I think I missed a brief thread in the Meebo room today about having an LSW site where we could host our own stuff. Would this be worth the trouble and expense to host "our own" wiki and discussion forum? Or is part of the charm of the LSW the fact that we have no infrastructure, pay no bills, and can plausibly deny just about anything we might be accused of?

Yes. (Well, what were you expecting?)

why, yes! I reckon it's worth pursuing

Walt Crawford: balance at all costs!

In my wildest dreams, we have an actual Library Society of the World domain and site, with wiki, discussion forums, embedded chat, and whatever else. Although I also find the scattershot, "temporary autonomous zone" aspect of the LSW appealing (and appropriate).

OK, steve, seriously, I guess I'm inclined toward the latter. (Deniability, no real structure...) But then, I (blush) accepted a chair position in LITA for next year, so I'm no role model.

If someone else is willing to donate the domain name, I'll donate the hosting space!

Legitimacy necessitates a domain name - I think.  Depending on how much bandwidth you think it would use, I could offer free hosting and some MySQL databases.  I have never come close to using my allotted bandwidth and have had the account for 5 years. Unless there were HUGE jumps in bandwidth I could donate this indefinitely.  I have 200000 MB available for monthly bandwidth transfer and only use 600 or so right now.  Ulp, looks like webgoddess beat me to the offer while I was checking on that.

Do we need to be "legitimate" - what does that mean in this respect?

Good question, Rikhei. As far as I'm concerned, the LSW is more legitimate to me than the ALA. It has more of an impact on my daily life, both personally and professionally. How much do we care if Libraryland as a whole sees the LSW as "legitimate"?

Oh, and thanks to webgoddess and infosciphi for offering to host a website!

I think, for me, the need for "legitimacy" would depend on how big we intend to grow as a group.  I'm fine with staying as a more organic entity for as long as we can because then we would be able to respond to the needs of the group in a non-bureaucratic manner.

Would a domain name confer legitimacy? Would it be more convenient? Would it make the LSW less exclusive (and is that a good thing)? The LSW is currently an organizational example of a great use of cloud computing. If we have a site and more members and so forth, do we need some red tape to go with that? That being said, I'll kick in a domain name!

I don't care at all if libraryland (and aren't we libraryland?) sees LSW as legitimate. That being said, maybe a home/blog page with links to all the components would be a nice idea. If it's done on a blogging CMS, I wouldn't get too hung up on making it a blog where you feel you need to post all the time - just updates on new stuff, or give people posting rights if you want more regular content without it becoming your job.

I am always looking for stuff to do while I job hunt - I'd be glad to help. I could work on a WP page (I need the practice) or a blogger page (which I can do in my sleep), I can make badges, or help with color schemes (can the wiki and tangler be tweaked to fit in color-wise with a homepage?). Whatever - you know where to find me!

And kudos to you for getting people involved!

Just now signed up for this here thing. Anyways...I bought that domain L2mf.net that i would offer up.