SCA email boxes (and other services)

Among those contributed are:

• Domain registrations - cheap as heck for me. I do this generally in my name and require that two greater officers at all times have the ability to move the domain should I get hit by a bus and/or the webminister become unavailable to perform their job.
• Web hosting - as long as the bandwidth needs are reasonable. This specific item, if a web site is high bandwidth, be requested to be relocated (and/or fees paid to help cover my costs).
• Email virtual hosting and forwarding for domains. This requires a single owner to handle maintaining forwarding aliases.
• Email hosting for individuals. POP3/IMAP/WEBMAIL, and relaying. See below about this.

Domains for SCA orgs

I'm a bit eccentric, I admit. If you want me to handle your SCA domain (like goldenrivers.org, cynagua.org, evenstarkeep.org) I am going to want to make sure a few things are handled, and I am a bit specific about this. I've seen things fail badly in the past that bugged me badly.

In the past there have been SCA domains set up, webministers setting things up, and then Real Life kicking in. And it kicks in a serious way, to the point where the domain is effectively no longer managed or managable.

When I register a domain, I want to ensure that two greater officers at all times CAN move the domain . This is in case I get hit by a bus (or worse, real life.) This way, the organization can relocate the web site to any commercial ISP, should there be a need, instead of waiting until the domain expires and re-registering it.

If I do webhosting for the domain, I require contact info for the webminister. This is because I have to neccesarilly open my system up to them more than average. Since abuse on my system CAN cost me financially.. :-)

Additionally: If the website ends up being something that costs me money due to bandwidth, at that time I'll either need to start invoicing for bandwidth, or get you to trim your bandwidth needs, or relocate the website portion to a commercial provider. I pay a flat fee for my bandwidth, unless my server uses a lot of sustained bandwidth. I think the only SCA web site that would cost me money to host is westkingdom.org :-). I am only mentioning this because of the potential - not the likelihood.

If I do mail hosting and mail forwarding for a domain, typically I have the webminister handle keeping track of any forwarding that is needed. I don't attend officer meetings (I'm not an officer - I'm just someone who believes in the dream, and who's in the background, and married to someone who's... not in the background). This said, if I get a dually authenticated request from the PUBLISHED officers of the domain in question, I will step in to make changes.

Mail boxes!

Since there is rumor of a new BOD decision that everyone must send mail from their officer email address, this offer is now being publicly extended.

I will, for those of you with ISP's who will not let you send mail as your SCA officer title, be willing to host a mailbox, mail forwarding (if desired), and most importantly, the ability for you to send mail as that title. Read below under "Mail account requirements".

I will also extend this offer to non-officers who simply want an alternate permanent email address, and are tired of the various hotmail/yahoo/gmail/etc services, or who are finding yourselves tired of hopping from one ISP to another and having to change email addresses.

Mail account requirements

If you wish a mail account with me, I will need the following:

• I need your real contact info. If something starts using your account that is "odd", I need to be able to contact you. I will keep your personal info in an encrypted file and will not release it, unless compelled by law (all fear the patriot act). If someone contacts me saying they are trying to contact you, I *might* contact you on their behalf but will not hand out your info to them. I value my privacy as much as you do.
• I will need an account name for @gigo.com . You may or may not need to use this as your email address; but .. I will at least need it to set up the account and the primary mailbox. I suggest first initial last name. I'm not strict on this. I do suggest not using a single name, as the spammers do dictionary attacks all the time.
• I'll need a requested email address. If your desired password sucks, I'll reject it. Sorry. It needs to be something reasonably secure. My typical suggestion for this, is to take a phrase that means something to you - and then take every 1st character of every word in that phrase, to turn that into your password. That way, you can memorize it easy enough, AND, the password looks like gobblygook.
• You can use my webmail system to read/write email. You can also use any pop3 or imap mail program that can also do "SMTP Auth" or "Authenticated SMTP" or something of similiar wording. All this means, is that when you send mail, you will use your username and password to send that email. That is the only way I can trust your mail being sent. (Sending mail is seperate than receiving mail!). The good news is, is nearly any modern email program can do this right, just look under any extended properties for the account.
• I do mail filtering! What I want to know from you when you request an account, involves a few things:
  • Read this.
  • Let me know if you want this to apply to you. That's a big yes/no, not a "I want only some of that.". If you want your officer title to react different than your personal account login name @gigo.com, let me know that.
  • Additionally, I do have content filtering available using the industry standard SpamAssassin. You can configure it for your account via a web interface at mail.gigo.com. This is the same web site that allows you to read your email via web browser, should you wish. SpamAssassin won't delete mail, unless you set up a filter to delete any mail that was marked as spam. (The webmail email interface can do server side filtering in SquirrelMail).

Frequently Asked Questions

This is to be filled in later, as we get questions, provide answers, and those answers are *validated* by the people asking the questions. Since this offer is open to multiple sub organizations in the SCA, I really need the help of the various webministers providing assistance, to make sure I get good feedback to put here.

About me

I am Jason Fesler, jfesler@gigo.com . My postmaster@gigo.com account is NEVER filtered - but it is 99% spam, so please make sure the subject line says something that tells me you are a real person, like "SCA ACCOUNT" or "WEST KINGDOM" or "THREE CHEERS FOR THE KING OF THE WEST" or some such. Stuff that the normal spam won't have :-). I can be reached at 877-433-7537 if you're in a pinch, but please respect reasonable calling hours. I am an individual, not a business.

My offers to the populace are my way of contributing to the Dream.

I do *not* wish to be recognized officially for this. A simple thank you from the folks actually benefiting I'll gladly accept. But I'm doing this for the Dream, and not for any awards or ceremonies. That's not my gig.