User:CHGiffen/CPDL organization/CPDL history

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This is part of the CPDL organization document

CPDL before ChoralWiki (December 1998 – July 2005)

The online Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) was founded by Rafael (Raf) Ornes with an initial posting of 6 scores in December 1998 (in all, 24 new scores were posted that month). Scores were posted entirely by hand by Raf during these early years. With the amount of interest in CPDL growing and, unfortunately, with problems from hackers on the old site, Raf abandoned the old site structure in favor of ChoralWiki, a wiki site, after a major hacking of the old site in the summer of 2005. By this time there were over 320 contributors and 8,700 scores in the CPDL database.

CPDL as ChoralWiki (August 2005 – July 2008)

On 16 August 2005, the MediaWiki software was successfully installed at CPDL and the work begun on transferring information from the old database (and Google cache), as well as customizing the new ChoralWiki. Composer pages were up by 22 August, and by 28 August score pages had been created for nearly all scores in the database (it would take another couple of months with the help of volunteers to clean up various loose ends, such as scores that did not get properly transferred). The phpBB discussion forum was added by 9 September 2005. And by mid-October 2005, the ChoralWiki Main Page assumed more-or-less its present form. Almost daily updates of most recent scores listed on the Main Page were carried out by hand by a handful of volunteers.

In late July of 2008, Raf Ornes felt that the task of managing CPDL by himself had become too great, and asked a small group of Administrators to form a new structure and assume operation of CPDL.

CPDL in transition (August 2008 – December 2008)

A Transition Committee was formed, which began the multifaceted tasks of trying to decide how best to carry CPDL forward with goals and an operational structure that would be ongoing and self-sustaining, as well as managing several aspects of CPDL that needed immediate attention. These included upgrading both the CPDL Forums and the MediaWiki software for ChoralWiki, adding other enhancements to increase the functionality of ChoralWiki, migrating to new host servers, establishing cloned copies and back-up procedures, and implementing several improvements to the appearance and ease of operation of ChoralWiki.

The Transition Committee also established and worked within an organizational structure that, in most details, is reflected by and carried forward in the structure described below. By the end of 2008, the work of the Transition Committee was considered finished, with nearly all the pieces in place for CPDL to operate henceforth under this new structure.

CPDL renewed

With the work of the Transition Committee done, CPDL has moved forward with the goals and organizational structure set forth in this document. Transition Committee work group leaders, deputies, and members have retained their roles in the renewed CPDL.

[ not yet finished? ]