Fedora Blogs to close due to limited use

The Fedora Project's blog service at blogs.fedoraproject.org is to close due to limited use. The announcement, from Kevin Fenzi, Fedora Infrastructure lead, came following reports that the service was being closed due to a lack of resources. According to Fenzi, there were 92 blogs on the system but only 39 had more than 5 posts. Only 6 of the blogs had posts in the last month and only 23 had posts this year.

This low usage, combined with the lack of an infrastructure member to support the service, the demands of regularly updating the Wordpress software which powered the site, and the fact that many other sites provide blogging platforms meant that the team did not see a "compelling reason" to keep the blog system running. In its decision making process, the Infrastructure team also considered the fact that blogging sites such as wordpress.com are known to be committed to free software. The actual decision to close the blog service was made in January at Tempe Fudcon.

The blogs closure follows a similar shutdown for Fedora Talk, a VOIP service, when it was found to have handled only 95 calls in 130 days. Fedora Talk closed down on 5 May. Fenzi said that the team is open to parties stepping forward to maintain the blogging service. The team are also prepared to help any user wishing to transition their blog to another service and will provide web site redirections and dumps of their posts. The service will close on 1 July.

(djwm)