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Hey all. Where do I start?
I started Cyburbia in 1994, when I was in grad school at the University at Buffalo. I was 28 years old when I hacked Apache, a Web server program, onto the School of Architecture and Planning email server. The school got a department Web site, and the awkwardly named Planning and Architecture Internet Resource Center -- the predecessor of Cyburbia, for a year or so -- was born. I was 28 years old at the time. I'm 59 now. It's hard to believe that Cyburbia is still here, more than half a lifetime later. In that time, I lived and worked in several states (Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Texas, and back home in upstate New York), had two great dogs, five sweet cats*, and met the woman that would become the love of my life. I also met a lot of great people along the way, including all of you.
Life was good, until it wasn't. I lost my job in October 2023, with no warning, and no explanation. My wife told me she wanted to divorce a month later, again with no warning. My life was turned upside down, and shaken into a form that I'm still coming to terms with. My mental health took a beating. My alopecia aerota returned. I found myself withdrawing from Cyburbia after months of personal and professional rejection. Today, I'm still unemployed. I want to be hopeful about the future. I want to think that the next interview will be the one where I'm the "candidate that's a better fit for the role". I don't get my hopes up much anymore, but still ...
A couple of months ago, on the Cyburbia Facebook page, I mentioned the idea of a post-Dan Cyburbia. I feel like after 30 years, I've taken the site as far as it can go. The mods have kept things rolling smoothly in my absence, which tells me that Cyburbia can do fine without me as an "owner". Folks came back after a couple of months of rocky technical issues. I can let go. It'll be fine.
The question still remains, though -- what would Cyburbia's next chapter look like? Who would own it? I thought about it for a long time. Giving the site away to a single person, like a long-time mod or active user, struck me as being a bit unfair. It's also a heavy burden to be placed on any one person. A possible ownership and management structure I want to look into more is a nonprofit organization. While it's easy to find information about making a website for a nonprofit, I'm struggling to find out anything about a website as a nonprofit org itself. I know it's been done before, though. (There's a planning blog that I can't seem to find now, but which operated as a non-profit, with funding through various grants and foundations. It ahd an orange/brown color scheme, though. Anyone know what I"m talking about?)
What form would a Cyburbia non-profit take? I don't know for sure. I'm open to ideas. I was thinking of something like this.
Your thoughts? They matter, because this is your website.
* Jingles (past the Rainbow Bridge) could be a bitch at a time, though.
I started Cyburbia in 1994, when I was in grad school at the University at Buffalo. I was 28 years old when I hacked Apache, a Web server program, onto the School of Architecture and Planning email server. The school got a department Web site, and the awkwardly named Planning and Architecture Internet Resource Center -- the predecessor of Cyburbia, for a year or so -- was born. I was 28 years old at the time. I'm 59 now. It's hard to believe that Cyburbia is still here, more than half a lifetime later. In that time, I lived and worked in several states (Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Texas, and back home in upstate New York), had two great dogs, five sweet cats*, and met the woman that would become the love of my life. I also met a lot of great people along the way, including all of you.
Life was good, until it wasn't. I lost my job in October 2023, with no warning, and no explanation. My wife told me she wanted to divorce a month later, again with no warning. My life was turned upside down, and shaken into a form that I'm still coming to terms with. My mental health took a beating. My alopecia aerota returned. I found myself withdrawing from Cyburbia after months of personal and professional rejection. Today, I'm still unemployed. I want to be hopeful about the future. I want to think that the next interview will be the one where I'm the "candidate that's a better fit for the role". I don't get my hopes up much anymore, but still ...
A couple of months ago, on the Cyburbia Facebook page, I mentioned the idea of a post-Dan Cyburbia. I feel like after 30 years, I've taken the site as far as it can go. The mods have kept things rolling smoothly in my absence, which tells me that Cyburbia can do fine without me as an "owner". Folks came back after a couple of months of rocky technical issues. I can let go. It'll be fine.
The question still remains, though -- what would Cyburbia's next chapter look like? Who would own it? I thought about it for a long time. Giving the site away to a single person, like a long-time mod or active user, struck me as being a bit unfair. It's also a heavy burden to be placed on any one person. A possible ownership and management structure I want to look into more is a nonprofit organization. While it's easy to find information about making a website for a nonprofit, I'm struggling to find out anything about a website as a nonprofit org itself. I know it's been done before, though. (There's a planning blog that I can't seem to find now, but which operated as a non-profit, with funding through various grants and foundations. It ahd an orange/brown color scheme, though. Anyone know what I"m talking about?)
What form would a Cyburbia non-profit take? I don't know for sure. I'm open to ideas. I was thinking of something like this.
- Anyone can join Cyburbia for free, to start threads, post, contribute, volunteer as a moderstor, and so on.
- For a small annual fee, someone can become an "official" member.
- There would be an annual or biennial election for a president or head. Only official members could run and vote for the head.
- There would be a board of directors of a fixed size. (How do we choose board members? Qualifications?)
- Other positions: technical director, treasurer, etc.
- The president, vice president, treasurer, and technical director would have the "keys" to Cyburbia - passwords, etc.
- All revenue from memberships, etc. must go towards site maintenance, upgrades, domain name ownership, promotion, or programs.
- The president could get a small stipend; something like 10% of revenue.
- The board may choose to pursue other forms of revenue generation (for example, ads, sponsorships, or even grants).
- Of course, this would all be laid out in a constitution or set of guiding rules.
Your thoughts? They matter, because this is your website.
* Jingles (past the Rainbow Bridge) could be a bitch at a time, though.
