User talk:Dusti

Orain's FIRST donation drive!!
As many of you may have seen, Orain has been undergoing some significant changes. To be frank, we've outgrown our current home. With 288 communities, 1,000+ users, and sites like All The Tropes growing daily - we're beginning to look at the long term future of the project. With current funding levels, we can last four more months after we upgrade to some new servers. Our last server change wasn't that long ago, yes, but it was done to improve the overall stability and functionality of the site.

We've launched an Indegogo campaign to raise $5,000 to accomplish a couple of things:


 * We would be able to move to a stable, secure, short to mid term server that has the capability to not only host us now but continue hosting us even if we grow significantly
 * Begin the process of investigating solutions that include us purchasing our own private servers
 * Begin working on expanding our current abilities and addressing some of our limitations
 * Developing some extensions, widgets, and potentially a mobile application to improve the end-user experience
 * .. and finally being reaching out to other mid to large size communities and bring them into the Orain family.

To increase the likelihood of donations we've included some incentives that we'd love to send out including t-shirts, hoodies, blankets, and some new userrights - Donor and VIP which will come with their own individual perks.

We appreciate your generosity and look forward on continuing to offer a fun, free, collaborative community for all to enjoy.

For the staff -- Dusti 08:00, 5 January 2015 (GMT)

My apologies on sending this out again, the first messages had an error

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 * From the indiegogo page: "we're paying roughly $65-$80 a month for our hosting services. That cost is going to double as we move to accommodate our current community and the amount of traffic that our communities receive."


 * So, you need $160 a month to handle the bandwidth costs as the number of page hits and wikis increase? Will that get you through the next year for sure without buying equipment? I need some firm numbers to pass on to possible donors. 160 times 12 is $1920. So if I find someone to donate $1920 we are good to go for a year? I actually prefer ads to donation drives due to the fear that donation drives engender in me that another wiki farm is going to have to fold due to lack of funds and volunteers. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:14, 10 January 2015 (GMT)
 * The cost change will increase after we have brought new equipment but that is basically what it will become likely towards the end of January. John (talk) 14:47, 10 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Thanks. Are you currently paying to rent other servers and bandwidth? Or do you have some of your own servers? And another question: Is it wise to use your own servers? The number of wikis can grow past what your hardware can handle. Why not pay some big intercontinental hosting company instead, and let them worry about the hardware end, and bandwidth spikes coming from all over the world. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:13, 10 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Currently we do not rent servers, Orain is ran purely on visualization options. The plan is to buy our own servers which can be physically labelled with Orain and taken where we want without any limits. It is wise to use our own servers as the price of hosting our own servers is less than dedicated servers but we remain full control and are not restricted by technical limitations. The number of wikis can grow past our hardware indeed, which is why we will have emergency fail over plans + procedures to get new hardware online once identified. We have considered the last option however the prices break even (just more for paying others) but we are restricted what their policies on what we can and can't do - most of which, I want to do. John (talk) 15:19, 10 January 2015 (GMT)
 * To answer your question - the funds will secure hosting for at least a year, yes. What our goal with the full amount of funds was to secure hosting for a minimum of a year or more while we investigate our ability to purchase our own servers to lower the overhead cost. Thank you for helping to get some donations for Orain. If you have any questions,  and I would be more than happy to answer them. D u s t i *Let's talk!* 15:29, 10 January 2015 (GMT)
 * I hadn't thought of owning servers, combined with a fail over plan for additional servers/visualization/hosts/bandwidth online as needed. I guess it is like owning a house versus renting. If done right, ownership is cheaper. But getting the initial necessary money is a problem. I wonder if Wikimedia is still giving away old servers. Or businesses. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:09, 10 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Some ideas. I suggest putting a link in the sidebar on all pages: "Donate to Orain". Also link to it from the indiegogo page. That way I and others have a more detailed and updated info page I can point possible donors to. Many donors will have questions. So the talk page can be used for that. This thread might be moved there. For now I guess I can point to your talk page for more info and questions.
 * I support all wiki farms. They each seem to have different focuses and advantages. I think the donation only path may be difficult for a wiki farm offering different extensions for each wiki as Orain does. That requires more skilled volunteers. I assume it is difficult enough to find a skilled volunteer or two just to maintain a basic wiki farm with a standard set of extensions and features. You might consider offering ad-free wikis only to those making above a certain size yearly donation. That donation might have to be larger depending on the bandwidth needed for that wiki. In any case thanks for all your efforts! --Timeshifter (talk) 12:30, 11 January 2015 (GMT)
 * I've added a link to the sidebar here, thanks for that. I'm against ad-free wikis only for those who donate yearly. While we maybe will offer a feature to add ads on your wiki to support us, this will never be a requirement, and that if you want a wiki here with no ads, you can have one. Southparkfan (talk) 15:31, 11 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Thanks for the quick sidebar link to the donations page. I did not know of that page. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Can the donation link be added to the sidebar of all Orain wikis? Preferably all at once. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:03, 12 January 2015 (GMT)

SHA-512 committed identity hash
Hi. The long hash number is messing up your user page on my monitor currently set at 1600 x 900. The table and text extend past the edge of my screen. The text for the hash is set in a large text size. Set your screen resolution to 1600 x 900 to see the problem.

One solution might be to put the hash in a collapsed table:

But then the collapse button also goes past the edge of the screen.

An easier solution is to remove the hash from the table altogether: 32E9351A1ABFA745207703FFFFAB57476C50C6709E1FFA44E9B4AC99FBAC6E2EFC969EC82C3F24D45410201FA2EF7AEB075C703F8EE99E96F671A09BC11FCBC8

Then only the hash text extends past the screen edge. This works for all screen sizes. Even on tablets, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:33, 6 January 2015 (GMT)

Optional ads and social enterprises
I like the idea of optional ads for some wikis. I would like ads on my wiki. That is how I can contribute. I don't have any money right now unfortunately. I found this:
 * http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Advertising_extensions

I helped write up some ideas on optional ads in this Wikipedia essay:
 * Funding Wikipedia through advertisements

I especially like the idea of semi-profit benefit corporations, and social enterprises. This would allow raising money in more ways. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:44, 6 January 2015 (GMT)

Can I ask you for $1?
We're 9 days into our 30 day campaign, and we've raised $537. That's fantastic! The idea of Orain, our message, our purpose - it means something. The belief that there can be a community led, a community ran, and a community funded website that's not ad-driven or profit based works.

Our community has believed in us from the beginning, and I firmly believe that our community will stand by us and continue to support us. It's okay if we don't reach our $5,000 goal. $5,000 was a best case scenario. $1,000 enables us to stay online another year. It enables us to keep looking at alternatives and other ways to stay online and cut costs. $500 halves that time and shortens our research ability. 11% of our goal is better than 0% of our goal.

I've made a pledge from the beginning. I've vowed to never force ads on this community for the purpose of keeping Orain alive. Ads are what separate us from the other farms we compete with. I will give my personal funds before I enable ads by force. Ads are a nuisance that you should have a voice in. We've toyed with and are developing the idea of individual wikis who want ads within their community. Some people can't donate a dollar, and that's okay. That's their way of giving and I'm down for that.

To the backers who have helped so far, Thank you!

If you haven't had a chance to donate so far, please please do. Your $1 will help make a difference in the WikiFarm world. You can help us stay online, free, and ad free.

If you have a little more than a dollar and want an Orain t-shirt, we've got those. We've also got hoodies, coffee cups, and blankets. Most of these things will have to be purchased in bulk so there's likely going to be an online store for the leftover donation drive items once the campaign is over.

As always, I want to hear from you. If you have ideas to help our Indiegogo campaign please send them to me or email me.

With love, Dustin "Dusti" Muniz 03:01, 14 January 2015 (GMT)

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WikiBanner
I have a new version under development at https://github.com/Pavelovich/WikiBanner Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 04:41, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

You have a new message
Lieutenant_S._Reznov Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 18:58, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

I replied and I also made an offer to help promote Orain and request donations. Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 19:20, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

I made a request for donations on a subreddit with over 33,000 subscribers
https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/2sjqd5/orain_free_wiki_host_needs_donations/ Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 19:55, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

I also made a farm wide notice on RedSec. Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 08:18, 17 January 2015 (GMT)

Abusive blocks
https://right.orain.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&page=User%3AInquisitor_S._Kamenev – right.orain.org is issuing abusive blocks against accounts without contributions. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:22, 20 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Local communities are ran themselves. Stewards do not intervene regarding such actions. D u s t i *Let's talk!* 21:26, 20 January 2015 (GMT)

WikiBanner
Arcane was explaining how you wanted a version that has a sidebar section. I have made a new version of it and I could add that feature. I think I tried before and there was a problem when it was empty, but I could have a condition for whether or not to have a sidebar displayed. Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 06:28, 24 January 2015 (GMT)
 * That would be excellent - keep us updated :) D u s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 14:28, 24 January 2015 (GMT)

What is this wiki about?
Eh? Panchira (talk) 19:25, 24 January 2015 (GMT) It's a wiki farm. You can make a private or community wiki here for free. Tau Ceti (talk) 23:13, 25 January 2015 (GMT)

Public IP blocks
Having them in public logs is privacy compromising. Maybe a bot could be used to oversight them immediately? Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Malleus 06:29, 25 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Unable to oversight global blocks. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 06:53, 25 January 2015 (GMT)

User rights blues - bibbia2000
Hello, this issue with logging into the wiki is really bugging me. I've tried everything I can think of, including changing the name of the main page, changing my password, changing the rights on the main page. I still cannot login to my private wiki from the url of the wiki. The only way to access is through orain.meta unified login.

Is there anything you can see or do from your side? Thanks,--Simonpa71 (talk) 08:49, 29 January 2015 (GMT)
 * I've got the sysadmins looking into it. It seems to be only your wiki that this is happening on. For the meantime I can remove the privacy settings? <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 15:15, 29 January 2015 (GMT)
 * I've removed the privacy settings and will try handling it from the backend using userrights instead. <font face="MV Boli"><font color="#ff0000">D <font color="#ff6600">u <font color="#009900">s <font color="#0000ff">t <font color="#6600cc">i *Let's talk!* 15:17, 29 January 2015 (GMT)
 * Sure, no problem with the privacy. I can log in now! Wow! Thanks!--Simonpa71 (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

Site news for January!
Hi there! It's been a wild ride over the last few days!!

We went from being dead in a couple of months to being certain of the next couple years to come! We're sitting at $2,100 in our Indiegogo fundraiser, just shy of 50% of our goal. Those of you who have contributed to the cause, I cannot tell you how blessed I feel. To know that the project I helped Kudu create a couple years ago is providing a service that is helping and impacting others makes me feel great.

If there's anything else you're able to give, it'd be greatly appreciated. We don't receive any other funds. We don't receive anything from advertising. We don't have corporate sponsors or government grants. We don't have staff who get paid. We survive because you want us to. Your generosity has ensured that at least for the next couple of years we'll be alive, online, and free. We'll probably have to do another donation drive in a couple of years, but that's the art of being community funded and supported.

With just a couple days left in the campaign, I urge you, if you haven't yet, to enter one of our running contests to win some free Orain gear. We have one via our Facebook page - all you have to do is enter! Also, any person donating $5 or more is entered into a chance to win some free Orain gear too!

Since this campaign has started we've started looking at what we can do to maximize the longevity of your contributions. We've began looking at the benefits of physical servers versus virtual servers and the overall structure and foundation of our setup. This month we welcomed Tanner to our Sysadmin team. Tanner has volunteered with Mozilla for the last couple of years and is a great asset to the Sysadmin team. Tanner will be teaming up with Addshore to lead our Sysadmin team. We also welcomed FastLizard4 from the Wikipedia Account Creations Team. FL4 is one of the roots for the ACC interface and brings a lot of knowledge to the technical team.

We've recently been challenged on the content that we allow to be hosted. Our staff stood firmly by our communities and made it clear that we support your freedom of speech. Over the next few days and weeks we're going to be updating some of our policies regarding wikis and the content they host to ensure that we have something we can point to when disputes and complaints like these come up. We want to ensure that we're giving our community the best while complying with local and federal laws. A wonderful quote that brings this theory home comes from Voltaire:


 * I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

For the staff, OrainMessenger (talk) 09:01, 30 January 2015 (GMT)

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