henso opened a topic that needs a solution: should antville.org allow private weblogs? since the current way (let them exist, but list them in the recent-update-list on antville.org's frontpage so that we get a clue about their "activity") is not what i would call a "solution", we have to find a new one.

regarding antville.org's policy, i'd propose private weblogs should not be allowed anymore (because nobody of us - meaning the maintainers of antville.org - has the time/nerve to observe them, and the current version of antville is also not helpful at all in this case).

so, the question is: should the application antville keep the feature or not? the simplest way would be to remove the "private weblog"-feature in antville(-code) and delete all currently existing private weblogs (they'll have to find a new home).

or should we implement a "feature switch" in antville, so that it would be up to the maintainers of antville-installations if private weblogs are allowed or not - much like "allowGoodies" works now (in case of antville.org, it would be disabled).

es ist im eigentlich so kurzen Leben des Web und auch des gesamten Internets immer dasselbe. Da gibt es Features, die einfach nett sind, und dann kommt irgendein Kamel und alle anderen haben den Dreck. Ich verstehe die Reaktion als solche, man kann halt nur noch reagieren, aber vielleicht kann man heutzutage einen Weg finden, der dem Feature eine Chance läßt. Das geht einher mit der Frage nach Kommerz a la "private weblogs kosten". Ich bin antville wirklich dankbar für die Plattform und nach wie vor begeistert über die Kostenfreiheit. Mir ist aber auch klar, daß es keinen Spaß machen kann, für lau auch noch den Kopf hinhalten zu müssen. Ich habe bisher ein kleines privates Log für Freunde betrieben, um gegenseitig Fotos und Nachrichten austauschen zu können. Es wird leider nicht so angenommen wie ich es mir vorgestellt hatte. Daher kann ich zur Not drauf verzichten, wüßte aber gar nicht, wie man es löscht. Problematisch ist es mit Weblogs für Benutzergruppen, die ein berechtigtes Interesse (Frauensleut unter sich, und so) an Privatheit haben. Für das Hosten meines öffentlichen würd ich zur Not auch was löhnen.

I'm still against removing the offline switch. As I said over at henso.com, this is very handy for people who just want to give the software a spin, people who are in the process of setting up a weblog and don't want the half finished one to be on line, or people with sudden need to take their weblog offline for whatever reason.

My proposal: We could add a feature that if a weblog has been offline for, say, one month, it is "locked down" even for members and must be reactivated by one of the server admins. Maybe the duration should even be shorter, like one or two weeks. Of course we'd have to give people some warning, maybe in the welcome message when they create their weblog, of this policy.

Somewhat related to this is the question of how to dispose of dead weblogs...

I guess you have quite a good impression of the private Weblogs created so far and as you mentiond above, no one has violated any rules and/or laws so far. So why shut them down now? Let the old ones alive and disable the function only for new entries. Thats maybe not really fair, but as we all know: Life is not fair... This solution would also keep the private logs of the maintainers alive, which was the main reason for creating this feature, if I got that right. Somebody mentioned the possibility of downloading antville and create his private weblog anyway. Unfortunately, I am not a technical wizzard...: Does that mean that if I want, I can download an existing Weblog into my private webspace and have all the same (btw, very nice) features available? Only difference would be that it won't appear on the antville.org page if updated, right? I guess, for some private weblog hosts this could be an acceptable alternative. btw, I don't have a private one (so far ;-))

...i followed the discussion at hensos's and i can understand the reservation against the special case of the vip-log, but not against private logs in general. they come in handy for all kinds of group activity and for some special purposes - eg i keep one over at blogger's for backup reasons (when i'm writing on my notebook far away from home i copy my text fragments there just in case i lose the notebook or somebody decides to pur some schnaps on it again or whatever).

i don't really understand the legal (?) concerns. people with illegal content usually try to make money on it - how should this be done on antville?

just my two öres ;-)