Dear friends,
An American saying says that "the third time is the charm". I hope that this is true, because I am officially announcing the "new new blog v3" is now online at the following URL:
thesaker.is
This domain name was chosen by my webmaster who came up with this idea at the time when our community was attacked on all sides. It is also a clear reply to those who decided that they were with the "Charlies" and even "Charlies" themselves.
Here is a note that Gevorg asked me to share with all of you:
We have experienced some difficulties in the past month which left the new blog static until these matters could be sorted out. Some of the problems were related to technical issues like lost domain names or server re-configuration necessities. Others were related to personal matters and the separation of former supporters.
It took us some time to overcome these stumbling blocks and to re-organize everything. It is still an ongoing process.
But during this time we also found many new supporters and volunteers who have become part of our Saker team. They help us in maintaining and improving this international website project. There help is very valuable to us and I do express my gratitude towards those who are involved in this process.
Some of you, dear visitors, have voiced concerns in your comments about the future of this blog, some even suggested to not pursue it any longer and again others may have had a laugh or two during the time of our troubles.
It is for these reasons that I would like to post this comment before the following ones and kindly ask you to take notice of the following remark:
On behalf of ...
... the Saker
... the international team leaders and their groups
... the translators and content providers
... the silent readers and the voiceful commenters
... the financial helpers and moral supporters
... the IT-specialists and administrators
... those who prefer to remain anonymous and those who don't
... those who choose to have a religion and those who don't
... those who agree with this blog and those who don't
... those who seek the truth and despise the lie ...
I would like to add to a previous remark by stating ...
We stood our ground!
the Saker is
Yours sincerely,
Gevorg in Armenia
Webmaster of The Vineyard of the Saker
If the first new blog crashed for purely technical reasons, then the second one was deliberately sabotaged. But thanks to a fantastic group of volunteer IT-specialists the "New Blog v3" is now up again, and hopefully this time it will stay.
In fact, the this blog and the community around it is the result of the efforts of many people, probably close to 100, who quite literally all over the planet donate their time, skills and efforts to help with my blog, but also all the other Saker Community Blogs and I want to use this opportunity to extend to them all my most heartfelt and sincere gratitude for all they have done and are still doing. Friends - thank you!!!
Now I have a couple of things I want to explain and a few requests
First, I plan to double-post here (at http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/) and on the new blog (at http://thesaker.is/) and I will allow comments on both blogs for the next 2 weeks. Still, while I will not close down the comments section here, I ask you to please ONLY COMMENT ON THE NEW BLOG unless you *cannot* do that for some technical reason.
Second, in two weeks I will shut down the comments here. The blog here (at http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/) will probably still be updated just to serve as a backup in case of disaster with the new blog, but that will be it's sole purpose.
It is important to redirect as much comments and traffic to the new blog because we need to test if the server, the blog and the moderators can handle the traffic (last month the just the blog here had just under 1.8 million views including some days which had just over 84'000 visitors).
Finally, one member of our community, the Rift, has made a beautiful video animation to encourage donations to this blog:
I hope that this short clip will encourage you all to help me in my struggle!
Many thanks and kind regards,
The Saker
PS: you want to see if we make a difference? Just google "maidan one year later" :-)
