Next Step: the Server Decision

[Aberforth's Goat]

Hi all!

First, I want to thank Steve for taking the initiative on this and for
everything he's done in getting the project going, and continuing to take
interest in the FAQ-project.

* * * *

We need to make a decision about our hosting situation so we can get the
show on the road!

I see a few advantages to remaining on the Lexicon server: (1) We're already
there, so we wouldn't have to do a U-haul job. (2) It's close to the
Lexicon, and might even (theoretically) be integrated into the lexicon - and
some kind of integration between the two would be sensible. (At least to my
mind: as a surfer, I like having as much information as possible indexed
from a single site. It certainly avoids redundance.)

CAVEAT: Of course, I'm not sure whether either Steve or the FAQ-authors
would even want this. That is - on one hand - I don't know if Stve would
even want our material to appear under the aegis of his site. (For example,
a disquisition on fanfic isn't exactly prime Lexicon material.) And seen
from the other side, I don't know whether we HPfGU folks wouldn't prefer to
present the FAQ as a self-contained project; close integration with the
Lexicon *might* make it less of an explicitly HPfGU project. (Of course it
might actually be possible to have two separate ways of accessing the
FAQ-essays: one through hyperlinks at appropriate points on Steve's site,
another through an HPfGU FAQ index page.) Any thoughts would be welcome!

I see two significant advantages in moving to the FA server: (1) I have the
impression that the FA conglemaration has a *lot* of experience at getting
submitted material into a publishable form. HTML-ising a fanfic and
HTML-ising a FAQ are very similar processes. (2) It seems to me that the
FA-server route would create a publishing process involving a maximum of two
persons (author, formatter-publisher), as opposed to a three-person process
(author, formatter, Steve). Since we could also involve quite a few
html-literate people at the "formatter-publisher" stage, I think we would be
avoiding potential bottlenecks.

Those are my thoughts so far - what do you guys say?

I've cc'd this post to the HPfGU moderator group and have also written a
summary of the discussion preceding it. I would suggest that we moderators
come to a final decision (with further input from anyone involved in this
group!) by Friday so that we can all begin tooling up next weekend.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray, writing on his own initiative, but with
his HPfGU moderator cap on.)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may
not have been bravery...."