::wikiveg:: an animal free wiki

As the site front page explains, we recently switched hosts, from wikidev.net to hcoop.net, largely thanks to the initiative and expertise of NTK. There are a number of very positive effects that this switch will or should have:

• Cost: it should now cost only 5 bucks a month or so to host instead of about 15.
• Democracy: if you've seen [[wikiveg constitution]] you may know (and may have been justifiably upset about) my unwiki desire to keep a certain amount of monarchical control over the site. A big part of this has been that I haven't been able to bring myself to turn the site over to community control when I've been coughing up 45 bucks every three months to pay for the damn thing – it's not a ton of money, but it has sure felt like a lot to this poor student. But I feel a lot more comfortable having it be community controlled now, even if no one is chipping in yet.
• Greater control: until now we've had to ask our host Gabriel at wikidev.net to do most things for us, which takes time and sometimes extra money. But hcoop.net is geared towards the power-user, so we can do anything to the site we want ourselves (assuming we know how to do it). 
• "Ethical purchasing": We're supporting what appears to be a really great and unique project.

There are a few downsides, though I think the above outweigh them:

• We lost a few edits on the switch, because when NTK and I were doing it, it was much easier to user an older installation that we had done a week or so before as a test than to start a new one, and since we were (and I still am!) in the middle of final exams and other final schoolwork, we went for the quicker option. (And we had to get it done then, since the wikidev.net hosting that had been paid for was going to run out the next week.) I don't think we lost many (any?) substantial edits, and if we did it shouldn't be hard to redo them.
• We lost the images, until I have time to re-upload them, which won't be until late May, because…

I'm heading to the Adirondacks on Monday for a wilderness expedition that I have to do to satisfy my final graduation requirement. I'm looking forward to it actually, despite the fact that we won't be able to use shampoo or deodorant for two weeks (though I'm going to see if I can smuggle in some of the latter). See ya'll in June..