UPDATE: Site Hacked, Repaired
It appears that the site was broken into in mid August 2009 and malicious content installed. This has been fixed. The suspected attack routes, the SMF forum or the SIA Wiki have been disabled. Jay's Blog has been upgraded.
Update: Forum Hacked, Replaced
Grrr, the Forum on this site got hacked, and filled with icky stuff. My sincere apologies to anybody who stumbled across it. Strange things started happening as I tried to clean up, so it was easier to just throw it all away and start over. Further apologies to anybody whose posts got lost in the cleanup, and to all previous users, you'll need to sign up again, which now requires approval. This is an ongoing project, stay tuned.
UPDATE 12/9/08: The attempted hacking continues unabated. DRAT! Reportedly a new version of SMF now in Beta test has new defenses against this, but will take a day or so to install, test and enable. For now the Forum is unavailable. Stay tuned.
Electronic Communications Experiments
The Chapter has been pretty wired since its inception, e.g. we had our first web pages in 1997. As a part of a project to consider ways to improve communications within the SIA, several experiments are being hosted here. Like any experiment, these may not all work out, so just like SIA 2008, Change is the Constant in this area too. The first of these is a personal blog in which I hope to be able to discuss ideas about the SIA and IA/IH in general in an informal way. Writing something down, even in an informal blog, also forces the ideas to be made more concrete.
The second piece is a wiki using the MediaWiki software that powers wikipedia.org. This may eventually move to the main SIA web site, but for now, its hosted here for ease of maintenance. The intent is to provide a visible place for SIA members and friends to post information of interest to the broad community that would not be as useful or would be inappropriate on public sites like wikipedia.
The third of these experiments, creating a National SIA mailing list using the email management solutions from Constant Contact, had gone live! You can sign up using the form below, or a similar form on the main SIA web site.
As the first step in a proposed multi-year project to improve communications with our members and friends, we have set up a new system for email to our community. In efforts to prevent spam, we are prevented from using the servers at Michigan Tech (and most other ISPs) for emails to all of our community. So, we have selected an email service company, Constant Contact, to provide member email services. This is strictly an outbound email service to you. Our Office Manager, Don Durfee, sia@mtu.edu will continue to be the point of contact for most of your requests. Additionally, president@siahq.org will reach SIA President Mary Habstritt. For comments and suggestions about the new email, please contact Jay McCauley (jay@knightsia.org) Contact information for other officers and Board Members is on the SIA web pages, http://siahq.org/contacts/contacts.html
Most of us detest spam, officially “unsolicited commercial email”. Constant Contact is extremely vigilant about not permitting spam to be sent, and has strong working agreements with the major internet service providers like AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, etc. to ensure delivery of mail sent through them. These ISPs detest spam more than you do, and routinely “blacklist” domains thought to be sending spam, preventing all mail from the blacklisted domain. Using Constant Contact should prevent siahq.org from being blacklisted by your ISP.
The email is an opt-in, value added project. That is, we will not be getting your email address from our membership database. Rather, you will need to opt-in by supplying your address, most often via a form on the SIA web site. The email program will not replace any of our publications or event materials, but will add value by more timely notification of publication content, events and other useful information. The planned volume of mail is very small, a mailing about once every six to twelve weeks. We have added sub lists for Chapters and events, as they become populated, we'll help the Chapter leadership send mail to their members and friends.
It has long been SIA policy not to furnish member names and addresses to outside parties. This will extend to your email address.
Please sign up for the email program!
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Virtual SIA Chapter
Do you wish there were an SIA Chapter you could join, but there's not one near you? Well, here's good news, the formation of a Virtual Chapter, hosted here on knightsia.org! Just go to the Forum for some initial placeholders. If this takes off, we'll put up something more sophisticated.
SIA 2008
Well, it's done! Over 100 real archeologists came to San José for SIA 2008. Nary a single hat, leather jacket or whip in sight, but some interesting folks from all over the US and Canada, and one intrepid visitor from Australia! Thanks to everyone who came, and especially to everyone who contributed ideas, insights, and their time to make the Conference a complete success!