Lojban Central/Lojban archive site will be moving soon - pls comment

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@lojban.org>]

I just got notice that Digex, which was bought several months ago, is
shutting down its personal ISP services as of the end of the month.  They
are offering people smooth transition to their replacement merged ISP, but
it has significantly different provisions, so I am considering several
possibilities.

Anyone who knows ISPs serving the DC area can feel free to make
recommendations.   Two I am checking out are CAIS and Radixnet.
I am looking for shell capability if possible, since I use shell 
rather than Windows/PPP for most of my access, but John Cowan thinks
this may not be necessary for LLG operations (though I know how to
do very little from PPP accesses except browse the Web).

The primary factor will probably be the Official Lojban archive, which
has been at www.access.digex.net  (I am told that whereever we move to,
the old address will forward for 90 days both for email to me and for accesses
to the site).

We currenyly have somewhat less than 30Meg on that site, for which we
have been paying $25/month or so on top of regular ISP charges.  Some considerations can be made which will affect costs to LLG, but could also affect you
who access the site.  So I would like opinions, especially from overseas
Lojbanists who may have fewer options or less robust net connections.

1. Some providers offer Web space but do not provide anonymous FTP access
(a URL ftp//...  invokes this kind of access).  Is there anyone out there
who cannot use  Web access (http// URL) to access the Lojban pages, or do
we need to be able to continue to support FTP to reach all our overseas
supporters?

2. Since we are paying $1/megabyte, we have avoided enlarging the material
hosted on the site except for things that we are pretty sure will be useful.
I have a lot more stuff that could be uploaded, including old Ju'i Lobypli
issues and text archives in various states of grammar validation.  One
ISP offers up to 50 Meg Web space as part of a package costing $70/month
which is a BIG step up in cost, but it would also allow us to put more 
material up.  $45/month is about what we make on 2 books sold, so we have to
sell around 20-25 books in a year more to pay for this, with corresponding
delays in breaking even on the book and gfinancing other books.

3. How important is the speed of connectivity to the LOjban Web site to
you?  We have several options with smaller ISPs which do not have anywhere near
as high a throughput as Digex, which operates its own US-nationwide backbone
at extremely high data rates.

4. Sould we consider getting our own address space - probably www.lojban.org?
Some of the more expensive options include this as part of the package,
especially if we pay a year at a time, but the nominal charges tend to
be around $100 for setup, and $35/year to have the address registered.
The advantage of course  would be portability of the address if we have to 
move ISPs again, and of course name-recognition and the sense that Lojban
and LLG are around to stay implicit in having a real address.  But again,
the money isn't trivial, and using the address requires that we rule out
some of the cheapest ISP options that would not support such an address
space.

5. In all likelihood I will try to gain the use of both lojban@ and lojbab@
for the new ISP, if such is offered.  I know there have been people who 
suffered from typos or simply not noticing that the userid here ends with
a b instead of an n (or not remembering).

6.  We feel it is advantageous to the organization to maintain an official
site that Cowan and I can easily access and maintain the files on, and which
we have direct control over.  This also makes it clear to people like
hezekiah that we welcome other WWW pages in addition to Veijo's Finland
site, which keeps a status as a European mirror and not-quite-official
status as a result of the main site being whereever my account is.  However,
if people have arguments as to why we should do something different, let us
hear them.

7. Note that this account is officially an LLG account and not my personal
account, though I don't use a separate account for personal stuff.  I am not
sure that this matters much to our decision, since my personal use has 
always been incidental and secondary to my primary use of this account for
Lojban support (Indeed Cowan practically dragged me into getting on the net
several years ago to help support the Lojban community, when I was trying
to avoid dealing with the Internet.  At times he probably wishes I had stayed
off net, since net activity tends to be an enormous time consumer to me, 
especially when I get into answering Lojban posts (which I try to avoid as
a result).

Again, I have to make decisions ASAP, but the old addresses will be
usable via forwarding for a couple months.  Let me know what you think.
(This goes double for certain silent LLG Board members %^).

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";
    Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.