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microcosmicus
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I think having an intermediate "donation acceptor" would be better than just transferring cash directly.
It's not a trust issue, I just think it should be done right, you know? How can this be done?
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One idea would be to have a post office box and a special bank account. This way, the P.O.box could be listed in the site and one could address
donations/dues to HCS P.O. Box, . . . rather than to someone's private
address To be sure, the bank account would have to be in the name of
an individual until we incorporate, but it would be OK to say "make out
checks to so-and-so" on the website and one could specify "HCS" on
the check. The treasurer would regularly visit the mailbox, deposit any
checks that appear there in the account and write checks form that
account when it is agreed to spend the money. For accountability,
a record of this account would be maintained on the website in an area
accessible to members.
As for what the budget might look like, I think it would be good to go
with the bundle Woelen mentioned. That, together with another
web address or two and the P.O. box will run us something like
$100. From this thread, it seems that there are something like a
dozen of us, so if each of us antes up $10, we should be set to go.
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I agree that Woelen would be trustworthy as an intermediate for cash,
but we should be careful about overloading him with
additional responsibilities other than that.
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Yes, one of the purposes of having an organization is division of labor
and we should be careful not to overload anyone --- that can lead to
burnout. So, if Woelen is going to be busy managing the website,
someone else, say MagicJigPipe, could serve as treasurer and cut
checks to Woelen or to the internet hosting company as needed.
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by microcosmicus]
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joeflsts
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| Quote: | Originally posted by microcosmicus
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I think having an intermediate "donation acceptor" would be better than just transferring cash directly.
It's not a trust issue, I just think it should be done right, you know? How can this be done?
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One idea would be to have a post office box and a special bank account. This way, the P.O. |
What, exactly, would the donations be used for? You really should determine what requirements exist in the locale for the development of a "Society",
club, ect. prior to taking money. You should also consider not waiting on the development of bylaws and incorporation. If you wait I can almost see
reading on here how this person got screwed or that person got screwed. This is a wonderful idea that can go to hell very quickly if you half ass it.
Joe
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
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I think it would indeed be better to have an intermediate account for donations, to which other people (e.g. 2 or 3 others) also have access. This
could be a PayPal account. The amount of money, taken care of through this account is not that large, I expect severals tens of dollars/euros. The
reason why I say this is that if I for whatever reason have to withdraw (e.g. because of my work, health, other business, then the whole thing is not
orphaned at once). It is important to be as little as possible depending on one person.
So, what we could do is create a PayPal account and then we could donate some money to that. From this account we could pay the hosting (or just the
domain name).
One thing for sure, which I do not want as a start is becoming an official international organization with all associated paper work, costs and other
hassle. I agree with microcosmicus that we first should be an informal organisation, with a website and possibly some other on-line acitivities and
then we can see how things develop. Maybe in two years or so we could make an official organization.
I do not agree with evil_lurker that we should not carry the name "home chemistry". For me this is the most appealing thing. We ARE doing chemistry at
home (and whether this is in a garage, a shed, or a room in the attic, that is another issue of secondary importance). Home chemistry is exactly the
name which matches the activities.
So, I want to do a proposal to make things concrete and to start some actions:
1) I have registered a domain homechemistry.org. I decided to register it, in order to get started quickly. I only paid EUR 7 (appr.
$10) for this, for the first year. Without special action, it will be extended every year for the same price. Even if people really think this is not
the right name, then I am fine with that and we could register yet another name. This domainname is good to have anyway. But I am willing to donate it
for the HCS.
2) I can supply webspace (appr. 300 MByte) for hosting. If in the near future this is not enough, then we could connect the new domainname to a
larger hosting bundle. I found a good bundle for EUR 47 first year/EUR 33 all next years, but that could be something for the future. For now, I would
suggest to use the hosting space I already have.
3) A template must be developed for the web layout. The logo must be finalized and a page layout must be developed.
4) Details about PHP/MySQL must be investigated. I can have a look into that, but if other know a lot of this, then some assistence is more than
welcome. I am a software consultant, so I do not expect real problems with this stuff, but I will have to learn this stuff, I have no experience with
this.
Once we have a framework up and running, then we can discuss the next steps to be taken.
[Edited on 19-3-08 by woelen]
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CyrusGrey
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I like that domain name Woelen. Do you think the name should be Home Chemistry Organization to go with the .org part?
Here is my idea for the webpage layout:
The new additions would link to a newly posted experiment write up or something.
News would discuss something new for home chemistry, or some tidbit of world news that particularly affects hobby chemistry in general.
The subscribe button would put you on a list to be emailed when something new appears in the news or new additions.
The intro to hobby chemistry would be mostly a public relations thing that tells what hobby chemistry is, why we do it, and a bit about safety.
Beginner videos would be a list of YouTube videos with the newest members in mind. It would have simple and interesting experiments you can do with
kitchenware as equipment and a simple swing by a couple local stores for reagents.
Experiments to try would be a list of experiment writeups and YouTube videos that are atleast a step above beginner videos. We might use Woelen's
difficulty ratings for this.
Homebuilt equipment would be writeups detailing the construction of lab equipment like fume hoods, distillation/refluxing aperratus, magnetic
stirrers, furnaces, etc.
Member locations would be two things: One would be a Frappr map or something similar that anyone can put their location on. The other would be a list
of members that have atleast some chemistry experience as well as basic equipment and are willing to hang out or host local meetings.
Links would have Sciencemadness forums prominantly displayed at the top.
This would all be static and manually edited to start out with, but we can add an automated system once we have the site running. What do you guys
think?
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by CyrusGrey]
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microcosmicus
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Do you think the name should be Home Chemistry Organization to go with the .org part?
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I don't.
Your layout looks good to me. As for the nice chemistry saying or something, maybe
one could use that space to display molecules and have it link to an experiment
which involves that compound. For instance, show a molecule of methylene blue and
link to the blue bottle experiment or a molecule of acetone and link to the pyrolysis
of calcium acetate, etc. The molecule could be changed monthly, weekly.
or whenever depending on how much time someone has to update this.
And I am glad that there is a rubber ducky --- no lab is complete without one 
The idea of starting with manual links and automating later sounds reasonable.
As for automating, my experience in and around PlanetMath could be helpful.
In particular, I think that some things like automatic linking, ownership model,
and corrections could be of here as well and I would be glad to help with this
when the time comes. For now, you might want to have a look at our website
for ideas on how layout and what not:
http://www.planetmath.org
Maybe I am getting ahead of myself here, but I would like to see not
just links top other websites but cross-referencing of the experiments
and other information. For instance, it would be nice to look up
all experiments which use a particular chemical or apparatus, or
upon seeing a chemical or piece of apparatus listed, have it link
to a page describing its synthesis or construction (automatic linking
could be useful here),
Speaking of syntheses, it would be good to list syntheses of frequently
used lab chemicals which are difficult for the home chemist to
obtain. For many chemicals, one can find how to make them in
preparatory manuals like our old standbys, Brauer and Vogel or
on the Organic Synthesis website, The only problem is that often
these will use some chemical like CS2 which one might not have,
so it would be good to supplement these excellent sources with
preparations of such compounds form commonly available chemicals.
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by microcosmicus]
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CyrusGrey
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I like your idea for the space by the logo. We could put a model of the chemical, the name of the chemical, and a picture of a nice sample maybe on a
watch glass or something. We could then rotate these images manually every couple weeks to begin with or every day automatically when we have more
scripts set up.
Heres another idea: We could put the flags of the countries we have members in to the right of the news to emphasize that we are international.
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12AX7
Post Harlot
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Make sure that layout checks out W3C compliant. Might as well, starting new.
Tim
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MagicJigPipe
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Posts: 1554
Registered: 19-9-2007
Location: USA
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Okay, should we set up a PayPal or similar account so we can get this money to woelen? Or, would Polverone be nice enough to let us donate to
sciencemadness and delegate some of those funds to woelen?
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
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Location: Netherlands
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Mood: interested
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For the moment there is no need to donate any money to me. I registered the domainname www.homechemistry.org, and its only $10 or so, and I'll donate that. Setting up the account can be done of course, such that we have it when we
have to make expenses. e.g. for more extensive hosting capabilities, or for production of certain goodies. I expect, however, that with our first
efforts of setting up the web site we can do with what I have now.
The registrar told me it takes 2 to 5 days before the domain is active and can be configured by me. Probably it will take 5 days, because Easter days
are inbetween and over here, we have a long weekend of 4 days.
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MagicJigPipe
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Thank you so much woelen. I believe you will prove to be an invaulable asset to out struggle. With all of the new regulations being imposed and even
more Orwellian laws and doctrines instated I believe this planned organization will be essential to the survival of home chemistry, freedom of
knowledge and science in general. Let us not let the flame die out on this exciting idea!
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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CyrusGrey
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Location: USA
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Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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Yes! Unless there is a major backlash against increasing regulation, we might live to see a day where all practice of chemistry without a special lab
permit is banned, all pure chemicals removed from the shelves except the most inconspicuous, the knowledge of chemistry restricted, and all people who
have knowledge of chemistry would be watched carefully by the government!
I admit, its a worst case scenario, and probably not likely to occur to that extreme. Maybe that is what hell looks like?
Applause to Woelen! 
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raiden
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This looks like it could be interesting. Just U2U me if you want a hand.
I was considering making a Metacafe account and performing some easy experiments that had spectacular effects but could be reproduced by anyone at
home. With their Producer Rewards platform, surely one could make a lot of money from that.
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CyrusGrey
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Until the website is up, I will be working on trying to make some beginner's chemistry videos. You could do something similar Raiden.
If you would be comfortable doing so, you might host for people every once in awhile to get together and do chemistry.
Woelen, is there anything else I can do to help with the website? I sent you a U2U but you didn't reply.
[Edited on 21-3-2008 by CyrusGrey]
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
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CyrusGrey, sorry for not responding, my attention was attracted too much by getting the domainname to work. I now have it redirected to my webpage,
but there still is a problem with subdirectories. It works when you type www.homechemistry.org (it goes to my science website), but when you type www.homechemistry.org/chem, then it does not work, although this normally would give the chemistry page of my website. I use lycos webpointing,
but apparently something is not configured nicely.
From the lycos page, I understand that I also can do the entire DNS stuff for the domain myself. I could create an ALIAS record for www.homechemistry.org and redirect that to www.homescience.net (cloaked), but I am a total n00b in setting up DNS myself. Apparently I need to set up a simple DNS server, which I configure
for my domain and then I let the new info propagate and then I can remove that DNS server again?
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CyrusGrey
Hazard to Others
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Location: USA
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Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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 Sorry Woelen. I talked to my dad about this, and he said that he does not know how
to fix your problem, and that he would have to look through his texts on the subject but is too buisy to do so. When he said he could help I thought
he would be more, well, helpful.
He told me he has just started learning PHP5 for something my sister is doing, so it sounds like hes in the same boat your in.
If there is anything else you need help with though, let me know. I feel like I'm pretty much useless with programming though, so I'll probably just
try and make some videos.
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Jor
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I think this is an extremely good idea. But there is one thing: how are you gonna attract attention to the site. Ofcourse we know it exists, and maybe
some other fellow scientists. But the general public... Or even better, the government!!!
Mail me if you need any help woelen, but preferably not the next 2 months : final exams 
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CyrusGrey
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Possible ways to advertise:
Our youtube videos will lead people to the site, these will probably be mostly kewls though.
We can make a Wikipedia entry, this will probably not be advertisment as much as helping people find the site.
By having a link exchange with good hobby chemistry sites, we could make our site appear higher on the google search list and other search engines.
We could sell or use donations to fund the making of bumper sticker type things to put on members' cars to advertise the site. We could also do that
with business cards, though we might wan't to wait untill we are legally recognized for cards.
One other thing I wanted to do would be to have a template for a flyer you can print out from the website. You could give these flyers to local
chemistry teachers and ask them to tell their students about the website.
Anyone have any other ideas?
[Edited on 25-3-2008 by CyrusGrey]
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microcosmicus
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Before worrying too much about advertising, maybe first put some effort
into building the organization. Also, I think we would want to get to the
point where we have a core of committed members and have made it
clear what we are and are not about, otherwise trying to bring in lots
of members too soon will only lead to a confused mess and to the
problems mentioned earlier of attracting cooks and kewls or of
losing the "Home" in "HCS". For now, I think we are fine with the
handful of SM folks who are interested in making this happen.
Having fewer people at first makes it easier to get organized,
experiment with different was of conducting our meetings and
other business before settling down to some routine which works
well. Also, there is the issue of quality as opposed to sheer quantity
of my members. Form my experience in setting up organizations, I
would roughly classify members into two types --- active and passive.
Active members, or working members are the ones who are interested
doing things and taking initiatives to make things happen. Passive
members, or subscription members, are the types of people who
will pay their dues, attend meetings, and help out with activities,
but expect something in return and are not going to go out of their
way to make new things happen. Their attitude is much like
subscribers to a magazine or customers in a store --- they will gladly
pay (in cash and labor) for what the organization has to offer but they
do not see it as their place to make things happen anymore than
a customer asking for some item which the store does not carry would
expect to be told "go locate a supplier and arrange shipping to the
store" or a magazine subscriber wanting a certain type of article would
expect to be told "then go write it yourself". When an organization is
in its early stages, it needs a high proportion of working members;
membership drives, by contrast, tend to attract subscription members.
All the ideas you mentioned sound like reasonable ways to
advertise the site and attract members when the time comes.
[Edited on 25-3-2008 by microcosmicus]
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CyrusGrey
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I agree. I was not trying to imply that we should do large amounts of advertising right off the bat. Just answering an inquiry.
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
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Plan is changed a little bit. Hosting is done on a new bundle, at one.com. The bundle is the following:
http://www.one.com/en
I already registered the domainname and it will be transferred to this hosting provider. Right now, it just is a DNS name and nothing more, with this
bundle, there also is plenty of space, unlimited band width and many other features.
The domain transfer will take approximately 7 working days, but then we have something nice and good.
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MagicJigPipe
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Keep up the good work woelen. Many thanks to you, my friend!
Microcosmicus, Cyrusgrey and whomever, don't hesitate to post more ideas when the pop up in your head! I've been writing mine down in perparation for
a discussion that is supposed to take place soon.
Maybe we could schedule an AIM or MSN "chat" for all interested parties to talk in real time?
[Edited on 30-3-2008 by MagicJigPipe]
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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CyrusGrey
Hazard to Others
Posts: 123
Registered: 20-1-2007
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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We need a donation system! Woelen keeps paying for everything behind our backs! I would start a PayPal account, but I don't think the other
contributers would consider me trustworthy with it as I have only posted a little bit on the forums here.
Something MagicJigPipe and I discussed was if we should keep a degree of anonymity or not. I think people might be more reluctant to
join/contribute/etc. if we have names associated with certain actions. On the other hand having full names makes it look more professional, and its
something to put on a college/university application.
One thing I was thinking about tonight was about layouts of pages for history and news on hobby chemistry. It would look very good for hobby chemistry
if we had some history links/pages that described rescent and past hobby chemists that became big in business or science.
We could also have a page that collects links of hobby chemistry websites, has them sorted, and gives descriptions of what they are exactly. For
example:
www.sciencemadness.org - A science forum that is mainly focused on intermediate and advanced hobby chemistry with a dash of beginner chemistry.
The forum has sections on general, organic and biological chemistry as well as sections on chemistry with specialised equiment like microwaves and
furnaces and a section on the theoretical aspects of explosives and pyrotechnics. The library contains a large number of out of print works that have
important information on chemistry and early industrial chemical reactions.
I have never come across such a list and it would be nice if we could compile one. If they link back to us then we would appear higher on web
searches.
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
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Mood: interested
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Transfer delay of 60 days!!!
This is totally insane 
I am not allowed to move the homechemistry.org domain for the next 60 days to the new hosting bundle. This is due to US-regulation and this limitation
only exists for .net, .org, .com and .biz domains. According to regulations (which have to do with personal integrity) no modifications may be made to
such toplevel domains at a frequency larger than once per 2 months. I never heard of such limitations (I also have a .nl domain and I never found such
limitations on this).
So, we are stuck with this situation and I can only use the limited option with the use of my existing webspace for the upcoming 2 months.
I will continue the process of setting up a nice hosting bundle for the domain, but it will take 2 months before it becomes active
In the meantime, we can continue. I can make a first setup of a webpage and link the domainname homechemistry.org to my current webbundle (www.homescience.net/HCS) and after these two months, I can transfer the webpages to a new provider.
I do not see the rationale behind this type of regulation of domainnames. I paid for it, and now I am not even allowed to use it in the way I want
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YT2095
International Hazard
Posts: 1091
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Location: Just left of Europe and down a bit.
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Mood: within Nominal Parameters
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I don`t know much about this sort of thing at all, BUT, if it will help, I have 40Mb of webspace you would be quite welcome to use for as long as you
needed to.
this is my own Personal webspace that comes with my ISP, I`v had it now for nearly a decade and it`s doing nothing!
will it help any?
\"In a world full of wonders mankind has managed to invent boredom\" - Death
Twinkies don\'t have a shelf life. They have a half-life! -Caine (a friend of mine)
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: interested
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The problem is not the webspace, I also have 700 MByte of free space and 300 MByte of that can be used for HCS, but the main problem is that when the
domainname is not really attached to the webhotel, in which the domain is stored, then the use of the domainname is severely limited. This has to do
with the fact that most hosting providers host multiple websites on a single host, and when the host is addressed, then the webserver looks at the
domainname used for addressing the host, and the domainname then is looked up and the correct webpages are sent back to the webbrowser, connecting to
the webhotel.
If I e.g. would go to the IP-address on which I have www.homescience.net, and I go there with www.homechemistry.org (which is possible, because I can set the IP-address of www.homechemistry.org to any address I want), then the webhotel on which www.homescience.net resides does not know the name www.homechemistry.org, and if that is the case, then some standard page is displayed.
This 60-day period really is a nuisance, I am still angry about this
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