Sponsor Group IUOMA

The world is changing and people are all over the internet. Not sure if a platform like IUOMA, with no advertisings at all, will survive the commercial times.

Also sometime books are bought at:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/iuoma

which gives some money to the IUOMA as well and brings you a book on mail-art at home!

Olá. Ainda não fiz minha doação deste ano, porque estou a ter problemas com o PayPal, na atualização do cartão multibanco

Hoping that IUOMA.ning will continue for many years,

as there are those amongst us who refuse to go to FaceBook, you see :-)

Time to donate!!!

Stay well, stay safe xxx

Another kind donation arrived and lets IUOMA live longer online again! Thank you!

Some more donations came in, so IUOMA lives longer.
Thank you IUOMA network!

Some more lovely donations arrived and I want to thank all those who believe in this IUOMA platform and keep it alive and well!

Some more donations came in the last months, so 2021 is completely covered for paying hosting IUOMA now. Thank you so much!

This NING group has been growing a lot, and now the volume is about 150 Gbyte.

With the current pricing of NING networks we are above the allowed limits and that means we would need a higher subscription with a much higher price. So I am confronted with the fact I have to clean up the archives or look for more money to pay a higher bill.

Currently donations keep it possible to keep thins hosted for the current pricing. The new pricing is just too high to keep things working with donations.

So there is a problem to solve, and I need to know the ideas of the IUOMA members on NING what the next step should be.

When you say looks at archives, would this be inactive members, inactive groups? What needs to be reduced in terms of size? Would an annual subscription be possible but with “sponsored” subscriptions where those who can’t afford it would get help?

Well, it was just over 500 Euros/year so what is the new rate?

It depends on how much more it will cost (what will be the >150GB price?) and if it indeed is far too high, it will depend on what we all want to keep for future generations.
A question which might help us choosing whether (and if yes, what) to clean up is 'why would we keep things, and when/why not?'.

Personally I see this IUOMA site as both a social network and a museum / mail art archive.

To my opinion themed groups should stay, as they are archives in themselves (thinking of the Brain Cell group, Mail Art history, rubber stamps, blue roads, and of course this group, which will be part of mail art history, too). And member's photo albums and blogs about received / sent mail. Also the accounts of dear fellow mail artists who passed away, to my opinion must be cherished. 

But what to delete? It would be hard to choose. Accounts of people who once registered but since then never showed up? Small talk (short 'thank you' notes and so) on our own pages? Though I guess deleting some text won't help that much: most MB's and GB's might exist of photos of mail art work, which, well, must stay alive in the IUOMA archives..

I just got a quote for 1TB of storage for $500 US / month.  That's more than 12 times as much as we're paying now.  Don't know if there's enough in donations to support that level although I'd be willing to contribute monthly.

with 100 Gbyte they will ask 82 US$ a month.

The current archive is 321 Gbyte. SO quite expensive still.

Deleting inactive groups (no activity for years) is an option, but it is also deleting our history.

I do know that this website is indexed by www.archive.org, so the complete data is there too some way.

you can check the pricing at:

https://www.ning.com/pricing/

Yes, I did that, but they only show pricing up to 100GB.  I started a chat and was told that the next level was 1TB for $500 US / month.  If they had a 500GB level we'd be set for quite awhile and it'd have to be cheaper than the 1TB quote.

Is it possible to transfer the "heavy" Gbyte old groups and the old video postings to IUOMA at Facebook before deleting them here at ning? That way we will keep the historic postings for future generations to see.

Or...perhaps, Ruud, you could save all the "old" stuff to a Tbyte hard disc and keep it in your TAM archive, to post to ning if ever there is a need. Hoping there is a way to reduce the "bytes" at ning so as not to pay a high price, but still have an archive somewhere to save IUOMA history.

The complete network is archived by the Internet Archive. So that is accesible for everyone.

The bill for another year on NING has just been paid. Thanks for all the sponsors that helped IUOMA to keep it a free and advertising free place.

Today is a great day to support the IUOMA with a donation!

The International Union of Mail Artists was created 33 years ago today.

some very generous donations arrived last months, so IUOMA stays alive and well!

ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΠΟΛΛΑ!

As we say in Greece, 

for many "more years" to come!

Happy New Year 2022!

Thanks for the new donation from Greece!

Thanks to all kind donations the hosting for another year has been paid for. Let's keep this platform alive and well

today this IUOMA on NING website is 333.94 GB large.

That explains why the hosting is expensive

The Website on NING crashes and was restored. That happened on March 2nd.

Now slowly all functions are being restored. Also the datacapacity of the website was enlarged: 335.92 GB (67%) of 500 GB is now used.

new donation from KN in G added some more time. Thanks so much

November 2008 this platform was created for the IUOMA. Soon we reach the 15 years online. Who ever thought we would stay alive that long without commercial adds on the platform.

Hosting for another year has been paid for.

Lets keep this platform alive. Donationa are always welcome.

That is good news! Yes, and with thousands of members on this platform I thought it would be easy to keep the IUOMA online network alive. But possibly not everyone sees this group neither the 'donate' part... So, to all IUOMA members: hear! hear! Help by contributing!

Additional a question to Ruud: how much does it cost to add a 's' to the 'http', so that this site will be https?

It does feel a bit (or much) more safe, so possibly it is worht it?

The site update to the https:// is already made. Both versions should work. Just ty it!

Another lind donation arrived yesterday. Keeps everything alive for a longer time. Great, thank you!

Thanks for keeping IUOMA safe, Ruud,

let's keep ning network alive and well

Till July all still is good, but the inflation and also difficult times in the world are noticed. We will see how long this NING platform can stay online.

Some more donations came in. We are good till september this year.

Let's keep online into the New Year 2025!

Ning needs more than funny munny :-)

Soon the next bill comes in. Some more donations would be welcome to keep IUOMA alive and well.  With the current donation it seems obvious somehow this network will stop. No advertising on this network, and free for all users, but at the moment not that much support with donations.

two generous donations just arrived.

The IUOMA platform grows, so does the amount of data.

When we increase the way things go now, a more expensive hosting will be needed.

That is why I limited the amount of uploadable images to 4 a day.

Also older grpups that no-one uses anymore will eventually get deleted.

This network is not the archive of your stuff. It is only a communication platform

Hello Ruud

That makes sense to remove older groups that have little or no activity. 
And thanks for the reminder that this isn’t an

archive, it’s meant  for communication. 

mim

The bill for hosting IUOMA on NING arrived and is paid. So till July 2025 this platform is online. As you can see in the details on donations, we just made it. Thanks for all those kind donations to keep this platform alive and well

Thanks Ruud, for keeping us "up to speed" and for All that You Do!

That's great news!

a wonderful donation arrived from the USA. Another month is paid for. That looks great.

Some IUOMA members post a lot of non mail-art related images.  That would be wonderful on Facebook and other social Media, but the IUOMA network is based on Mail-Art. So please keep that in focus. The lareger the database gets, the more expensive the hosting.  Groups that are no longer needed or used eventually will get deleted to save space and money.  The http://www.archive.org  Internet Archive does store all that is published too because this is a large database. So you can view history there too!

https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/iuoma-network.ning.com