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Web Hosting - FAQ
- Does the Viking Council provide web
hosting for Packs or Troops?
We often receive inquiries about whether the Viking Council provides web hosting for units. The Council does not provide any web hosting. National BSA does not permit Councils to do this.
What some Councils have been doing is to arrange with their ISP to provide a discounted service and a "virtual" domain name that is similar to the Council name.
Fictitious example: http://cubpack123.vikingbsa.org
These arrangements are completely independent as far as account responsibility and access to the actual Council site. Viking Council could make a similar arrangement with an ISP anywhere on the net. One of the reasons that we are not considering this, at the present, is that we have no control over what the Unit puts on their web site and we do not wish to have people make an erroneous assumption that the Unit pages represent the Council.
- Do other Councils provide free web hosting for Packs or Troops?
There are come Councils that have made business arrangements to help provide "low cost" hosting to units in their Councils. Indianhead Council in St. Paul has such an arrangement with their ISP and the unit can pay $10/month to have their site hosted. Our current ISP, US Internet, would also offer you a similar independent arrangement, although the domain name would not be related to the Council.
- Can you recommend any other arrangements for "free" web hosting for our Pack or Troop?
There are a lot of sites that offer free hosting. We generally make Units aware of OrgSites or Scouter Magazine for free hosting. Scouter Magazine provide this service exclusively for Scout Units and have been doing it since 1995. The disadvantage is that there are advertisements with most any "free" site. OrgSites has a very friendly site with enhanced email and calendar features - with no advertising. Most Units do not want to pay anything for service, so you will find very few units, at the present time, that are hosted under their own domain name. We do not endorse or recommend any source for web hosting - this is simply information for the Unit to consider.
- Will the Viking Council ever offer
assistance
with web hosting?
Viking Council may look at the "virtual hosting" arrangement again in the future, but for now are not planning on doing anything in the near term. This is strictly for policy reasons, not technical. Like anything else, this could change for the right opportunity or reasons.
- Will the Viking Council
The VikingBSA web site has a special page that contains links to any Unit web site that we are aware of and that meets our standards. The Unit sites must be dedicated to Scouting and should not contain any personal information about its members. No photographs of youth may be posted if there is any name or personal information associated with it. In all cases, permission should be sought before using any photos of people. We post a disclaimer to warn anyone that visits a Unit site that the content and materials that they may see are solely the responsibility of the Unit. The Viking Council is not responsible for any of the information or materials on a Unit Site and the Viking Council has absolutely no control over what the Unit chooses to do with their pages. We will remove links to any Unit site that violates the confidentiality of its members or contains any information that is considered "commercial" or otherwise not in keeping with Scouting.
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The
ScoutingBSA.org web site is a
legacy site of the Viking Council BSA, now Northern Star Council.
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Last Update May 15, 2023