Soapblox: Turning Crisis Into Opportunity

by: Dean Barker

Sat Jan 10, 2009 at 20:46:30 PM EST

While all has been repaired for the moment, try to imagine what this would have meant.  Blue Hampshire, along with perhaps a hundred or so other community-based Soapblox sites would have been back at square one, and would have had to scramble to reconstitute communities that are playing a vital role in reshaping our politics to include more citizen participation and activism. Swing State Project, Open Left, Calitics, Burnt Orange Report, even Jim C.'s new Blue News Tribune. The loss, while I'm sure a temporary one, would nonetheless have been incalculable.

Using the collective might of lefty blogworld, our plan is to take this crisis and turn it into an opportunity.  When each of us started our little soapblox communities, we had no idea that in the space of a few years we were going to be sitting on a thriving network of state-based progressive political sites.  Places where ideas and issues both filter up to the national blogs to receive widespread attention, and filter out to the political oxygen of the state, through mentions in the press, messaging that makes its way into campaigns, activism and legislation that finds its origin here, etc...

It's time to strengthen the infrastructure of the system that gave us that potential in the first place.  Chris Bowers has an important post up explaining how money raised through his BlogPac will be wisely spent on beefing up the system security in the short-term and making the soapblox network more dynamic and powerful (and open-source, I gather) in the long-term.

I highly encourage you to give to this worthy goal by clicking here or on the ActBlue thermometer in the right margin.  When you do, you will be taking part in the building of a new and exciting progressive architecture all over the country, and right here on Blue Hampshire.  Elections come and go, but we stand, from a historical perspective, at the beginning of a new framework for everyday people to engage with their civics. And as Democrats, you know that the more people you can get engaged in the process, the more progressive ideas win in the court of public opinion, and the greater the chance we have of getting people to represent us who hold those same values.

Why is Soapblox Important?
Soapblox is an inexpensive, community-building content management platform developed by Paul Preston and currently used by over 100 progressive blogs. For only $15 / month, Soapblox has offered most of the features available on sites like Daily Kos and MyDD: user diaries, recommended diaries, promoted diaries, interactive comments, comment ratings, tip jars, and even things like quick hits. It is a lot of functionality for not much price, making it ideal for independent, progressive, grassroots media. As such, it has been adopted by about 90% of the fifty-state blog network, and also by several national sites including Pam's House Blend, My Left Wing, Swing State Project, and my own Open Left. Collectively, the blogs on Soapblox received over 50,000,000 page views in 2008, and provided a huge percentage of the state-level, local politics coverage in the progressive blogosphere.

Why Is Soapblox in Danger?
On Wednesday morning, Soapblox was hacked to within an inch of its life. A quarter of all Soapblox sites went completely offline, and their databases were gone. Most others were threatened, as My Left Wing and Open Left temporarily lost all of their diaries. The hackers were in so deep, that Paul temporarily threw in the towel and declared defeat. Dozens of bloggers that I knew were all frantically emailing each other. Desperate attempts were made to try and copy all of our data before The End. At one point I was, literally, running up and down the stairs in my apartment building freaking out, as there are few things I fear more than my website's content being wiped out. It was an impending blog apocalypse, where the entire archive and operation of over 100 blogs were almost wiped off the Internet with no hope of return.

As the day went on, through a lot of effort Soapblox was able to fend off the attack, save all data, and restore full service. However, the threat remains.

How To Solve The Problem
Here is what Soapblox needs in the immediate short-term to become safe and secure once again:

--Recharge ten servers
--Perform a full security audit of the SoapBlox server/unix infrastructure to prevent hackers from gaining access
--Ensure all backup process are working and functional to guarantee that if hacking happens, data is preserved
--Perform a security audit on the SoapBlox code itself so that hackers cannot exploit the SoapBlox code itself.
--Migrate to new, secure servers

The good news is that, in addition to restoring full service for Soapblox, Paul has already found a system administrator who lives in his area and is able to help. All of the work listed above is currently underway. Here is what it will cost:

--Recharging ten servers at $100 apiece: $1,000
--Purchasing new, secure severs, and migrating the data: $8,000
--One month of full-time work at $50 / hour in order to complete all of the tasks listed above: $8,400

So, for a total of $17,400, we can secure Soapblox, and ensure that yesterday's dangerous attack can never be replicated. Let's make this happen. Save Soapblox and secure online progressive media. Contribute today.

Why BlogPac?
No doubt, many people will ask why the money for this fundraising is going to BlogPac, rather than directly to Soapblox. The answer is two-fold.

First, BlogPac can transparently raise money across several blogs at once through Act Blue. As you read this, dozens of other Soapblox blogs, along with BlogPac's membership, are currently participating in this fundraiser. Also, as a federal PAC, BlogPac will have to disclose the payments to Soapblox, thus leaving a public record and complete transparency for the fundraiser.

Second, over the past two years, BlogPac has been proud to be Soapblox's main contributor. Since January 2007, as part of our fifty-state blogging program, we have paid the website hosting fees of a few dozen state blogs. Also, as part of the BlogPac infrastructure contest, Soapblox was granted $5,000 to help upgrade their service. Now, we are proud to serve as the financial vehicle that will save, secure and help build up Soapblox for the future.

As such, in consultation with Paul and several Soapblox state bloggers, it was agreed that BlogPac would serve as the financial vehicle for the Soapblox fundraiser. We are honored to do so. It is BlogPac's opinion that Soapblox is too big a part of online progressive infrastructure to fail. Also, all money raised in this fundraiser beyond $17,400 will go toward continuing the fifty-state blog grant program, and building up Soapblox over the long-term. For this effort, becoming a contributing member to BlogPac would be a great help. $5 a month goes a long way toward building progressive infrastructure.

Long-Term
For the past three years, Paul has developed and maintained Soapblox on his own. It is a part-time job for Paul, netting him about $10-$12K a year. Given the service he provides, it is the least he deserves. However, to go beyond merely preventing Soapblox from imminent destruction, and building the service up over the long-term, this will need to become a full-time position for Paul. Also, while Paul is working on improving Soapblox, he will need a regular, part-time systems administrator to guard against future attacks.

Paul and I have discussed a wide range of options to pull this off. It will require a mix of increased hosting fees, larger institutional support than BlogPac can provide, and larger donors who can give directly to Soapblox. Once this fundraiser is over, and the work listed above is completed, our first priority will be making sure that this happens. While there is a certain romantic charm to operating on such a shoestring, in order to build the base of power needed to make a progressive America, we need more organization, infrastructure, and resources. Saving, and then building up, Soapblox is an important part of that goal. Send in a contribution to save Soapblox now.