Re: Membership

[Jonathan Wallace <jon@whoweb.com>]

Ray Keefer said:

>Would this be a one time fee or yearly?

It would be a yearly fee of $50.  Distributed amoungst us all that's about
$2 each, but the first two years have to be paid up front so currently it
would cost us about $4 each.  However, I think payment would have to be
voluntary and I don't want anyone to think we absolutely have to do this.

The cost of the domain name goes to InterNIC Registry Services in Herndon,
VA who is responsible for all .COM and .ORG domain names in the US.

>Once we have a domain name what do we do with it?

Well, we could use it for access to our web pages obviously and also set up
some organizational mail accounts I suppose.  The biggest advantage for it
however is that it identifies the group in a more formal fashion.  Instead
of being viewed as a resource from CA, a resource from NH, it would glue
the group into at least the appearance of originating from one place and
being more organized (conceptually speaking.  I think we're pretty well
orgnized as far as the services we currently offer).

>Currenly the web site is the one I get free with my e-mail account with Netcom.
>Does this change some how?

Probably, but not entirely.  We'll require a site that offers virtual domain
support for the domain name as well as the mailing list.  Technically ADR
offers both of these, and financially, ADR is still committed to the FREE
use of resources for PSUBS activity.  So we have the means to accomplish our
own domain name with simply the donations by current members for the only
real hard cost, the domain name.  (unless anyone has a "friend" at InterNIC
that they can convince to give us the name for free)

The natural set of events would normally call for the home page to reside on
the server publishing the domain name, but that isn't absolutely required.
If you wanted to keep the home page on netcom and send people to netcom
automatically through a redirect link.  Older browsers do not support this
method however.  Additionally, one of the reasons we'd get a domain name
is so that all web pages had the psubs.org name attached to them.  So in
that regard, it would require the home pages to move to the server that is
publishing the domain name.

>Do we get more space?

Disk space resources for psubs is not an issue at ADR.  We have plenty of
space and I doubt that the current pages take up much space at all.  There's
plenty of room for growth.  The domain does not have to be published by
ADR however.  If netcom offered to serve the domain name free, the site
could remain on their servers.

Regardless of where the home pages are, there's no reason we can't continue
to link to member pages for more information on specific topics.

Jon