Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 09:17:20 -0700
Reply-To: Jeffrey Earl <jefferrata@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jeffrey Earl <jefferrata@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Organizing Vanagon Maintenance Information
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Stan wrote: "We speculated that 80% of the archives
are trivia and the remaining content is duplicated
many times, by many contributors."
Stan is correct that the majority of the content here
on the Vanagon.com mailing list is of fleeting value.
Hell, half the stuff I've posted is just silly chatter
and certainly not worthy of being archived for
posterity. But aside from this chatter, what remains
is incredibly valuable info for the Vanagon owner, and
deserves to be properly cataloged and organized rather
than so easily lost in the mists of time as it is now.
I see two ways to go about this:
TECH REPORTS
The previously cited Syncro.org Tech Links
www.syncro.org/Links.shtml seems to be organized along
these lines. Individual 'reports' written by
knowledgable members are offered on a variety of
topics and strive to summarize all one needs to know
about, say, shock absorbers. A brief introduction, an
overview of recommended products available, followed
by an outline of procedures for changing your shocks.
This is arguably the most user-friendly route to go,
for its concise and comprehensive nature, but would
require contributions from numerous resident experts,
and would constitute a 'static' archive, with no
provision for the organic and free-flowing 'threads'
which are often so valuable when fixing your van.
ONLINE FORUM
Not to hijack this list, but another Vanagon site I've
found helpful is www.westfalia.org. This familiar
InfoPop Forum structure is organized along the same
content outline as the venerable Bentley manual, but
strives to cover information specifically NOT included
in the Bentley. In fact, the moderator frequently
chides wayward members who post questions in the wrong
forum, duplicate previous posts, or ask questions
already clearly covered in the Bentley. The result is
a well-organized 'dynamic' archive of members' Vanagon
experiences and suggestions.
But unlike the Vanagon.com mailing list, Westfalia.org
has significantly less traffic and activity from
members, hence less immediately helpful information.
One can wait weeks for an answer, if at all, whereas
the collective and connected brain-power of
Vanagon.com often garners a helpful reply within
minutes. The forum also seems to be increasingly
populated by newbies who do not bother to read the
simple site guidelines, asking the same tired old
questions, and posting 'new' topics already covered
elsewhere. Such a forum structure would require a
moderator or gatekeeper to keep new posts in their
correct places, a time-consuming and daunting task
indeed.
Perhaps a combination of these two structures would be
beneficial: Tech Reports for a variety of topics, with
accompanying forum-style topics of ongoing and
immediate conversation, with little need to
keyword-search. This would offer what I perceive as
the better organization of some other sites, while
retaining the immediate and conversational aspect of
Vanagon.com upon which we have come to depend.
"OK, I'll leave it at that since I've already gone on
for far too long about something I don't know a whole
lot about ..."
Jeffrey Earl
1983 diesel Westfalia "Vanasazi"
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