Don’t forget to subscribe to the new world Rotaract list, unmoderated and all languages allowed. Send a mail to:

 

rotaractnet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

No olvides suscribirte a la nueva lista mundial de Rotaract, no moderada y con todos los lenguajes permitidos. Envía un correo a:

 

rotaractnet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

 

 

Dear Rotaractors, ex-Rotaractors, and Rotarians,

 

I have been promising to fill everyone in about what I have discovered and reached agreement with RI regarding rotaract.org. So here it is!

 

The list of people I am sending this to has grown considerably since the RI Convention, as I have found numerous Rotarians who have given us their support and would like to be kept up to date with the developments about rotaract.org. These developments have far-ranging impact, as other Rotary sites that have a similar nature to some of the services previously offered by rotaract.org will also be affected.

 

My sincere apologies to anyone who receives several copies of this, but I want this information to get out to as many people as possible (please Rotaractors, forward this on!).

 

To avoid any more cross-posts, I have set up a new egroup purely to discuss rotaract.org, as I know not all Rotaractors feel this issue affects them. So all future discussion / information will be sent to the "rotaractdotorg"

egroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rotaractdotorg/

 

BACKGROUND

[From my perspective - if any rotaract.org webmasters would like to add or amend anything, please do!]

 

The Global Rotaract Information Centre was set up around 8 years ago, and in addition to being an information resource for all Rotaractors, offered rotaract.org email addresses and URLs (both redirects).

 

RI has a policy of reclaiming any Rotary-related domains that are of a "global" nature, ie those that are not qualified by the club or district name. rotaract.org was one such domain that RI took control of (the domain only, not the site itself). RI University is another.

 

Most Rotaractors would have been blissfully unaware of this change, until RI turned the domain off on April 22nd this year. They informed the webmasters of this 2 days later. The rest of us either discovered the loss the hard way, or in some cases received an email from the webmasters of rotaract.org in early May.

 

The reason for the loss of the site eventually received from RI was that on at least one occasion (they have hinted that there were more), a non-Rotaractor signed up for a rotaract.org email address, and used it for a fraudulent purpose. The company at the receiving end of the fraud contacted RI, as the owners of the domain, to try to track down this person. RI consequently shut down the ENTIRE site so that such activities could not happen again.

 

[Note: by RI I am referring to the administrative staff in Evanston]

 

The consequences of this have been enormous: in addition to Rotaract's main communication network disappearing, much time and money has been lost in the promotion of rotaract.org addresses. It has also had an adverse affect on the number of Rotaractors intending to join Rotary in the future, to name just a few things.

 

Discussions with some of these administrative staff at RI reveals that they had been in consultation with the webmasters of rotaract.org for quite some time prior to this to endeavour to set up a "legal entity" so that if such a situation as what did happen arose, this other entity would be responsible, not RI. I gather a fair amount of work was done by the webmasters towards this, but it was never finished. RI claim the webmasters stopped responding to discussions about this 6 or so months ago.

 

In short, the situation appears to have arisen out of a lack of communication and understanding. It is unfortunate that so many of us have suffered as a result.

 

WHAT NOW?

 

During the Brisbane Convention, I met with Ed Futa, backed up by a past RI Director (my dad!) and a member of the RI Technology Committee. We explained that while we understood their reasoning for shutting down rotaract.org, the way it was done was not acceptable, and in the interest of Rotary-Rotaract relations, something needed to be done other than just telling us "we have made a decision, live with it."

 

** Ed gave me verbal agreement that the URL redirects could be reinstated for a short period (say 2 weeks) with a message to update you bookmarks as the address would be changing. I have not yet discussed this with the CIO yet to see if he agrees too. Do any of you think there would be merit in this?

 

(The old redirects still exist, but now with the address

www.rotaract-club.com)

 

** Ed appointed me the chair of a new committee reponsible for rotaract.org. This committee will be representative of Rotaract worldwide, and will work with the administrative staff at RI to set up a legal entity and work out a licensing agreement in order for them to let us use rotaract.org again. This includes a complete rewrite of the site and its content which RI wishes to approve.

 

(Anyone with a programming background who is interested in taking an administrative role in the website, please contact me! The new redevelopment at rotaract.org.au looks like it will make an excellent blueprint for what is required for rotaract.org and I urge everyone to check it out!)

 

I then met with Alan Jarvis (the Chief Information Officer) and Djenne Clayton

(legal) to discuss how to go from here. The outcomes of that meeting were:

 

** The formation of a legal entity and forming a subsequent licensing agreement are the main priorities. I will liaise with Djenne further to sort this out.

 

** Email redirection is something they are not likely to allow under the licensing agreement. This is very, very sad. It looks like if anyone wants a rotaract email address, it will be need to be done at a lower level (eg by country, district, or club). Does anyone want me to continue to fight for it? If rotarymail.net is allowed to continue as is while rotaract.org's email cannot, I will certainly jump up and down a bit more.

 

** URL redirection is something that can be reinstated, but they advised against for the exact reason I have been jumping up and down at them - if the domain goes down, everything goes down. If URL redirects are used, they prefer subdomains (clubname.rotaract.org) instead of the previous set up of subdirectories (rotaract.org/clubname). There appears to be leeway there. What do you think about this?

 

** Regarding the look and feel, RI wants a say in this, since they own the Rotaract mark. They have requested it resemble rotary.org (*shudder*). I am hoping they only mean in terms of look, because I personally think rotary.org is a shocking site.

 

** RI want to approve the sitemap before the domain name is reinstated. It does not appear that they are too worried about the content itself, only that it remains up to date, is available in numerous languages (volunteers to translate, please contact me!!), and is not dependent on a couple of people.

 

At the Rotaract Pre-Convention, a website committee was formed which has already started thinking about content. I certainly encourage discussion about this on the rotaractdotorg egroup.

 

Yours in service,

DRR Simone Collins

Rotaract Club of South Perth

District 9470

Western Australia