Squidge.org Quick Facts

Official Name: Squidge Production Facilitators

Created: September, 1994

Domains Hosted: about 85

Archives Hosted: about 25

Users: about 200

Most Popular Site: The Wonderful World of Makebelieve

Least Popular Site: Squidge.org own owner’s webpage!

The History of Squidge.ORG

Squidge.ORG came about in 1994, when the Internet was still not quite caught on for most folks. A group of folks, spun off of the main X-Files mailing list because of their fetish for actor David Duchovny, went in search of a home of their own. After trying a couple of mailing list hosts, the list (known as The Duchovniks) was left in the hands of Walter Hopgood, one of the only male Duchovniks at the time.

Being a bit of a geek, Walter went out and secured a domain name that "fit" the group well, squidge.org. The first machine was an old laptop computer running OS/2 and a free list-server piece of software. Other lists were requested, and Squidge.ORG outgrew it's initial computer. In Spring, 1995, Squidge.ORG became an early adopter of Linux, running the Slackware version of the product, over a dialup line. The server was connected up partially, the dialup connection going up and down many times during the day, to process and route email.

The success of Squidge.ORG was showing, and it's popularity grew wildly. Soon, it was running ten mailing lists, and upgraded the connection to a full-time dialup connection in the Fall of 1995. The system was now running an updated version of Slackware, with the SmartList add on to ProcMail as it's mailing list management software piece.

As the popularity of the Internet grew, so did Squidge.ORG. With the implementation of DSL in it's "backyard", Walter upgraded Squidge.ORG's connection to a true, full time digital connection in early 1996. And with a full digital connection, came Squidge.ORG's foray into website and email hosting. Many slash sites needed a home, thanks to the TOS'ing (Terms Of Service) that many large website hosting providers decided to implement. The number of hosting clients Squidge.ORG helped grew greatly.

With the large number of mailing lists and websites being hosted, Squidge.ORG went through some more growing. With the popularity of web interfaces, Squidge.ORG abandoned open source software for it's mailing lists, and purchased a software package called Lyris. Though adequate, it required more resources than normal software systems. When a free alternative that was open-source became available in 2000 (Sympa), Squidge.ORG upgraded to it, along with an integrated "one server" approach for webhosting and mailing list software.

Squidge.ORG Today

Today, Squidge.ORG is eclipsing it's 21st year of being. It hosts several major and a few smaller fan fiction archives, as well as quite a few personal homepages. Domains that are hosted besides squidge.org include senad.org , Greenwoman's HalfAft, Hot Hockey Players , and The Wonderful World of Makeblieve. The Sympa mailing list software hosts over three hundred and fifty lists, from friendship based chat lists, to slash fiction, to beta-reader request lists.

Though it's not exactly cheap to keep running (Fiber Optioc line alone is $175/month and thousands of dollars in hardware purchases), Squidge.ORG has always been free. Free to use, free to have host, and free from advertising. It's Squidge.ORG's purpose to maintain a place where people can have freedom over what they want posted on their webpages, and websurfer's need not worry about spyware or viewing habits being monitored. Freedom and privacy are number one with Squidge.ORG.  In a word, Squidge is for fen, by fen.

Many people have asked if Squidge.org has a "donate" button, which we do not. However, if you are so inclined, Walter keeps an Amazon Wishlist for his geeky wants, if you're interested.

Squidge.ORG In the Future

Squidge.ORG (and all of its incarnations) will continue to provide a worry-free, advertising free environment for it's users and websurfers *knock wood*. Barring anything devestating happening to Walter's environment, Squidge.ORG will continue to grow and provide for writers, archivers, and the community for a long while to come. And, in the event something happens to the webmaster, Squidge.org is slated to be taken over by the same people that have brought you AO3, the Organization for Transformative Works

Behind the Scenes

There've been many people who have helped out with Squidge.ORG over the years, and one main person running the show. Walter Hopgood has run the show from day one, from installing and maintaining servers and software, to tech support and helping people with their webpage and listserver questions, as well as pay the bills. Patrick Mathews, Walter's husband, has helped out tremendously with the technology and hardware as well. When Squidge.ORG was using the Lyris product, Patrick helped with the Windows side of the setup.  Many others have helped out, from logo design to beta testing.

The Geeky Details

Squidge.ORG is currently three servers, hosting multiple domains and subdomain names. The main server is dual core Xeon CPU with 16 gigabytes of RAM, running Centos 6.7 Linux.  There is a firewall that helps protect us from hackers and spammers that is a duplicate in terms of specs to our main webserver.  And finally, there is now an Apple Mac Mini serving as a database server running OS X Yosemite and mySQL 5.x.  .

We are currently using Frontier Communications as our Internet Service Provider, and we are on a speedy FiOS (Fiber Optic) 35Mb/35Mb line. Frontier will be upgrading our speed to even faster starting sometime in the Fall or Winter 2015/2016. News will be released when this happens.

If you ever have questions, you can hit us up on our Facebook page at facebook.com/Squidge.ORG, over on Twitter where our handle is @SquidgeORG, or on our LiveJournal status page at http://squidgestatus.livejournal.com.