SixApart asks the sensible questions

6A is now asking folks how they are using MT:

I have a challenge for those who have taken the time to send a TrackBack to our previous posts about the new licensing scheme for Movable Type 3.0.
If free isn’t an issue for you and you’re willing to pay for a version of Movable Type (say the $69 version) and the blog/author limits won’t work for your current use, write a non-emotional post explaining how you’re using Movable Type and TrackBack this entry.
I left the TrackBacks on for all the other posts because we genuinely wanted to get all feedback, positive and negative. Now, I’m looking for rational, just the facts sort of posts with simple information. Please, no commentary, no cussing, no judgments.

I read somewhere that a survey of 2500-odd bloggers had prompted the new licensing terms, but it’s good that they’re at least trying to separate the wheat of the controversy from the chaff. So let’s see how things work here.

I currently run the following blogs. All are personal hobbies, non-commercial, non-profit, etc., etc.

1. ***Dave Does the Blog: Here. Me. Now. 1 Blog, 1 Author.
2. Justice Blog: Defunct gaming blog. Inactive since 2002. Should probably be taken down one of these days. Doesn’t apply to the new licensing scheme (based on what’s been clarified from 6A).

3. IMiA – Carl Grackle: Character site for a PBEM Amber game. Currently being transferred over into a wiki. Not updated before that for at least 90 days.

4. The Thursday Thumb-Twiddler: Former meme blog (1 author), inactive as anything but a comment spam honeypot for at least a year. Doesn’t count under the new licensing.

5. Catspaw: Blog as novel-writing-tool. Unused for over a year (except to read), and currently .htaccessed from public view, so doesn’t count under the new licensing.

6. WIST: Quotations database site via MT blog, under its own domain. +1 Blog, +0 Author.

7. Margie’s Kitchen: Recipe blog run by my wife. +1 Blog, +1 Author.

8. In Deo Confidemus: RPG game blog, partially converted over to a wiki, but still active. I allow the game participants to post to it (and they occasionally do). +1 Blog, +4 Authors (another author is my wife, already counted above).

9. Catspaw (Revised): Novel revision via blog. Should certainly have been active over the last 90 days. +1 Blog, +0 Authors.

So, if I count right, that makes currently 5 active blogs, 5 authors. All but WIST hang underneath the www.hill-kleerup.org/blog/ URL, though with different directories for each one (it’s unclear to me from the new FAQ if this means they actually count as separate blogs or not, but I would think they would). That puts me — barely — into the $70 (if I pony up now, $100 otherwise) category.

Both numbers (number of blogs, number of authors) could be higher if some of the activites I built the blogs around were still ongoing.

Both numbers could also be smaller, if I had to make them thus. I could have a generic login for myself and my wife, and simply force the game players in IDC to participate via comments. I could (and probably, for functional reasons, will) do some of these (or their next incarnations) as wikis or other web tools. It would be little skin off my nose, would possibly save me some bucks on MT licensing (I could maybe squeeze back into the free box, or at least have breathing room in the “low-end” personal pay box).

Whether I should have to, or whether such a move would actually benefit either myself or 6A, is another matter.

But that’s getting into commentary, I guess.

(via Les)