Rob and I have been discussing some revamping of our website, one of the things we'd like to do is provide tech writeups for the diff Porsches, me being responsible for 928s (of course)
I know there are TONS of writeups scattered all over the place, what I'd like to do is combine them into 1 place for everyone to be able to get to them quick and easy

to do this I need permission from those of you who have done writeups for me to post them on our site (credit given where possible),
does anyone have any "issues" with us doing this? any suggestions? etc

TIA for any comments

 

I would think a links page to Nichols Tips page.. http://nichols.nu/tips.htm (one of many I'm sure) would work rather than trying to re-invent the wheel .

Good luck
Tom
89GT

 

I'm trying to do this in a way that everything will be in 1 place so we don't have to skip from website to website... I plan on putting links to various sites for those who want to visit them
thanks for the input

 

Oddly, I've been working on something similar (928 specific) on and off for a couple of weeks. It will be a place where registered people can submit their own tips or whatever for others to peruse in a categorized, easily searchable venue.

Ideally, it wil also be available offline (for users to take with them to the garage or wherever).

Once I get it done... if anyone uses it..., I'll make sure that they know that their input may be copied and hosted elsewhere.

My point - once it's done, feel free to use any information there.

 

It's a great site, but to Rixter's point there is more out there...with pics, diagrams, and even videos in some instances. I tried to do the same a while back and must admit it turned into a very large project that I got distracted away from eventually. The list here also includes valuable info, but also a lot of misleading content...as far as I'm concerned, a good thing to do is look up all posts by Jim Bailey and Wally Plumley. It would make a great start

 

You're welcome to use my stuff, with proper credit & links(FWIW)

 

The best write-up by far was the guy who did a pdf on the lights that DR sells, simply amazing. When i pulled my engine, i videotaped the entire process pointing out each part that had to be removed and what it did. That video could be useful to some one day.

 

I've printed off so many trees to preseve information in hardcopy form that I have a closet FULL of information that I can never find so I just go to the websites (hoping they don't go away like some do)...so one stop searching would be be nice if anyone could ever pull it off. Copyright could be an issue w/o permissions. Nettiquette says that you really should have permission of the person before linking to their website though. Why? What if a zillion people hit the server their stuff is hosted on? If that's not robust it could hurt them and they might pull their info. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

Harvey

 

Gathering all the tech articles into one place means that revisions and updates need to migrate manually from the originators' sites. It also means that original credit can be easily lost. I know it's not as glamorous, but a library of links might be better. It places the responsibility of updating the links with you, and keeps the responsibility for the material itself with the original author or host.

My two sense...

 

I pretty much agree with Dr. Bob. But maybe there's a good middle ground here. Consider that over time, some writeups/articles/tips/etc. are relatively stable, but others continue to be updated (typically, based on the author's continued involvement with 928s and available time, etc.).

Maybe a good "links site" could be a combination of a "shadow copy" (like the "mirror sites" that are so common) in conjuction with a link to the original source. Periodically, the shadow copy could be updated, but people could always try to follow the link, expecting to find the "latest and greatest" version. If it's not available, than the latest and greatest version is by default the shadow copy.

As to attribution, I figure that if authors care about that, they should just put it into the document, and if it's copied, fine. I know I don't care. I suspect most people are just trying to give back to the community. Now if someone grabs somebody else's stuff and changes it (especially removing and/or changing copyright info, author info, etc.), that's a different matter, and most people would agree that that isn't acceptable.

 

BTW, something else interesting to point out is that this Rennlist 928 Forum itself can be mined for some pretty great info. Based on what I've seen, some people are better at hunting that info down than others. Anyone wanting to put together a collection of organized links might want to include links to various threads that are particularly rich in DIY info.

 

I have made the offer of hosting such content many times, to a numberof 928ers, under one of my own domains, or under the 928oc.org domain. My concern is that the data will be lost at some point. This happened with 928s4vr.com (which I was able to save most content of). It happened with the original 928 registry (which was lost), and most recently 928trackcars (still offline).

In my offer, I advised I would give the authors ftp access to the server I hosted with, so they could keep it up to date. I also advised the author would continue to own the content, and could delete it when they wanted. For whatever reason, I didn't get any takers.

Rixter, I know you are a good guy, but I always question putting the content in the control of a vendor that could change direction due to new owner, etc.

The 928 Owners Club was given ownership of the 928s4vr.com website content (Excell.Net hosts it without charge), and the 928 Owners Club agreed to always keep the site public. I think such a scenario is the best way to preserve the content, but perhaps some would think I am biased.

Just my 2 cents... kind of like herding cats

 

One thing that would be cool to bring back is the ITEMS for FREE database and add that to that link...that Kary4th is building. Something where individuals could even update as things were sold. Now that would be awesome!!

 

Not to hijack your thread, Rixter - what I'm planning is meant to supplement and feed websites like you're working on. It will be available to other sites and even to users as a web service via SOAP, XML and RSS.


'Items for free' and 'items I need' could easily be their own sectons or categories.

If only links are provided, you cannot search for what you need easily.

What I am planning will not be static information. People could edit their own submissions, and others could always add comments (as seperate documents, like a rennlist thread).

Using the database that I am, the biggest benefits are
A) custom categorization
B) advanced searchability
C) the ability to take this information with you offline. You would not need an active web connection to access the information, if you chose to keep it locally.

If you're a Lotus Notes user, you could even access the database natively.

 

I think Vilhuer put this together? Nice.

http://www.pts106.com/Links%20928.htm