@BestOf you are a hero
8 Likes
Thank you so much @SensiblePerson it means a lot. Give me a week or two to take stock of what I need to do to hand off, and in the meantime we can make a community vote, I’ll give my full endorsement
As far as 24/7/365 uptime goes, the job is pretty easy. Log in once in a while to check cpu/memory usage. You can literally shut down the vm on and off and the site will always come back. It’s pretty sturdy and zikzak did a great job setting it up so it’s pretty hands free.
I’m not doing software updates because one update introduced breaking changes to ggoreo’s frontend code.
If you want I could probably be convinced to set up alerts so you don’t even need to log in to check on anything.
1 Like
If we do end up going through this handoff, I think it would be very useful to create a formal “handoff” document so that others could step in should @SensiblePerson or whoever else need to step aside.
Like, as the one paying for the account, I assume that I should be able to contact Digital Ocean and get access in case of emergency? (Maybe this is untrue) But I wouldn’t know what the hell to do. Having that document would be helpful in keeping things up and running.
I believe you have access, yes. But you don’t have vm access as far as I’m aware. As far as a handoff document zikzak already documented the steps. Mine will be even simpler because I registered the email service with the admin@unstuckpolitics.com email address, which forwards to whoever is admin, so we could just leave that as-is, and change the cc info (it’s only pennies a month, literally). Setting that up was the only thing that required any real work.
Then I just add the new admin to the unstuck project in DO, create new sudo user in the VM, give access to our google DNS, bingo bango bongo done, unless I’m not thinking of something - there’s also the twitter api keys and stuff, but you could just leave those there (they’re my personal account right now - I tried to create an admin@unstuckpolitics.com twitter but that account is stuck in limbo for 6 months now) or create new api keys.
1 Like
Already feel much better.
12 Likes
I recall this being a rub that while the forum software suggests taking every beta update this caused issues with the site customizations. I’d suggest a more clear coordination on updates as to minimize potential issues caused updates playing poorly with the site customization.
1 Like
Happy to hear this. Please stay on the site as a poster after the handoff.
9 Likes
You’re welcome!
How should we do the vote? Last time it was just a poll inline in the thread that I linked above.
1 Like
I also think this is a good idea. It sounds like zikzak and jmakin have some docs already, but since I’ll be needing to get up to speed on our setup I’ll certainly be taking some notes and stuff, so one of my goals will be to beef up documentation while I’m at it.
1 Like
Yea let’s definitely NOT do that again. I think we should make a poll/thread in about unstuck, and pin it at the top of the site. I can do that today.
I expect it’ll be mostly unanimous because you’ve been here a while, are in good standing with the whole community, and most importantly, are willing to do it for a little while.
It’s entirely possible that by the time you’re done with it I’ll be ready to do it for a little while again, but I don’t know (or even if the community would trust me again). That’s a problem for another day. Rotating admins is not a bad idea at all. But we bought 6 months, so thank you again.
2 Likes
Real life is more important and people need breaks from time to time. There’s no reason being willing to admit that about yourself should erode anyone’s trust in you.
2 Likes
I was supposed to do this but never got around to it. I also found that what existed was plenty for me to get off the ground. ZZ did a really really good job.
I’ll definitely document the mailgun setup if I can remember wtf I did. We had issues with mail getting flagged as spam, so I had to modify our domain records a bit to fix that. You shouldn’t need to even touch it though except to recover the account to change the password, and then change the cc info (i dont wanna leave mine on there).
Honestly, you’ll almost certainly have to do absolutely nothing in 6 months except upgrade the droplet’s size or update the OS - the former doubles our bill. I really wanted to do this for peace of mind, but, I know that eats into our budget and should probably be a community discussion, but I’ll leave that decision to you.
1 Like
I guess we never ratified a rule for new admins, but we could probably just retitle this thread with an RFC prefix, see if anyone has anything to add, and then move for a binding community vote thread.
1 Like
Ok, that’s fine
2 Likes
@SensiblePerson, after your 6 month term, would you want to sign up for (or decline) another 6 month term, or an indefinite one, and would you want that subject to another community vote, or just your desire?
I like the idea of 6-month terms. And, even though it’s extra process, I think the community should have a chance to weigh in, so a community “confirmation” vote at that time seems like a good idea to me.
Let me know if that answers your questions satisfactorily.
Sounds good, and it should work. We just have to come up with the terms we’ll vote on since we haven’t established anything set for admins.
Rotating admins with fixed terms assumes a pool of candidates that doesn’t exist. Anybody willing to do the job should be welcomed with open arms for as long as they’re willing to tolerate it, under any reasonable terms they offer.
4 Likes
No forced rotation has been proposed. I see no harm in a 6-month check in.
1 Like