Attention Online Policy Group Users...

On Thursday, September 1, OPG's main server suffered a catastrophic disk failure. Most web, mail, and list services are unavailable. We are working to restore service and to recover the data we can, but our backups are not up-to-date. We will have a report from the disk recovery vendor later in the week.

If you can donate to help OPG stay online through this costly time, see the bottom of this page.

Sat Oct 8 18:24:39 PDT 2005
Unfortunately, retrieval efforts from our disks have proved futile with the initial vendor we used -- at a cost of $2500. While other vendors might have more success, we have been quoted prices of up to ten times what we have already paid, with no guarantees.
So we urge those of you who have sites we host to do the following:

• If your site is listed below, and you have not contacted us already, contact support@onlinepolicy.org with your username, password, domain, and contact email address -- we have your data but don't have sufficient info to put it back online.
• If you have a backup of your site, contact us with the same information so we can set up space for you to re-upload your site.
• If your site was hosted by us and you do not have a backup, you may be able to retrive the contents of your site for re-uploading from The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine". retrieve your files from there, if they are archived, and contact us with upload information. (Similarly, you may be able to find your site in Google's caches.) Unfortunately, this will only retrieve static content, not databases.

Thu Sep 22 21:25:26 PDT 2005
We are experiencing severe performance problems with the current server configuration. Parts are on order that we hope will address these. Expect downtime on Friday evening as we replace them.

Sun Sep 18 23:32:28 PDT 2005
We continue to await data recovery information, though the prognosis has gone up a bit from the end of last week. We still will not have useful information for several days.

If you have not contacted us yet with username/password/domain information for your site, please do so. If you have and we haven't set up your site for re-uploading, write us at support@onlinepolicy.org -- we're sorry if it slipped thrugh the cracks.

Our list management software is now working, though we have a little bit of configuration to do before we can start setting up lists -- that should be possible from Monday. If you're the owner of a groups.onlinepolicy.net or groups.queernet.org list, or the domain administrator of a private domain of lists, please contact us with:

• if a list we host in groups.onlinepolicy.net or groups.queernet.org: the owner address(es), listnames, passwords, and short one-line descriptions; also, if the list contains adult materials, please let us know that that's true and if it is for a male-specific, female-specific or sex/gender-non-specific audience. (Yes, we're sensitive to the difference between sex and gender, and know that things might not be that simply classifiable -- if you don't feel those two specific categories apply, say it's non-specific for now, and we'll address it more cleanly post-recovery.)
• if a private list domain, the name of the domain, your organization name, and the administrative password you'd like for the domain.

Sun Sep 18 00:21:33 PDT 2005
Websites requiring PHP should now be operational. If your website has not yet been recreated for reload, please contact us at support@onlinepolicy.org. We are still not certain whether previous data can or cannot be recovered.

Sun Sep 11 01:27:53 PDT 2005
Good news, bad news, no news:

• Most of the sites for which we have been given user information have been set up for re-uploading, and more wil lbe set up tomorrow.
• We do not currently have PHP running properly for websites.
• We do not yet know when disk data are likely to be recovered, but investigations so far indicate that there is not much data loss.

Wed Sep 7 23:27:40 PDT 2005 Sorry for the further delays -- we have encountered some tricky problems in configuring our web server and PHP language support, which should be resolved tomorrow.

If your domain is one of the following, please send mail to onlinepolicygroup@gmail.com with the username and password for your website, as well as the contact email address you wish for us to have in our records for your site:

• beingdavid.com, blahblah.com, caseohio.org, disabledwomynsmedia.org, firefdn.org, gay-bible.org, harryo.org, hasan.wits2020.net, jacklerner.net, luluspervyplayhouse.org, m19mobilization.org, mattblakk.com, nlsca.com, nopapernovote.net, opint.org, oregonleatherfraternity.org, pittsburghradicalfaeries.org, qlaw.org, religiouswitnesshome.org, rfdmag.org, skeeter123.net, subconsciousrevolt.net, trannyfag.org, utahsocialists.org

We should have knowledge about what data have been recovered in the morning, and should be able to restore any recovered data over the upcoming weekend.

Wed Sep 7 04:21:10 PDT 2005 Reconstruction of the server continues -- we should be up to receive uploading of sites and lists by this evening. Meanwhile we are awaiting news on potential data recovery.

Mon Sep 5 19:55:29 PDT 2005 We are making progress toward rebuilding our web and list server environment (though we will not know about restoring data until later in the week). By tomorrow evening, we should be able to set up space for clients tp re-upload their sites. If you have a backup of your site, AND your site does not use a database on our server (or you have a backup of the database), please mail onlinepolicygrup@gmail.com with your domain name, web username, and password -- we will swnd you reuploading directions.

Sun Sep 4 17:15:43 PDT 2005 If you have lists hosted in your own lists domain -- NOT groups.onlinepolicy.net or groups.queernet.org -- we can capture all incoming messages in one big catch-all mailbox, if you so choose. In the future days when list service is back up, you can re-post your subscribers messages to the appropriate lists manually, or you can reply to them manually to tell them why their messages aren't being received. Otherwise, messages will be retried for up to five days (depending on the sender's ISP or employer) and then returned undeliverable. If you want us to hold all messages, contact us at onlinepolicygroup@gmail.com to let us know and we'll set up a holding mailbox. This will only be for entire list domains -- NOT one holding box per list.

Sat Sep 3 23:52:55 PDT 2005
POP and IMAP access for many email accounts is now enabled. See See the mail server web page for latest status. Webmail will be configured on Sunday.

Sat Sep 3 16:27:24 PDT 2005
Email is being delivered to mailboxes for many domains, but pickup is not yet possible. See the mail server web page for latest status.

Fri Sep 2 23:42:29 PDT 2005
Email service on mailbox.onlinepolicy.net should be at least partially restored on Saturday. See the mail server web page for latest status.

Fri Sep 2 18:30:28 PDT 2005
If you need to contact us, please use the temporary address onlinepolicygroup@gmail.com.

Thu Sep 1 20:49:43 PDT 2005
We are still working to restore services. Right now have some basic mail services ready, however we need a list of your email addresses. At this moment in time we do not have any method of allow ing access to your mailbox, however we can set up our server to queue any mail being sent to your address. Please contact postmaster@onlinepolicy.net

Thu Sep 1 11:54:55 PDT 2005

Earlier today, OPG's main server suffered a catastrophic disk failure. Most web, mail, and list services are unavailable. We do not know when service will be restored or if data are irretrievably lost. We will update this space as we learn more.

Donations

To donate:

• Mail a check or money order donation in US funds to:
  Online Policy Group
  304 Winfield Street
  San Francisco, CA 94110-5512
• Use PayPal to send a donation from your bank account or credit card to donate@onlinepolicy.org.