LISNews: Librarian News

Isn't Drupal Great??

This was the final post to the Slashcode version of LISNews. You are now looking at improved version of LISNews.

I was recently reminded of just how little most people know about how things work here @ LISNews. The reminder came in the form of an attack (followed by an apology), but rather than let it get me down, I thought I'd post some of the many things I've written about LISNews in the past few years. I've been running LISNews since 1999 and I've written enough to bore anyone to death. I've written about how the code works, how the server works, the people, the writing, and just about everything else you can imagine. I've written waaay more than I thought I'd ever write about a stupid little web site and on lunch today I did some digging.

Since you probably don't know much about LISNews, here's links to further reading where you can read till your eyes bleed. Some day I'll pull this together in a more readable format, but for now, the best place to learn about all things LISNews was my series I posted for CIL:
LISNews: A Brief History
LISNews: Strengths and Weaknesses
LISNews: Many Facets for Many People
LISNews: Past, Present, and Mostly Future
LISNews: Technical Details
LISNews: The people (Including me)
LISNews: The Story Behind The Stories

If that's not enough for you, try these three: The dysfunctional LISNews family, The Anonymous Patron Account, and The great moderator conspiracy all cover stuff that'll interest you as a participant. It's about people mostly.

Still not enough? Well I've written plenty more! If you want to know more about my crazy theories, try
Random LISNews Bits Again, and Jobs @LISNews? where we discussed a division of labor, and a follow up, More On The Jobs @LISNews. A few more like that, On ombudsmen, feedback and reporting, more theory on how to make LISNews better. Comments some thoughts on comments and commenting. A related post could be Ten Thousand Comments and So, how can off-topic be so popular?. I like when I try and think about how to make LISNews better, like in Here's To The Ineluctable Future and So, To Blog Or Not To Blog, not 100% LISNews, but might be interesting. What's our next step? on how to improve LISNews, thoughts on making it 2.0. The LISEchoChamber, one I took quite a few hits for.

If you're curious about how I find stories, Bringing You The LISNews, is mostly on how I find stories to post. We're On A Mission trying to write a mission. Writing 4 LISNews was a call for more original
writing. Some Thoughts On Popularity
A Longer Look At The LISNews Numbers When I had more time I used to look at stats alot more, here's a good explanation. Why didn't you post my story covers why a story may not have been posted. Anonymous Patron Account: Help or Hindrance?, you can guess what that's about.
You are stuck with what we find interesting on any given day, how we choose stories.
Keeping Up With The LISNewsterz, more on comments and moderation.
Friday Rambling Thoughts is mostly LISNews related, more thinking from me.
Friends and Foes and Such tells you how to filter your own comments and people. Messages You Can Get From LISNews is another code-related story.

Last but not least, the ver simple LISNews privacy policy, which probably needs to be updated.

I just wanted to say a public Thank You to everyone who kicked in a buck or twenty to help me pay for LISNews. Over the years LISNews has cost me hundreds of dollars, but this year will be different thanks to everyone listed below. I'll send out personal thank yous to everyone, but I also wanted to let everyone else know LISNews is all paid up for 2007.
Orinignal post:

Long time readers of LISNews news know that LISNews isn't a big corporation, it's an all volunteer effort. We're just a bunch of bloggers who post stories in our spare time. Over the past 7 years we've moved from server to server, and while we've found a good home finally, it's not free. I alone pay to keep things running, and do all the work on the backend. I pay $40 a month for hosting, and though I really do love LISNews like a son, I can't afford to throw away 500 bucks a year, so this year, like some years in the past, I'm asking for your help.

Last year the Google Ads paid for the server, but this year I'd like to keep it ad free if possible, and go begging for the $500+ I need to pay for hosting (minus the taxes I pay on the money I raise) our little community.

You can use the PayPal Link Here, my address is Here as well if you'd like to send a check, or let me know if you'd like to help in another way.
Update: 01/05 13:27 GMT by B :I think we're about half way there already! Thanks to everyone who has helped so far.
Looks like we're about there. Assuming a few checks show up in the mail LISNews will cost me very little this year.
Many thanks to everyone who helped this year!! I'll be emailing thanks, and make one more post next week. -- Read More