ACTION REQUESTED of all current and former users of this network: we’re conducting a (long overdue) review of which sites and users are still active, and which can be archived. This will help reduce maintenance and server requirements, as well as reduce security risk.

Emails will be sent out soon to site owners and users, but if you see this notice before then, you can help us out by letting us know right away: do you still use and maintain the site we host for you here on Indivisible.blue? Or has it fallen out of use and is no longer needed? No hard feelings – just fill out this form to let us know!

I happened to stumble recently on ForwardEmail.net, a slick, free service that allows you to have email addresses for your domain, but without having to pay for or manage full email service. Instead, messages are simply forwarded to whatever existing email address you already have (GMail, Hotmail, Fastmail (save 10% with that affiliate link, btw), whatever).

Suppose, for example, you run the site IndivisibleMaralago.com. With this service you could have a working email address like info@indivisiblemaralago.com forwarded to an existing email like trumpisbad12345@gmail.com. You can have as many of these aliases as you want, for free.

Why not get real email service for your group? You can sure do that, and it might make sense. But I’ve been involved with managing email for nonprofits in the past, and it can be a real pain in the butt, with little real advantage. There’s a good bit of administration and frequent troubleshooting, all so that the already-busy leaders of your group can juggle yet another email account.

If the main thing you want is the legitimacy of email addresses with your domain name so that people can send you messages, this ForwardEmail.net solution is easy and free. If you decide to upgrade to a full email service provider later, this is easy to turn off and won’t hinder that process a bit.

To be clear, you don’t need me or a site on Indivisible.blue to use this. You can go to ForwardEmail.net and do it yourself, no problem. But if your site is hosted here, then we probably manage your DNS already, and that’s where the configuration for this service happens. Also, I’m here as always to help you set up and manage it! Just tell me what email address you want, and where it should go, and I’ll take care of all the technical details.

If you’re interested, just get in touch via this form (or via this new forwarded address I just set up: hello@indivisible.blue!).

For your plugin pleasure, we’ve recently installed a few new tools based on site admin requests:

• The Events Calendar – “Create an events calendar and manage it with ease. Packed with loads of useful features, The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe is ready to go right out of the box. It’s extensible, easy to use, and completely customizable.”
• Weglot Translate – “With Weglot Translate, you can translate your site into a multilingual website with multiple languages in minutes without doing any code. Weglot Translate is totally SEO compatible.”
• Google Photos Gallery with Shortcodes – “Use the plugin to display your Google Photo (Picasa) Albums on your WordPress blog. Using the shortcodes it is simple to embed a single album or all your albums. Display albums in grid view, list view or carousel.”

The release of WordPress 5.0 included an enhanced editor interface called “Gutenberg”. I updated the WordPress software to that version as soon as it was available, as always, but I worried that the sudden and fairly drastic change might catch some of Indivisible.blue’s many users off guard.

The solution, as usual for WordPress: a plugin! I installed the Classic Editor plugin, which kept the same old tried & true editor interface in place.

If and when site administrators are ready to switch over to the Gutenberg (aka “block”) editor, you can do that via selections under Settings -> Writing in your dashboard. As always, let me know if you have any questions!

This has been in place for a while, but I neglected to announce it widely: two-factor authentication is now built in and available to every user of every Indivisible.blue site. Setting this up adds an additional level of security to keep someone from logging in as you. (Here’s a good article explaining two-factor authentication, if you’re not familiar with it.)

To enable this for yourself or Indivisible.blue users you administer, start at the “Users” section of your WordPress dashboard. The list there includes a new column that shows whether two-factor is enabled for each user.

To change the settings, click “edit” for a user, and then scroll down to the “Two-Factor Options” section. I recommend using “Time Based One-Time Password (Google Authenticator)” method, as well as generating backup codes, if you have a secure place to store them (like a password manager). The Google Authenticator app can be installed on your iPhone or Android phone and is easy to use.

If you have any questions or run into any problems, as always, let me know via the contact form or on Twitter: @IndivisibleBlue.

Though I haven’t kept this blog up to date very well lately, this network of Indivisible sites is still going strong, and still growing. In addition to adding new sites, and keeping the software here humming along smoothly, I have some exciting news to share with you.

First is a new partnership between Indivisible.blue and Indivisible Austin.

Though a lot of folks have assumed that since Indivisible.blue hosts WordPress sites and is based in Austin, that my own local group’s WordPress site was also hosted here. But as one of the earliest organizations in the nation founded on the Indivisible Guide, their site predated this one. I did work with them to make their popular and attractive theme available to sites on Indivisible.blue. And I’ve been very happy to host sites for some of their affiliated groups, like TX LEGE, TX-25, and last summer’s Cornyn Stakeout.

But recently the collaboration between Indivisible Austin and Indivisible.blue took a big step forward. Thanks to the data portability built in to WordPress, we have moved the entire site to the Indivisible.blue network! I’m happy to help free up a little of the group’s resources, which can be more focused on the primary work of activism in Central Texas. And as Indivisible.blue continues to grow, it’s great to have the backing of a strong, active group.

Speaking of growing the number of sites we host here, the second exciting announcement is a significant boost in helping organizations get their new websites off the ground more quickly. Though WordPress expertise is widespread, and how-to information is common, there have been more instances than I care to admit where groups didn’t quite manage to get their new Indivisible.blue site up and running.

Now, thanks to the extensive research and hard work of Indivisible Somerville, we’re thrilled to provide hosting for Activism.website. This fully fleshed-out, template-based site can be cloned with the click of a button to provide new sites with a solid base to build on.

Out of the box, a new site based on Activism.website features: an event calendar, mission and team bio pages, member tracking, donations, volunteer management, and more. As the getting-started page says:

In addition to talking to groups across the country about their needs, our team analyzed almost 1000 websites of new progressive organizations nationwide to find the sites and solutions that looked good, worked well, and fit the needs of the group without requiring technical skills or resources. We did all the research for you so you can focus on what you do best – engaging your community.

The original mission of Indivisible.blue was to help Indivisible groups across the country organize online, in ways that complement – but remain independent from – closed, sometimes toxic platforms like Facebook and Twitter. With this new partnership with Indivisible Austin, and new tools like hosting for Activism.website sites, we’re ready to expand this help to any other progressive groups that can use it. This support remains free of charge or advertisements.

If you’re interested in getting on board, get in touch!

Yes, this project is still a going concern, and yes, it’s easier to say “I’ll write an update every week” than it is to actually do that. But rest assured, software updates and backups have been running right on schedule, regardless of posting regularity.

The news I wanted to share with you is that hosting Indivisible group websites on this network will now be provided free of cost. That has been the case from the start, thanks to an early, generous donation and modest expenses. But I’ve decided to make it official, and permanent: Indivisible.blue is free.

From the start of this project, I wanted to make sure it would be sustainable over the long years ahead of fighting the Trump/GOP agenda. If dozens or hundreds of groups signed up, I didn’t want to be on the hook for hundreds of dollars each month. But now it’s clear that growth in the number of sites has leveled off, and everything is still running fine on a $10/month server. I can live with that. (Though I’m still happy to accept your help if you care to chip in: see the financials page for donation details).

So to all the people who I awkwardly tried to describe the possible, maybe, semi-kinda-sorta estimated price, based on server costs divided by the number of sites based on the phase of the moon – I’m happy to say it’s much simpler now. And you don’t need to worry about the bill-collectors coming to collect $1.28 next month.

And to any new folks: come on in; it’s not too late. We have plenty of room to grow, so get in touch.

#Resist!

Thanks to prodding from a site admin (hi, Shea!), I dug in tonight and got the Akismet comment-spam blocking plugin activated for all sites on Indivisible.blue. Which means that spam comments left on your sites’ posts will now automatically be filtered out. Admins of individual sites don’t have to do anything, no API key to sign up for or enter. (If you want to adjust the couple of options, visit “Jetpack -> Akismet” on your dashboard.)

I’m still getting things together around here, but if you want to keep up with what’s new, you might want to follow my brand-new Twitter account: indivisibleblue.