On Friday, BlogPac and the Soapblox community came to you with an urgent request to save and secure more than 100 progressive blogs from imminent destruction by hackers. Three days later, I am happy to tell you that the netroots community came through, big time.
First, our request for $17,400 to secure Soapblox was met:
While the thermometer shows the fundraiser at slightly under the $17,400 goal, as I explain in the extended entry, that total does not tell the whole story.
In addition to the total in the thermometer, more sources chipped for Soapblox, including:
--A $2,000 grant from MoveOn.org
--Over $1,400 un recurring donations
--Nearly $800 raised for Soapblox, via BlogPac, on the Better Democrats 2010 page
--Over $200 raised directly for Soapblox by non-US citizens via PayPal
So, the fundraiser is actually over $20,000 at this point, well past our goal. Thank you, thank you, thank you! All of the money raised beyond the $17,400 goal will be used to continue upgrading Soapblox. Here is what the money from this fundraiser has already accomplished:
First off: SoapBlox is no longer a one-man operation!
A System Administration group has been created, with over half-a-dozen people working on the new hardware/security concerns of SoapBlox Network, Inc. A new server has been created which is going to be the model for a new server paradigm. This server should be up and ready to hosts sites within the week.
When the server is ready, we will begin the process of moving sites on to this server, freeing up existing hardware where to be basically reformatted and reinstalled from scratch.
Eventually every SoapBlox site existing now will be moved. During this move we will also be upgrading you to a NEW version of SoapBlox. This new version as a lot of cool features that you can read about at a link provided below. Also, new code has been added since our security incident early to help prevent future compromises and make the software more secure.
Another group of people have been established to serve as the Customer Service/Bug Monitoring portion of the SoapBlox Network, Inc. team. We will be creating a portal for all customers to use to report issues and have the handled in a timely manner. We will be establishing business hours where our Customer Service will be on-call to deal with issues that arrive.
Along with this, a 24/7/365 Sys Admin will be on call to deal with any up-time issues on our end of things.
All of this will be up and running within the next couple weeks.
We've also established an Accounting position to manage the billing and payment side of the operation.
Additionally, an effort is underway to secure long-term funding to allow Paul to work on developing and upgrading Soapblox full-time. The focus is on non-profit funding, and two organizations have already expressed interest. The prospects of Paul being able to operate and develop Soapblox full-time are now very positive.
As both a Soapblox user and the Treasurer of BlogPac, let me again thank everyone who participated in the fundraiser. During these past five years, every day when I have been able to participate in the netroots full-time feels like a stolen day, a miracle of which I am undeserving. Efforts like these allow the netroots to continue to function, in all of its shoestring, grassroots, bottom-up glory. In this case, I am confident it will lead to a solid, long-term foundation, that will save, secure, and improve all of the more than 100 Soapblox blogs indefinitely into the future.