Moacad roadplan

This page is to be used to discuss the future of the Moacad website.

Official/Unofficial affiliation

Current Status

Currently the wiki is referred to as 'unofficial' this is due to the fact that it is student run with very little input from academy staff. Originally Cory Pate received the hosting from a free three year promotional deal with http://1and1.com the moacad.com domain name was payed for by Cory Pate for the first year, and by SGA for the second year. Recently the academy administration has decided to stop paying for the domain name due to the use of profanity on certain pages of the wiki.

In order for the moacad.com website to continue to operate the most important things is a domain name.

Costs:

• Domain name: 1and1 has the price set to $5.99 a year. Topical prices for domains are around $10.00 a year.
• Hosting: Payed hosting prices vary greatly depending on the service and usually range from $2.00 a month and up. Free hosting is usually available though various websites, but these may contain adds or lack features. Self hosting is also an option if anyone has a reliable internet connection that allows it.

Funding Requirements: (if anyone knows these or can find out, please fill them in)

• SGA: less profanity
• Alumni Association:

Discussion

I liked the idea of having the wiki run entirely by the students, in which case I think rules governing profanity would be acceptable. I do not think that students viewpoints should be suppressed due to the wishes of the academy, but laying down rules about how to express a viewpoint is not necessarily bad. As for other parts of the moacad.com website, such as the alumni.moacad.com subdomain, I think having a review process would be fine there since those do not express the opinions of students. --Andy 22:23, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

I would like to know what rules the Academy wants to impose before they will resume funding the domain. The highest level of restriction I'm inclined to accept is zero profanity (and we'll have to define profanity clearly) on normal pages and no gratuitous usage on discussion. I consider user pages to be essentially fair game. If they can accept those terms, I can as well. -Chrax 22:41, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Down below you suggest getting funding through the alumni association. I think being independent of the Academy would be better personally so you don't end up having to deal with those politics as well. -Patecd 22:58, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

I think all the rules should be set down fairly clearly somewhere so that everyone knows what is and is not review and allowed, that way the credibility of having a 'student run' website is not damaged. --Andy 22:23, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Agreed. No matter how this goes, I think standards of behavior ought to be established. -Chrax 22:41, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Alternatively, if we wish to be fully "independent" we could discuss getting our funding from the alumni association. -Chrax 22:41, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

This is actually how a lot of this got started. I mentioned the possibility of getting involved with the alumni association as being a way to fund the site and wiki. There's a ton of good information on here and I'd hate to see people back off from being associated with the site due to its content. -Patecd 22:54, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

I like this idea as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the alumni association had some rules for us as well, however they would probably be more lenient than the actual academy. I don't remember entirely how it's set up, but would there be any problems with the being affiliated with the academy though the alumni association? --Andy 23:44, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Zero-profanity sounds perfectly acceptable for actual articles. For discussion pages and user pages, though, it should be different. As long as people aren't dropping the F-bomb at the drop of a hat, I would think it to be acceptable. On a side note, just how much does it cost to host the site for a year? If the amount is low enough, I think it'd be worth it to pay the few bucks rather than submit to overly-strict censoring guidelines. --KoopaTroopa211 23:11, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

When it gets closer to January, we can scout out some different hosts. I'm not sure about other people, but I think it would be better to have an actual host than try and host it ourselves somewhere. It would probably be nice to have a host that provided many of the same services. As for price, there's an enormous range...I'll let someone else take a shot at an amount. As for the URL, I think it would be good to transfer it to an actual registrar instead of purchasing it through the domain. In 1and1's case, we need to fax in some paperwork, unlock the domain name, and then transfer it to a registrar. The one I use would charge a couple bucks for the transfer for example. After that, it's a fairly minimal fee to register the domain for multiple years. -Patecd 23:23, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

If the alumni assoc. can't pay for it, I'm sure we could get something student funded going. I know at least 5 or 6 people who'd give like 5 bucks or so if needed. If the incoming class down the road decides they don't want to fund it, I think there would be enough people still associated with the wiki who'd be willing to pitch in a bit to keep it running for a year.

It would probably be good to start using some of the default wikimedia pages as well, particularly the Disclaimer and About pages since they are displayed at the bottom of every article. This could help to express that the views of the students are not necessarily the views of the academy. --Andy 23:44, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Forum

Should Matt's forum hosted here?

I think so. It makes sense, because why would either he or Elena want anything to do with it after this year? -Chrax

We might consider converting to punBB, its a streamlined version of phpbb. But its not all that neccessary. -Squishypickle

Looks good to me, I nominate 'you' to make a nice list of advantages and disadvantages --Andy 17:38, 7 Jan 2005 (EST)

Could we, or would it even be worty trying to build the forum into the wiki, so that you only have to register once?, I'm thinking this because we already do a lot of discussion here anyway, we might as well use something made for discussions to do it. --Andy 19:25, 7 Jan 2005 (EST)

I think that would be a good idea, and major props to whoever does it *MATT*. -Chrax

We are starting a wiki for my department at my school. We are also using a phpbb forum and the guy running it figured out how to set it up so you only have to register for one. I can give you his contact info if you're interested -Thomas

Databases

What about the Student databse, and the Object database Mike was making?

The student database, unless something has changed since last I used it, was done terribly. Neat idea, but I don't see any advantage it might hold over a wiki page except that it cannot be defaced. If we are to keep using it, I would suggest that we either try to get an interface to it in the wiki, or we at least fix up the moacad page to not be so ugly. -Chrax

Old stuff

What should we do with the old stuff such as pages of SGA minutes and such?

I am of the opinion that we give them to some poor hobo in need of a blanket. -Chrax

Also something needs to be done with the SGA applications.

One of them was down, last I checked. I turned the other into a regular html file that can be readily put into any format. Only problem is that MediaWiki doesn't allow for forms except for on special pages, which Andy will have to make. -Chrax

Connectivity

How should stuff be linked together?

What I've gathered so far is that everyone generally wants the wiki to be the first thing you come to on moacad.com so there would have to be links on that (this) to other parts of the site (and then back again). Where should we put them? I'd prefer to have them be more permanante links (as opposed to a link from an article) because something like Matt's form (if it comes here) would be another major part and it would be nice to get a more standardised set of links throught the entire site.

It would be good if everything was categorized on the front page like wikipedia, and maybe a standard navbar could be put on every page like I did on my webpage. -Squishypickle

If possible, put section links (forum/whatever) under the "navigation" menu on the left.