ReadySTUMP Site Hosting

``Making Moderation Easy''

Thanks for your interest in STUMP. First of all, I want to put in bold print the things that are usually referred to as "Fine Print" in the US.

No Purchase Necessary

STUMP itself (a computer program) is free. Anyone can download it for free. There is also a mailing list for STUMP users that is open to any STUMP user. I also give advice to STUMP users if they send their questions to the list, even if they did not pay anything to me. I would rather have non-paying but happy users running their Net. Communities on their own than a potentially great newsgroup that did not happen.

ReadySTUMP is a commercial service. STUMP site hosting (ReadySTUMP) is for those individuals and groups who would like to moderate a USENET newsgroup, but want to avoid spending their valuable time (and money) on setting up a Unix account, dealing with compilers, perl, procmail, and so on, and would rather like to concentrate on building their net.communities.

The following table compares the difference between do-it-yourself and ReadySTUMP hosting. Decide for yourself whether you want to go on your own (a good choice for many) or pay for a ReadySTUMP account (a good choice for many others).

Do It Yourself ReadySTUMP
You have to find a provider that would

Give you a Unix shell account
Agree that you run a bot from that account
Have perl and ability to compile things
Be reasonably reliable
I set up and customize STUMP for you, usually next day or so.
Thanks to our WebSTUMP interface, you do not even need to log into the moderation account, unless you need to do something fancy (end even then I can do most things for you if you want to).
You have to know Unix commands on the level of "Unix for Dummies" You don't have to know Unix
You may have to pay for a Unix shell account, unless you get it from your current provider or friends. The price of a shell-only account is usually around 10-20 dollars per month. You have to pay for a ReadySTUMP account.
You have to apply upgrades on your own, which again means some amount of Unix work.
NOTE: I do try to make upgrades as easy as possible for everyone. We'll apply upgrades to the software for you for free, if you want them.
If you want a webpage for your newsgroup, you do it yourself I create a nice looking web page for you. The web page would contain current archives of your group if that's what you want. These archives will be regularly updated.
Look at http://stump.algebra.com/~mifp
Also, I believe that moderators should derive tangible (as well as emotional) benefits from their work. I therefore believe that these web sites offer the moderators a good opportunity to advertise themselves, as well as their business. For example, moderators of software newsgroups may advertise their consulting services, whereas moderators of recreational newsgroups may make easy money by selling related books through Amazon.com's reseller program.
Such websites offer an excellent opportunity to host FAQs and charters. With STUMP, you can advertise your Web site in every approved message.
You can set up optional WebSTUMP interface, which requires knowledge of HTML and CGI, and the ability to run CGI scripts on your server. WebSTUMP allows moderators to moderate their newsgroups through easy Web interface, with any Web browser such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. But setting it up requires access to a web server, some knowledge of CGI and perl, and an ability to run CGI scripts, which is not always the case. I set up WebSTUMP for you.

A Note On Reliability

A newsgroup moderator provides a service to thousands of users. That means that an interruption of his or her access to the moderation bot is also an interruption of enjoyable activity for all of these users. Ultimately, reliability of a STUMP installation is determined by three things:

Reliability of the hosting computer and its internet provider and its internet connection.
Inherent reliability (or lack thereof) of the STUMP program.
Expertise of the person who is running it

After many years of commercial software development and in particular writing reliable software at work, I have realized that truly reliable computing (with rate of outages less than 0.01%) is either prohibitively expensive, or plain impossible. Even systems that are created with the foremost objective of achieving highest fault tolerance, such as AT&T telephone switching system or their frame relay system, have been embarrassed by lengthy outages. Be assured that it happened not because AT&T lied to its customers about its intentions or did mot make a good faith effort. Rather, it happened because it was bound to happen. A mistake was only in making impossible claims.

I do not believe that truly high reliability is achievable on modern Internet. Also, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, which means that there is no point in trying to completely crash-proof one piece of a system without achieving similar quality levels in other pieces.

However, I do make an effort to make STUMP as reliable as reasonably possible. I also guarantee to the ReadySTUMP users that I will apply a good effort to make their STUMP installations reliable. I also do regular backups and implement failover schemes. Note, however, that switching to a secondary site can take a day or even more. I do have contingency plans for such outages, however.

The computer that hosts ReadySTUMP is as reliable as most Internet providers, and is directly connected to the internet via a LAN and a high speed link.

My personal experience running STUMP installations is that once set up, they rarely malfunction. This has not been the case from the beginning, and I was enormously helped by the experiences of dozens of moderators running STUMP.

Our goal is to be more reliable than an average STUMP installation running on an average internet provider. I have the capability and commitment to achieve that. I shall also ensure that general system issues, such as disk space overflows and so on do not impact the running moderation sites.

A Note on Newsgroup Addresses

Many moderators are concerned that their newsgroup moderation addresses remain stable over long periods of time, even if they change internet providers. Here, I guarantee that even if you decide to discontinue your service, we'll keep your address functional for a long, but limited in the absense of fees, period of time.

Prices

My philosophy is that it is better to offer a good service to a few willing people at the fair price, and keep them happy, rather than give a poor service at a cheap price to a lot of unhappy people and use my time unwisely.

The prices are:

Class A: $50 set-up and $35/mo, payable monthly
Class B: $0 set-up and $30 per month, payable for a year in advance.

Note that class B users are guaranteed that mail sent to their accounts at our site shall be forwarded to their new site in case if they decide to discontinue their service, at no charge.

For class A users, the fee for forwarding mail shall not exceed $3/mo.

I guarantee that your requests to make changes and investigate problems will be resolved promptly.

I guarantee timely updates of your moderation software and will listen to all suggestions for improvement.

Summary

I am not just an Internet provider that also happens to host several moderation accounts. I specialize in hosting moderators, know what they need, listen to them, and have the ability to deliver. Stump.Algebra.Com hosted, and still hosts without glitches, the first ever installation of STUMP.

Contacts

If you think that you need to use ReadySTUMP or discuss pricing with us, drop a note to Igor Chudov, ichudov@algebra.com

Back to STUMP Webpage

Back to My Homepage

Do It Yourself	ReadySTUMP
You have to find a provider that would Give you a Unix shell account Agree that you run a bot from that account Have perl and ability to compile things Be reasonably reliable	I set up and customize STUMP for you, usually next day or so. Thanks to our WebSTUMP interface, you do not even need to log into the moderation account, unless you need to do something fancy (end even then I can do most things for you if you want to).
You have to know Unix commands on the level of "Unix for Dummies"	You don't have to know Unix
You may have to pay for a Unix shell account, unless you get it from your current provider or friends. The price of a shell-only account is usually around 10-20 dollars per month.	You have to pay for a ReadySTUMP account.
You have to apply upgrades on your own, which again means some amount of Unix work. NOTE: I do try to make upgrades as easy as possible for everyone.	We'll apply upgrades to the software for you for free, if you want them.
If you want a webpage for your newsgroup, you do it yourself	I create a nice looking web page for you. The web page would contain current archives of your group if that's what you want. These archives will be regularly updated. Look at http://stump.algebra.com/~mifp Also, I believe that moderators should derive tangible (as well as emotional) benefits from their work. I therefore believe that these web sites offer the moderators a good opportunity to advertise themselves, as well as their business. For example, moderators of software newsgroups may advertise their consulting services, whereas moderators of recreational newsgroups may make easy money by selling related books through Amazon.com's reseller program. Such websites offer an excellent opportunity to host FAQs and charters. With STUMP, you can advertise your Web site in every approved message.
You can set up optional WebSTUMP interface, which requires knowledge of HTML and CGI, and the ability to run CGI scripts on your server. WebSTUMP allows moderators to moderate their newsgroups through easy Web interface, with any Web browser such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. But setting it up requires access to a web server, some knowledge of CGI and perl, and an ability to run CGI scripts, which is not always the case.	I set up WebSTUMP for you.