[Businessmtg] Archives

[Bubbe Turner]

Steve, I did not ask about deleting "specific shares".  My concern was and
is technical and financial.  What I asked relates to deleting shares
periodically to prevent problems with a server, i.e. overload, added cost,
slowing it down, etc.  It is a fact that some listservs charge by number of
members, number of archived material,  etc.  so it makes financial  sense,
if no other, to occasionally  clean house.

Also, I have seen others confused about (and I experience it too)  of not
knowing if my personal share went through to the recovery meeting or not.
Seems like with your system, individual shares would show up to the sender
too.

So  you are saying that the "Founders Guidelines" for ASP outrank the
principles of  Al-Anon and that makes ASP different from any other group?
That borders on making ASP not Al-Anon but an entity unto itself.

BJ



On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 11:35 PM Steve Rankin <steve at serenitysys.com> wrote:

> Hi BJ,
>
> Everyone should understand that ASP is not some other Al-Anon meeting. It
> never has been nor was that ever our goal. We are structured differently
> than others; both how we function as a group and how we function
> technically.
>
> As I mentioned before, the archives are all or nothing. It's a simple
> switch
> on the server Mailman software; Yes or No.
>
> Select yes, and the server creates one small text file every month. Select
> no, and they disappear. Poof!
>
> Fact. The ASP archives exist. They are ASP property. Who has the right and
> authority to destroy them? No one individual. Only the group conscience can
> make that decision now.
>
> As for removing or not archiving specific shares? That is not possible.
> Besides, that seems a lot like personalities over principles IMO. We don't
> pick and choose whose shares are archived and whose or not. Nor do we
> remove
> shares that we don't like regardless of the reason. Bottom line there . . .
> why? We can argue the principles of yes and no, but limits? Those are
> arbitrary compromises that don't satisfy any principles other than another
> attempt to make everyone happy, which never seems to work.
>
> Our server.
>
> ASP contracts with a provider and pays rent for a dedicated server. This
> means that we can do whatever we wish on that server as long there is room
> on the hard drive. Our dedicated server account allows us to use as much
> bandwidth as we wish, up to the limits of that machine. Of course, we are
> paying for a base machine not something big and fancy. If we do things that
> slow down the service to the meeting, well that's our fault and we
> experience the consequences.
>
> This is very different than what other Al-Anon groups do. Some have Yahoo
> accounts that host their meetings on Yahoo Groups. Others contract with a
> provider for a "shared server". Pricing on a shared server is generally
> based on bandwidth - how much traffic do you have: number of subscribers X
> number of messages/month. Either pay for plenty of bandwidth in advance, or
> get service cut when you exceed what you have paid for, or the service
> grinds to a near stop as the service is "throttled" because you've gone
> over
> your allotted bandwidth. When we were preparing to transition in 2006 we
> priced service for the bandwidth we were using. Yikes, it was going to cost
> us well over $200/month, probably $300/month. Then, Dawn saved the day when
> she found our current provider that gives us a dedicated server for about
> $100/month.
>
> Space vs. bandwidth.
>
> Space on a hard drive is cheap. Ridiculously cheap. My personal website,
> which includes the original ASP website has over 20,000 files on it, yet
> I'm
> using less than 5% of my allotted space. Data just sits on a hard drive. It
> does nothing but take up a little bit of space. Of course, it does use some
> bandwidth when someone accesses the ASP site and requests a web page. That
> happens a few dozen times a day; nothing compared to the 90,000 messages
> the
> server processes every day.
>
> Bandwidth is expensive. That's because the provider has to buy bandwidth,
> that they resell sell to customers like us. Remember the good ol' days when
> your long distance & cell phone calls cost by the minute.
>
> Plus, bandwidth requires computer TIME. It takes computer time for the
> server to receive a message, re-format the message for the list, and then
> send it to every address on the mailing list. If you need very little
> bandwidth, you don't have to have a powerful server. But, as your bandwidth
> requirements increase, you need more powerful computers to process the
> information and those cost more money, which means more expensive service.
>
> Lastly, while ASP does not have the largest number of subscribed members,
> we
> do have the most active membership which results in the largest bandwidth
> requirement of any online Al-Anon meeting. And unlike other online
> meetings,
> ASP has always been fully self-supporting declining outside contributions.
>
> Hugs,
> Steve
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
> The ASP web site for ASP members is http://www.asp-afg.org/Members/
>
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> Administrator, at  la at asp-afg.org
>
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