What will happen to We Make Zines?

[Nichole]

I saw on Tech Crunch yesterday that Ning will be ending its free service to its users. Free networks will be forced to pay or move their networks elsewhere. This made me wonder what will happen to this community. I just found it, and I would hate to see it die!

Sorry if this was already brought up. I was just curious if people knew about it or not.

[Tom Hendricks]

Who do I make checks out to? Pony Boy Press?

Krissy PonyBoy Press said:

Sure, Tom. People can send donations to:

PonyBoy Press
PO Box 14613
Portland, OR 97293

If we had ads it would mostly just be within the community, distros and websites and stuff. I will be sending out a poll so we can get an idea of how people feel.

Thanks!

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Thanks Tom for asking. I just got on here to say this and didn't notice your respocnse. Don't make it out to PonyBoy Press or I won't be able to cash it. Make out to K Durden. Thanks!

Tom Hendricks said:

Who do I make checks out to? Pony Boy Press?

Krissy PonyBoy Press said:

Sure, Tom. People can send donations to:

PonyBoy Press
PO Box 14613
Portland, OR 97293

If we had ads it would mostly just be within the community, distros and websites and stuff. I will be sending out a poll so we can get an idea of how people feel.

Thanks!

[Nichole]

Ning really wants to rape people, it seems.

BuddyPress, which is a plugin for Wordpress, is a way to create a social community for free. One would just need their own server space and domain name, but for the price that Ning wants to charge for a year or service, it's way cheaper.

BuddyPress also has some great themes.

I've never used BuddyPress before, since I personally have no need for a social community, but I am very familiar with wordpress. It's what I use to run my blog Jinked. I think it could work for this community.

A lot of people from Ning are jumping ship to BuddyPress.

Take a look around the BuddyPress site and see if it would suit the needs of We Make Zines.

[Nichole]

Other free 3rd party places to consider:

WackWall
Spruz

[Tom Hendricks]

That's why I asked. Sometimes in the past people have sent me checks made out to Musea.
Try to convince the bank you are Musea! Won't work. Common problem with many zinesters.
Check on the way. Good luck

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Hi Nicole,

Thanks for the info, I will look at it. I have thought about moving the network, but how do we know they won't do the same thing in a year. I mean they all need a way to make money. I personally don't think $20.00 a month for what we have here is a huge amount. As long as it is stable and the price doesn't go up. It might and so might some other place I jump to that is free now but later may disappear or become fee based only. And ion the process we might lost stuff or people.

Maybe just hanging on with Ning for a year and seeing how other people's transfers go would be the best idea.

Krissy

Nichole said:

Other free 3rd party places to consider:

WackWall
Spruz

[Saling Pusa Distro/closed]

is it just me or is the link to donate not working? I clicked on it earlier and it said "fatal error".

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Give it a try again. I have been having trouble with these links not staying live.

Thanks!

Saling Pusa Distro said:

is it just me or is the link to donate not working? I clicked on it earlier and it said "fatal error".

[Freeschool Community]

Everyone has sound and wise thoughts and I am very glad people are talking about it. Though, I think if this were featured as a main discussion it might get more folks who actually had more knowledge to comment. Cascadia (Portland, Olympia, Seattle, etc) is not only the zine capital of the world, it is also the tech capital of the country in a lot of ways and there are a lot of folks who could volunteer tech help I'm sure especially for WemakeZines. If the zine movement is about DIY, it would be nice to take this Ning crisis and use it to become DIY from the Ning corporation. But support is needed by the Freeschool and by Wemake Zine it seems. Nichole mentioned Spruz and so far that seems where most Ning folks are heading. Spruz even has a special forum set up just for Ning transfer questions.

For the Freeschool, we have posted a very detailed announcement found here on the front page of our website and in PeaceCommunities letting our members and the public know about it and other alternatives and also considering KickApps which stated that start at $9.95 per month for Ning transfer and they have helped huge groups like national Geographic, NPR, Stone Temple Pilots and a lot more. We sent KickApps an email describing what we want and received no response back yet so we'll see. It usually takes Ning a couple days to respond too. We would still prefer opensource if we had volunteer tech support. We use Joomla for our freeschool site now.

Why not offer the money that would have been given to Ning for WeMakeZines to some tech volunteers as a stipend? Even riseup.net pays their volunteers a stipend... which is about half of all their donations (last they posted to their website).

Instead of making just a call for financial donations.... maybe ask some tech gurus to donate time to help with tech help?

I agree with all of Ponyboys concerns though for WeMakeZines and I have those exact same concerns and more for the PeaceCommunities especially since we have member's who have posted a lot of videos.,,and that will disappear if we stay with ning for 20 per month because Ning requires 50 per month for videos. When WeMakeZines loses the video and music upload ability I guess the members are Ok with that. But my other top concern about Wordpress and other open source types is getting support. We've used (and still are using open source, Joomla) and it is sometimes very difficult to get your webhost to help with that. We also have wordpres blogs and wordpress does have some issues sometimes as well..but they have the most awesome free templates for sure and the best plug-ins no doubt. Ning does fall short in a lot of ways but they are pretty good about support based upon what I've seen in our community.

I would really love to see a coalition of progressive Ning users post a shared announcement asking for shared tech volunteer (or paid) to help all progressive or DIy Ning communities worldwide migrate to an open source platform. That might be awesome.

maybe. :)

Huge task. is there some awesome tech person out there willing to do it? I hope so.

Oh well, my thoughts. :)

Keep up the great work everyone.
love, peace.


Krissy PonyBoy Press said:

Hi Nicole,
Thanks for the info, I will look at it. I have thought about moving the network, but how do we know they won't do the same thing in a year. I mean they all need a way to make money. I personally don't think $20.00 a month for what we have here is a huge amount. As long as it is stable and the price doesn't go up. It might and so might some other place I jump to that is free now but later may disappear or become fee based only. And ion the process we might lost stuff or people. Maybe just hanging on with Ning for a year and seeing how other people's transfers go would be the best idea.
Krissy

Nichole said:

Other free 3rd party places to consider:

WackWall Spruz

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Update: Thanks to all who donated! We are up to $198.00! I am going to stop asking for donations now and we can try in a year for the paid amount and see how it goes. If after a year it looks good to stay with Ning, I will be asking for money again. This will give us a chance to see how other people like transferring their networks and I can get an idea of what the best and least taxing way would be for WMZ to continue.

Thanks again to all of you for your generous donations!! I love this community!

Krissy

[Freeschool Community]

I love this community too. But if it really is indeed a community... and especially since there are people giving there funds to keep it going now... shouldn't the folks in the WeMakeZines community be given a vote as to the direction of the community? Is it really a community if one person makes all the decisions? My guess is that people will probably agree to stay with Ning because thats the easiest and risk-free and safest way out.

But the decision to stay with Ning will not only effect WeMakeZines community... it also effects other ning communities... because it influences Ning decisions. There are hundreds of progressives and DIY folks who have larger and smaller Ning communities who are in a serious jam right now. Maybe giving money to the corporation that put us in the jam is not the best way to help this community and especially not other Ning communities?

There are countless poll devices that can be added to Ning as seen here. Couldn't there at least be a poll set up to ask WeMakeZine folks...

Do they want
a. further research
b. stay with Ning for a month at a time and study alternatives and see how other transfers go
c. stay with Ning for a whole year (which is the current solution) and be locked into a contract
d. Sign Petitions and post them to our websites and blogs telling Ning to keep the fees low or completely free-of-charge for WeMakeZines (WMZ has over 2,400 writers and many smallpress publishers in this community so that actually could work especially since we have over a month until the fees need to be paid). WeMakeZines might be able to convince Ning to grant an exception and keep it free of charge for WMZ especially since WMZ is not part of any institution like many other large Ning communities. Granting exceptions is the way of the world because rules were meant to broken by those willing to break them for the right reason. Dreamhost gives away lifetime free of charge hosting to non-profits... as an exception to their rules and Ning could too. The Freeschool would definitely post a link on our websites, podcast, blogs and community encouraging people to sign it to keep WMZ free-of-charge.
e. suggest other options that don't include giving in so easily to Ning's oppressive corporate tactics
f. Ning doesn't even start charging until July or August 2010 according to their press release.

Nichole said "Ning really wants to rape people, it seems." I think rape is the right word and agree with her because that is exactly what it seems and it makes me sad to see a community full of DIY folks have to give in so easily to having to actually pay for less services (no video, no music uploads and pay $20 per month) ...without even a fight.

Either way that you decide, keep up the great work. At the rate this community is growing, I'd like to see it keep growing and it seems sad that we now have to pay NING for less services...even as they oppress so many other DIY and progressive communities without any form of solidarity action or fight to be treated better. The Freeschool and FreeRentCommunity has reviewed zines about people wanting to be treated better. I think you've done an awesome job, PonyBoy. There are many people in this community who write zines all about the desire to be treated better... and that desire to be treated better by corporations shouldn't stop when we are gathered together online in WeMakeZines Community as over 2,400 members strong. No, our desire to be treated better should only grow stronger when online and it has to start somewhere when oppressed by corporations like Ning.

Love, peace.



Krissy PonyBoy Press said:

Thanks again to all of you for your generous donations!! I love this community!

Krissy

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Hi Mulnix,

Thanks for the offer, but you don't need to. I have enough for a year and after it isn't for sure we would be here. So, save it for next year if we need it.

Thank you so much!

Krissy

Mulnix said:

Krissy PB- I haven't been on the site since you started accepting donations and still want to donate for next year. Can you steer me in the right direction?

Love,

Mulnix