stable. I think the bigger thing is thinking through succession planning. How do you document everything, and have details on what tools are used, where those tools are, passwords etc and have it stored in a way that does not compromise security?
 
For example I could put all of the info in a safety deposit box, and list a few folks as authorized to access it. It could be stored in an escrow account. I could put the details in the server itself. It could just be given to a few trusted people with the hope they never abuse the contents of that file. There are MANY ways of doing this, but what is the BEST way is what still needs to be determined. (Again, it would be 100 percent the keys to the kingdom.)
 
My goal is to think through how to make the community as self-sustaining from a physical access process as possible, but also not opening the community to unnecessary risk.

I'm so sorry about the extended downtime. I woke up to an email from Orin saying the site was only displaying a blank white page. Since I offered to help previously, he took me up on the offer.
 
Once I could login, there was a bunch of things wrong on the current server to the point it was just easier to pickup everything on the current site and move it to somewhere I control and know how to support.
 
This was literally trying to pickup and move everything while everything was on fire, so it was not "perfect". I had to do a bunch of crazy stuff to get things working. There are still a bunch of things I still need to fix, but at least we're back in a "mostly working" state!!