The End of ARCTX.

It's been brewing for a while, but it's the end of the Alert Retrieval Cache's descendant, ARCTX (Alert Receive Transmit). The reasoning is pretty simple. First, I haven't had enough time to take a serious attempt at the project. Second - despite press in the context of the Tsunami and the BBC's coverage of the Alert Retrieval Cache, nobody seriously attempted to help.

The first is a matter of 'Taran has bills to pay'. While it would be really fun to sit around and diddle with this stuff, I just don't get paid enough to do some of the stuff I would like to do - so I take on more work, so I have less time, and so the cycle goes.

The second is perhaps my greatest disappointment because it is a cascade of disappointments. First of all, when I put the call out for assistance, I got someone who wanted credit and someone who actually wanted to get it to work (like myself). The person who wanted the credit organized the interview with the BBC that I did, and was less than happy that I gave credit where credit was due - the numerous plans that had never been acted on by NGOs and governments. Because of the ensuing rift between the person who wanted credit and myself (because I never asked for credit, and always accredited the work that happened before instead of someone who just was riding the wave), things got iffy and the ONLY person who really had things working left - not to be heard from again.

The other aspects of the second include the fact that the members of the SEA EAT weblog didn't feel it necessary to get the word out on the Alert Retrieval Cache because they, too, were worried about who got credit - apparently with good reason. So the word didn't get out to people in time for it to be useful because people were worried about who got credit. That stinks.

So in the end, despite expressed interest in ARCTX from governments and so on... it just isn't working out, and as time has passed it has become apparent to me that ARCTX lacks sustainability in that people only want to work on stuff like that when they can get credit, and the only time they can get credit is when it gets used, and when it gets used is during a disaster.

So credit the disaster.

That said, the trick is to create something that can be used in disasters and people might help with now so that they can get credit - and hopefully they don't get too greedy about it. And that will be the next announcement.