SCN: websites to feature

[Rod Clark]

> Well - on the bright side, it's a great way to enhance security.
> No users.

Lorraine, 

   Our We freely offer telnet access into SCN for all users,
which is "insecure" in that passwords aren't encrypted and it's
probably a risk to some extent in other ways too. But we don't
allow outgoing telnet from SCN to other systems. This makes
sesne, basically.

   So why doesn't incoming FTP (but not outgoing FTP) make equal
sense in terms of security considerations? Very few free Web
providers allow outgoing connections of any kind, including
telnet and FTP, that could be used to compromise other systems.
But why not just limit it to incoming FTP? 

   Offering FTP would make a huge positive difference in
usability, and it might just gain SCN a sizable and growing
cadre of personal site users friendly to SCN, who would then
have a much greater chance become more familiar with and
involved in SCN itself. That's a great prospect to consider. So
why can't we move forward to make it work, and find ways to make
a limited inbound FTP capability function as well as our inbound
telnet access does for personal users? Offering a usable,
standard personal Web site upload capability via FTP could still
make a positive difference for SCN, even at this late date.

> My point is that I do believe that there are people who would
> be interested in SCN if there were some friendly helpers -

   SCN really needs a regular physical "place," where some of
our helpful volunteers can regularly talk with people, not only
personal users but nonprofits too. Only ten of the nonprofits
who signed up as IPs since Jan 1, 2001 have succeeded so far
this year in getting their Web sites up on SCN. That's a dismal
percentage, much worse than the 50% IP success rate that we used
to have a few years ago.

   There are still some really unnecessary barriers to IPs
suceeding at even their basic account essentials like uploading
files to the server. We have some non-standard "horseshoe nail"
technical bariers that make this notably more difficult on SCN
than at other ISPs. In particular, Operations has consistently
refused to link /home/ipname/public_html to
/web/ipdir as part of the usual IP setup. You have no idea how
many dozens of nonprofits have failed to get their sites up on
SCN because of this one simple thing that any decent ISP does
for people as a matter of course, to help them succeed when
using default settings in FTP programs. With things like this,
SCN sets nonprofits up to fail as a matter of course, and Ops
won't even listen to people asking them adhere to common indutry
practice for this.

   SCN's IP Coordination program relies on a delay-filled daisy
chain of many volunteers whose allegiance is to many separate
committee fiefdoms. Operations, for example, will not only not
help the IPs, they will not even answer questions from the Help
Desk for IPs now, except through a procedure that adds days and
weeks (and sometimes an indefinite amount of time) to the IP
help process. First, let's say an IP asks you, Lorraine,
something technical and you refer them to the Help Desk. So far,
so good, right?

   But the Help Desk (if obeying Ops' new restricted "help"
system) can refer the question only to the Ops/Help Desk
Liaison. The Ops/Help Desk Liaison then will refer the question
to someone, God knows who, on Ops. That person, if he deigns to
answer at all (which is far from a certainty), will send the
answer (possibly useful, possibly not) back to the Ops/Help Desk
Liaison. The Ops/Help Desk Liaison will then send the answer
back to the Help Desk. The Help Desk will then send the answer
back to the IP. Since the answer might or might not be the
answer needed, any followup must (supposedly) follow the same
process. This is what comes of letting the most rabidly
anti-user and anti-IP people in Operations decide how SCN is to
be run, which as you might expect is to run it for their own
convenience first and foremost, and let the stupid ignorant
nonprofits go RTFM and fuck themselves if they don't know Unix
well enough.
        
   For whatever reasons, we have added 28 active IPs to our
menus this year and lost 41. (Our goal this year was a net gain
of 75.) Ten of the 28 new ones signed up this year. The rest
signed up last year and were able to get their sites up sometime
this year. In short, nonprofit hosting has become a declining
area this year, after being a growth area until mid-summer 2000.
 
   Reasonably friendly and helpful volunteers being able to sit
down at a physical place and explain things in person to IPs
would be a tremendous advantage, and might well cancel out some
of the IP non-support that goes on so much now.

   I actually have the time and inclination to do this these
days, more so than last winter, and could contribute something
now in the evenings, if a suitable "place" were to present
itself.

Rod Clark

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