Dear members of DiscourseNet,
dear users of our website.
Latest News: the Upgrade had to be rescheduled due to illness. The current date is 4th of February. Thank you for your understanding.
Lately our server has been experiencing a few performance issues and I am in the process of moving the current server to a more performant machine.
We have been on the same hardware since the new web has been launched, in September of 2018, and I am really happy with the results. I managed to keep up with many of the necessary security upgrades - and even implemented a few functional ones to aid the organizational challenges with running such a diverse and large community.
I however feel the need to ask for your support with me running this crucial infrastructural piece of DiscourseNet, which helps you in your work. The hours I receive to keep everything running smoothly are simply not enough for this scale of operation. For me as an IT-administrator, the tradeoffs feel outside of the safety zone. For me as a programmer, it is a halted construction site.
I will be doing a very necessary, larger upgrade of the underlying technology this year, for the hourly rate which is comparable to minimum wage here in Germany. DiscourseNet is well established in the world of academia, but we are still in the phase of running on a budget, which is not realistic in the long run.
Please consider:
- becoming a member of DiscourseNet (if you are not yet)
https://discourseanalysis.net/DN - or donate directly on the cause of maintenance and development of the Webserver (this will also convert to a membership)
https://donorbox.org/discourseanalysis-webpage-development
I am sure, most of your employers/financial plans have full understanding of putting the tools and infrastructure which aid you in your work on the list.
Maybe you have noticed - there are quite a few things with the website, which are simply far from ideal. I would love to get the chance, to push this tool to a next level, instead of struggling to keep it running on bare minimum.
As for the current maintenance operation - everything is prepared for this and I will presumably attempt to pull it through around the 31st of January. I tried to test-run everything, but even if the switch shall run smoothly during the night, it can nevertheless take up to 24 hours, until the changes are propagated all the way up to your browsers.
I will keep most recent information well visible on the website.
Thank you for your understanding,
-Peter Fargaš / programmer & IT-administrator
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