ARTS & FARCES internet

Several days ago the server that runs this website failed catastrophically, taking its backup disk with it. I’ve mostly recovered the database, although the last two months of published entries are gone and some fairly serious problems with the database remain to be resolved.

As a result, I’ve moved the website to a professional hosting service associated with the good folks that make the software on which the site runs. The support from both parties has been incredible, and I fully expect to have the remaining issues resolved soon.

If the issues prove irresolvable, however, a decision will have to be made about continuing the website. Having already been confronted with losing all 16 years of content, I had already resolved to take it down.

So, fair warning. I’m going to give this 30 days (the time window in which I can still cancel my hosting account); if serious problems remain after that, a decision will be made with the very real possibility that the site will be permanently decommissioned. Here’s hoping that doesn’t become necessary.

Back in the days of the RSS wars, it made sense—sort of—to provide both RSS 2.0 and Atom syndication feeds. Well, not really. Providing both XML formats has always been problematic from the users’ perspective.

Dean Allen’s astute observation of the usability problems associated with offering dueling XML formats hit me like a two-by-four between the eyes.

Yikes. Something that seemed like a good idea at the time clearly wasn’t. As Jon Gruber notes, it’s like “asking website visitors what flavor of HTML they wanted: ‘No XHTML 1.0 Strict for me. HTML 4.01 Transitional, please.’”

So, sometime tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be removing the Atom syndication feed from this website. If you’re subscribed to the Atom feed, you’ll need to switch to the RSS 2.0 format.

Update: Sunday, 20 April 2008 01:15PM CDT: The Atom XML format has been fully deprecated on this website. Use the RSS 2.0 feed.

What I thought was a catastrophic hardware failure turned out to be a bad port on a switch. Last night it occurred to me that I had done a poor job of troubleshooting. Instead of investigating the simplest point of failure—a bad cable or a bad port—I simply assumed the most complicated point of failure.

So, we’re back on the air. And the peace and quiet that was my office is back to the cacophony of the server grinding away under my desk.

It’s interesting that when I thought the server had died I gave serious consideration to not bringing Hasten down the wire back up. I couldn’t really afford a new server and I wasn’t interested in paying hosting fees. When I started writing online, there were very few folks doing it—now it’s commonplace. What used to be a unique voice now sort of gets drowned out with the rest of the background noise.

And let’s face it: “feeding the beast” is tough work.

You’ll notice that I’ve removed the Google AdSense ads from all of the ARTS & FARCES websites. I did it for a variety of reasons:

• Last week I published two stories about serious problems with a DaVita dialysis clinic in Lufkin, TX. Google AdSense displayed the most outrageous ads I’ve yet seen associated with those stories. It was embarrassing.
• Yesterday in his plenary at the National Conference on Media Reform, Bill Moyers talked about just how badly broken the online advertising model is for sustainable journalism. In short, advertisers are rolling their own content; what do they need us for? And just who’s going to buy advertising keywords for media reform, healthcare reform, and broken publishing models?
• Also yesterday, in the National Conference on Media Reform breakout session, “Newspapers: Not Dead Yet,” (an absolute waste of time, by the way; excellent panelists with not one thing to say) a positively absurd statement from the audience seriously posited that professional journalists should be replaced with hobbyists. Hey, it’s working with volunteers in parts of Manhattan.

For all these reasons—but most of all because Google’s AdSense is seriously broken—I’m opting out. I have some minor ideas I plan on noodling around with but nothing even approaching a model.

Still looking, like everyone else, for a sustainable online publishing business model.

I have been offered, and have accepted, a continuous appointment as senior editor at the University of Minnesota’s new College of Design. My working title is ecommunications manager in the College of Design. The job description couldn’t have been written to be a closer fit for my talents and interests.

The College of Design was formed by combining the College of Design, Housing, and Apparel (DHA) and the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) in keeping with the university’s goal of becoming one of the top three research universities in the world within a decade. The College of Design unites all of the university’s design disciplines as first envisioned by Ralph Rapson in the 1950s:

• Graphic design
• Apparel design
• Retail merchandising
• Interior design
• Housing studies
• Architecture
• Landscape architecture

The College of Design also has a wealth of institutes and centers that are now unified:

• Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR) contributes to Architecture’s M.S. track in Sustainable Design and is the only graduate program of its kind in the country
• Metropolitan Design Center (MDC) is a recognized leader in urban and suburban design
• Design Institute (DI) is widely recognized for its publications and events
• Goldestein Museum of Design (GMD) is a museum devoted to design located on the Saint Paul campus
• InformeDesign is a publicly-accessible research database

My first day on the job is tomorrow, so writing here is going to be even more embarrassingly infrequent for a while.