The Death of NIng

[Latinum Institute]

Ning have just announced on their Developer Network that they are terminating their free service - the cut off date has not yet been given, but this will effectively kill Schola, and this site as well. I will, however, convert Schola to a Premium site, if there is no alternative way to keep it alive on Ning. This at present is $10 a month, the new pricing schedule has not been announced.

I am also currently looking into alternatives as a fail safe, and am making arrangements to have Schola archived, just in case things go pear shaped so that at least what exists of the site will be preserved as a record, if we are unable to migrate the site elsewhere......but as things stand, this looks manageable....my first reaction was one of horror....but on reflection, no reason to panic.

[Andrew Reinhard]

Good gracious :( I am going to see what I can do about maintaining eClassics, and will post what I come up with. Evan, if you do find a good, free alternative, please let me know.

[Andrew Reinhard]

I read a few articles this morning about Ning switching to premium service, and it looks like the costs are going to be paid by network creators and not passed down to the membership. As much as I enjoy free stuff, I think that this network, and Schola, should be preserved as Ning networks, and that annual fees should be paid to keep these sites alive. I am talking to Bolchazy-Carducci about this issue today while we wait for Ning to set premium pricing in the next two weeks. Evan, if you want, I can ask Bolchazy-Carducci if they will pay for Schola, too. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in. It would save you much time and effort in porting your network to another platform.

[Roger Travis]

Evan, please keep us posted on what you're doing to archive! My Video Games and Human Values Initiative is in the same boat. I'm exploring finding space and bandwidth on UConn servers, but I think the hard part is going to be migrating what we have on Ning.

[Laura Gibbs]

Evan, in order to get rid of the ads many of the Ning networks I am in asked members to chip in to cover the $5 a month it cost to quality for one of the premium services. I don't know if that is one of the premium options that will continue to be available, but I am guessing that with 1500 members, coming up with $5 per month is not an undue burden on the network. Is Ning worth $5/month? I think it is. Right now I pay about $30/month to keep the Ning that I use for my classes ad-free, and I feel like it is money very well spent.

[Latinum Institute]

Yes, I think it is manageable to pay for Schola, once we know how much the premium will be - I suspect we will be able to raise enough each month to do this from the members, if I set up a paypal donation button dedicated to Schola - at the moment basic premium membership costs $10 a month, but as Ning have made no formal announcements ( there are still 90 days to go until the changes take effect) , there is no way of knowing what the charges will be.
Schola needs to be protected. I don't think it can be migrated, due to the language issue - so to keep it alive, it will need to be paid for.....this might be a good thing, in the long term.
Never fear, Schola will not be allowed to close down.

[Laura Gibbs]

Evan, I don't even use Schola but I would donate simply because it is a worthy cause! I'm sure if you sent up PayPal and let people donate, you would quickly accumulate enough money for several years of Ning service very quickly! Plus, if you wanted to go the route of finding advertisers who wanted to pay for the privilege of advertising on a site with that much traffic, I am guessing you would be able to do that, too - although to my mind, having an ad-free Ning is something of value that I am guessing members would gladly pay for, especially if it is just a dollar or two. :-)

[Latinum Institute]

[Latinum Institute]

Hi the donate button is now up on Schola ( the image below was just posted so I had a url for the image to feed to PayPal), which will come to my general PayPal account, flagged Schola. I will start to build up a war chest, and when the time comes when Ning switch over to a paid service, there should be enough there for a few months of run time. I will donate as well, and if we fall short, will take up the slack to keep Schola alive.

[Laura Gibbs]

PERFECT! That was easy. It was exotic to donate in Latin librae/pounds. :-)

[Latinum Institute]

Yes, thanks...with your and my donation of £5 each, we have covered one month, as I think the minimum premium 'rent' will be ten dollars a month. I am publishing how much we have raised on the site, under the button.