Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:30:11 -0500
Reply-To: Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Re: More Musings on the Updated FAQ Proposition
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I know we're going to beat this thing up pretty badly before any real
progress is made but I notice two people have already submitted their
favorite links that are hopefully good resources.
Believe it or not this is progress.
If another individual has the Bentley on CD rom we could use the front
table of contents and the back subject index to get this thing moving
with some organization.
I would submit that we put these into a a web page that will contain
links to the various sites that fall under each Bentley category,
subject.
This is actually a rough draft of what you'll have when you're finished
with exception that we'll have content from the archives, pages from
these sites (with site owners permissions, and credits given) and any
other creative input on subjects not currently addressed.
The links will be replaced with actual content pages from the individual
sites and a courtesy link will be provided to the contributors site in
the text (if the link dies, so be it).
This procedure will glean what is already out there and unless I'm
mistaken thats a considerable amount of dependable information from very
qualified contributors.
After this wealth of information is gathered then we'll chop out the
archives for supplemental information.
This should narrow the total job (if we understand what the hell we're
doing) down to size.
I'll start the ball rolling if someone can P-mail me the Table Of
Contents and Index from a Bentley CD, I'll set an alphabetical index,
subject index that has quick response through a web browser.
After that we can cut and paste in the links into the proper Subject,
Category sections then start securing permissions to copy their content.
Its a lot of cut and paste.
Stan Wilder
On Wed, 29 May 2002 14:50:40 EDT Frank Grunthaner <FrankGRUN@AOL.COM>
writes:
> Let me repeat my amazement at the number of personal email responders
> to my
> FAQ upgrade proposition who indicate that they lurk on the list but
> refuse to
> post because of the type of responses, both to the list and
> personally. On
> one hand, this is very depressing in that the tone and style of
> responses can
> inhibit a wealth of interchange. For the other side of the coin, I
> am excited
> about the true depth of the resources of this community.
>
> But I wanted to put out a few comments in response to some
> suggestions by
> Stan and others as to the form this should take and possible media
> issues.
>
> Firstly as to the Bentley organizational structure, I feel this is a
> good
> beginning as far as the technical topics go. A Bentley supplement is
> a major
> project, but should someone want to orchestrate such an effort I
> would
> clearly support it. Additions to the camping and owners manual are
> also very
> nice concepts but entail more work and commitment than I originally
> envisioned. Kudo's to those who will take this on!
>
> My original model goes along the lines of Jan Vandenbrande's
> Archive, Racing
> Page and Water-cooled VW FAQ which can be found at
> http://www.nwlink.com/~vdb/cars.html . This collection ranges from
> the FAQ's
> proper through links, dissertations, email summaries and digests.
> This
> somewhat disorganized freeform approach was collected together by
> many
> individuals and sent to Jan for integration and posting. Now, I'm
> not
> suggesting Jan's Archive replace our archive ... leave our
> searchable
> archives in place, just provide a gleaned overlayer.
>
> Again, my concern is to increase the level of information content in
> the
> newbie post of reoccurring issues, and to help filter BS from gold
> in the
> archive material. Of course, such filtering might lead to a minority
> report,
> but c'est la vie.
>
> On the issue of listee and other web pages. I truly applaud the
> creativity,
> time and effort lavished on so many personal web pages with topical
> Vanagon
> and VW information. Unfortunately, individual web pages tend to
> disappear
> over time (often short time, not long time). I have a list of
> hundreds of
> dead links that I once referred to routinely. One possible solution
> is for
> such web owners to forward their material to our central resource.
> This more
> public page might survive the vagaries of ISPs better. Note that
> Jan's page
> is increasingly hard to find because of changing links.
>
> Finally, I would support the availability of modestly priced CD's of
> the FAQ
> groups and/or the Archives, so long as the material was still
> available
> freely by electronic access. Perhaps one of our vendors could be
> suckered in
> to taking on the distribution and sales of such. The possibility of
> supporting our underlying technology is appealing.
>
> Karl's comments about the sticker experiences should just remind us
> that the
> true rewards of volunteerism is only in one's own sense of
> accomplishment and
> contribution. To this end, the contributions of all to these efforts
> need to
> be recognized by binding the author/authors information to the FAQ
> topic
> generated.
>
> Just comments and suggestions.
>
> A note to all who have emailed in support of the FAQ proposition: Be
> assured
> that your material is gratefully acknowledged and is directed to a
> new folder
> on my desktop. I will answer ASAP following the current Martian
> crunch.
>
> Frank Grunthaner
>
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