Dear Community,
The Management Council would like to bring you up-to-date regarding its activities over the past two weeks. Before getting into the technical details, we should mention that the general directions that we are currently investigating are dissolving our relationship with Tides, incorporating as a non-profit, moving to a different hosting solution (see the technical discussion below), and creating a funding model based on donations. This is a very complex model of activities, where action in one area affects the situation in another and vice versa, requiring us to advance simultaneously on all fronts while maintaining the integrity of the Citizendium.org experience for its users.
To begin, the technical team has completed a complete back-up of all CZ databases and archives and has put in place a system for frequent routine back-ups to protect our most recent contributions. We anticipate that when it becomes necessary to find new hosts, we shall have no loss of data.
Citizendium is currently hosted by Steadfast Networks. We operate on five servers, two of which Steadfast provides free of charge. The five servers provide us with significantly more processing power than we need. So, we are investigating ways to move to a more reasonably provisioned configuration.
Our three paid servers cost about $750 per month. Our next payment is due on the 1st December. In order to minimize downtime we have launched a donation drive via Paypal. All paypal donations will be used to cover future hosting and administrative (e.g, incorporation fees, liability insurance, professional services, etc.) costs. We are pleased to report that the donation drive we initiated this week has worked quite well so far. We have had over 14 donations that total over $800. But we still have an urgent need for quite a bit more than that and we cannot rest. We now have a PayPal donation button available at
CZ:Donate which greatly simplifies making a donation. We urge all of you to donate whatever amount you can and as soon as you can. We are depending upon your help.
We are urgently looking to move to a much cheaper hosting solution. This may involve reconfiguring our relationship with Steadfast, or it may mean a new host. We have made plans already to move the forums and mail services to alternative providers should that become necessary. Finding a temporary host for the wiki is turning out to be a little more difficult. While we hope that we can manage these transitions (if and when they become necessary) without service interruptions, we cannot guarantee this. You may experience service interruptions during these transitions.
We are looking at new and less expensive hosting situations. To give you some idea of our technical requirements, here is our current best estimate of what we need:
Servers- Disk space - currently we are using a combined total of 361GB. We probably require 500GB to ensure we don't have any problems in the medium term and to allow for modest growth.
- Processor and memory - 2 dedicated servers with dual 2.5-3 GHz processors, ~2 GB memory, and ~250 GB of storage.
Network- Bandwidth - Short-term average of 1 Mbps, with peaks in the 2 Mbps range. Monthly bandwidth usage is ~200 Gbytes outbound and ~15 Gbytes inbound.
Servers with the necessary processing characteristics are fairly cheap (a DELL PowerEdge T110 Tower Server that meets these requirements costs about $400). The main problem we face is finding a hosting venue that provides for our bandwidth requirements at a reasonable cost. Most free hosting solutions do not. Furthermore, these are fairly robust hosting requirements that are not easily fulfilled by your average commercial host. If you have any ideas or suggestions along these lines, please pass them along to one of us.
Our previous funds are held by Tides Center. They provide us with 501(c)(3) status and have been handling all of our finances. For this they have charged us $2000 a year, or 9% of our revenue (whichever is greater). Tides has also charged us for liability insurance at a cost of $1000 a year. Citizendium has been operating on the fruits of many generous donations made from the early days, which have, by this time, been used up. It is unfortunate that you and your management team have discovered this at this time, but here we are. Tides' management bill comes due December 31, and will be approximately $1500; if unpaid, they will terminate their relationship with CZ. It is likely that our association with Tides will end then as it is unlikely that we will be able to cover this bill. In the long-term we will be looking to establish our own non-profit corporation. Until we get this sorted out we won't be able to qualify for any discounts or tax-exemptions provided to 501(3)(c) organizations as we have in the past under Tides.
We are monitoring the discussion boards and investigating the suggestions that you have made, and they have been helpful. While we haven't had time to respond to all of these suggestions (we are flat out trying to figure out a way to keep CZ operating), we acknowledge and appreciate the suggestions made so far.
We are confident that within six months we can resolve this complex constellation of issues facing CZ and put into place a technical and financial structure that will ensure CZ's continued existence and provide the foundation for growth. While we are confident that we can reign in our hosting costs, it will still amount to around four hundred dollars or more each month. Furthermore, incidentals, such as incorporating, insurance, bank and professional fees, etc., will amount to another $1500-2000 this year alone. Thus we are looking at an operating budget of around $6-7,000 a year at a minimum. This is no small amount for a community as small as CZ and your support will be vital.
As always, the Citizendium exists and thrives because of the contributions in time, talent, expertise, and money that you, the citizens, provide. With your generous contributions, we shall go on.
