Wiki?

[MontuckyMadman]

Thats a pretty solid description of something that should exist along side the forum. A true wikipeida entry as i thought would be different. I guess I didn't get it. Sounds Great.
When do we start> Fix the site and update the dated articles or archive them as a starting point.

[Richuk]

I’m a bit surprised by the few responses that have a negative reaction to a wiki on principle. I may be in the minority, but I think it’s actually bad that for someone to find something here they have to attempt to search 25,386 posts (count as of this writing)…

The thread you were looking for was below this one, you will have read it. It asks people to get in touch to discuss ideas.... what you have outlined is, I am sure, already being discussed and if you'd like to take it forward, e-mail the guy.... Alternatively, add to the thread 'giving up on the site' and Kam will see it and no doubt encourage you and other to add more ideas and detail.

My objection (your surprise) isn't to the idea of a wiki, it's to the idea of prematurely taking a hatchet to skibuilders. Clearly, I think it is fair to show just a little more respect, but if you want to set up BoardCrafter Part 2, that name is free.

My apologies to all those I am possibly offending with my pointed remarks and outspoken opinions. I just think SkiBuilders has earned our loyalty and patience.

[falls]

I think we all want this skibuilders site to live, I know I do. I think people are just showing frustration with the problems with the server and the time it is taking to fix it. Hitting refresh every second time really annoys us! A sign of the digital age!

[Head Monkey]

Richuk, I honestly think you continue to misunderstand me here. There is no link between my suggestion to add a wiki to our community and the minor technical problems we’re experiencing with the forums. I also believe this would only serve to strengthen Skibuilders no matter where such a wiki is hosted. This is an idea I’ve wanted to suggest for a long time, and perhaps it’s simply my misfortune to have put it out there a few days after the other thread discussing those technical problems and some people’s overreaction to them. Since this suggestion is unrelated to those technical issues I thought it warranted its own thread.

Now, Richuk you’re saying something that is in fact quite offensive to me: that I am purposefully attempting to destroy Skibuilders.com with my suggestion. That I have forgotten the value this site has provided to me over the years, that I’m giving up on it, that I have no respect nor patience for the site or those that run it. The jab to setup up BoardCrafter 2 is particularly insulting. I can’t imagine why you suggest these things, or where they come from. You clearly don’t know me, nor understand the ways in which I have supported this site over a very long period of time. If you have something constructive to add, or would like to explain your fears about how this would devalue skibuilders, then please do so and we can discuss. But kindly spare me the personal attack.

[Brazen]

#2

[Brazen]

This reminds me of something my mom used to shout down the hall. "You kids fight nice with each other!"

That being said, it's abundantly clear that this can be formed into a better tool, and that waiting for Kam to do anything to that end, after multiple pointers in that regard, is about like waiting for tickets to Sarah Palin's inaugural ball.

This is a multifactoraly amazing community, I believe we need to carry on regardless of venue, and who on earth would ever argue against change for the better for all of us. Not me.

BTSr= 10:1

(beertostatementratio)

PS, it took 4 tries to post this up.

[Richuk]

I am not able to imbue knowledge where there is none - I don't know what was on your mind. I look at it with a simple question in mind i.e. the setting up of a project in conjunction with many of the more committed users, at a time when skibuilders is seeking to revise its format and content, in conjunction with many of its committed users... was/is likely to be to the benefit or detriment of this site?

Now the idea was put out there - strongly IMO, ready to launch. So I am not likely to offer any apology for refuting it in the same manner.

[Brazen]

the setting up of a project in conjunction with many of the more committed users, at a time when skibuilders is seeking to revise its format and content, in conjunction with many of its committed users... was/is likely to be to the benefit or detriment of this site?

I haven't seen that skibuilders is doing any revisions, or any action supporting that statement. I don't mean to be the gristle clog in the ham juicer of better snowboard building but HEY...WAKE UP.

This site is dead.

<Kam has used it to extract grant money for his classes and monitors it for changes that will benefit him, i.e. materials to stock, new topics for the classes he teaches. Articles or posts contributed by him in the last 2 years=0.>( This part should be ignored, it's highly speculative at best.)

Has it been beneficial?
Yes

Has the site kept up with the ideas held forth by its members.
No

Is the sites organization and search getting easier, or harder.
Harder

Has the person whos responsibility this is been informed
Yes, on multiple occasions.

Have any changes been made in that regard
No

Evolution is what it is. I personally breath a sigh of relief every time I search for something and manage, after several "server" related time outs to find it. I look at this repository as tenuous AT BEST and rapidly failing to ever larger degrees.

"Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, or webmaster and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log."

Look familiar? THIS doesn't fix itself, the site owner shows nothing but lip service to righting it, this site is dded up...time to grow. Let's not be normalcy impaired, right? I don't expect everyone to agree, I can't even get 3 people to agree on anything when I'm PAYING them ffs.


As Wee Man once said "This sh*ts muffed UP". Let's give credit where credits due, fix it, and move along. It doesn't mean anything but that.

[MontuckyMadman]

the setting up of a project in conjunction with many of the more committed users, at a time when skibuilders is seeking to revise its format and content, in conjunction with many of its committed users... was/is likely to be to the benefit or detriment of this site?

Kam has used it to extract grant money for his classes and monitors it for changes that will benefit him, i.e. materials to stock, new topics for the classes he teaches. Articles or posts contributed by him in the last 2 years=0.

.

Regardless of whether or not we agree, this is a pretty damming statement and not truly backed up by real facts.

[OAC]

Why is this debate going on in the "Aprés Ski Building" section and not in the "Site Improvement"?

[Brazen]

the setting up of a project in conjunction with many of the more committed users, at a time when skibuilders is seeking to revise its format and content, in conjunction with many of its committed users... was/is likely to be to the benefit or detriment of this site?

Kam has used it to extract grant money for his classes and monitors it for changes that will benefit him, i.e. materials to stock, new topics for the classes he teaches. Articles or posts contributed by him in the last 2 years=0.

.

Regardless of whether or not we agree, this is a pretty damming statement and not truly backed up by real facts.

So I take that part back. I'm not a journalism major. Or a journalist. Or a major. "Hey, I never said I was a role model." Natalie Portman

[strangesnowboarding]

wow two or three days offline and look what happens!

i mentioned the wiki in the other thread because the wiki is the natural transition from the "online community" (ie. forum, blog, research papers) to a cohesive grouping of ideas (that is then cited!!!). where we can continue to learn more about what we are doing.

it can not exist without a forum/discussion (either here or within the wiki pages themselves) it allows viewers to see the general content as well as dive deeper should they decide to.

my first question with this is how "public" would information be? as has been stated in various threads, we are learning new techniques here, in a way that none of the giant builders can learn. how do we insure that our good ideas stay our own and are not over-pattented like everything else in the industry? at this point i am hesitant to put up pictures of my new graphics because they become public immediately, but i really want to show them!

my other business partner is a web guru, i will start talking to him about what is needed to get a wiki together as well as possibly a private forum to discuss the "raw data" that will go into the wiki. i think that the first step as far as compiling information would be to list the most important threads (10page or 1 page) so that we can begin creating categories for the wiki articles.

at this point too we need to be able to cite information (papers, experience, book learning, secret tours of austrian plants) in order to create a linkable, factual basis for information. and distinguish that information (valid) from the projects that we are all working through for the first time (research).

i dunno, my main focus is building snowboards, not building web-pages and online presence.
however i do troll the internet for hours every day looking for information, materials, and parts. that is a necessity for learning about building. i would like to contribute back to help others in the ski/snowboard smith community.

[Head Monkey]

Hey Strange, sorry I didn’t notice your suggestion about the wiki on that other thread. I see it now, and I see we have the same suggestion.

my other business partner is a web guru, i will start talking to him about what is needed to get a wiki together

It’s trivial… well, at least it was for me with Dreamhost and their one-click installs. I setup three wikis over the course of an hour the other night just screwing around with them to learn the ropes, and tore down two of them. Technology-wise, who ever does this should use Mediawiki. Full featured, seems straightforward to setup, looks just like Wikipedia (select the “vector” skin I think it was) and also very easy to migrate articles (with history, I believe) between different Mediawiki instances… i.e., one could imagine getting started on one instance hosted somewhere random, and migrating if/when Skibuilders decides to set on up. Mediawiki also has direct integration with the licenses provided by creativecommons.org… see below for why that’s interesting…

my first question with this is how "public" would information be? as has been stated in various threads, we are learning new techniques here, in a way that none of the giant builders can learn. how do we insure that our good ideas stay our own and are not over-pattented like everything else in the industry? at this point i am hesitant to put up pictures of my new graphics because they become public immediately, but i really want to show them!

So this is an interesting topic. I’m not a lawyer, but I have participated in filing over 30 patents and to-date have ~20 awarded. The net result is that if any of us puts something out in a public forum like this (or in some future wiki) with a clear date/time stamp like all of this stuff has, then it becomes prior art. If the patent system is working properly and the examiner finds the prior art, then any attempt by someone else to patent your idea here would fail. If the system isn’t working properly (more likely, unfortunately) then such a patent would get awarded, but were you to challenge it in court your prior art would likely result in the patent being removed. Of course, that would cost you money, and even worse time. Again, I’m not a lawyer, but that’s the gist of the guidance I receive.

Your images are likely a different issue from patents… more of a copyright issue I believe. Check out the stuff at creativecommons.org… looks like most decent wikis select a license that allows people to build upon the work, but require attribution and no commercial use. I’d recommend selecting something similar for a potential wiki in our space.

[tufty]

Technically, a wiki is a really easy thing to set up. It's keeping it running that's hard.

First off, it's really hard to get people to contribute. Especially if other people can come and "contribute" all over what you just wrote.

Secondly, it's hard to keep momentum. Once you have a few articles down, people start to burn out. Articles get into disrepair. I read something a while back about the number of "ghost" wikis out there, which were started with a mass of enthusiasm, but which have withered and died. It didn't make encouraging reading.

Thirdly, it's really hard to do "how tos" as a wiki. The collaborative editing process has a tendency to break, mangle and otherwise make useless a description of a step-by-step process. There's a reason why Wikimedia don't like how-to stuff.

Fourthly, user issues. If you get past the above, you're gonna have people fighting over changes to "their" articles, you're gonna have spammers and scammers and general dded shitting on articles, people who will subtly or not so subtly vandalise articles. All that means admins. Admins need to be technically competent, "people people", and have time to spare. Admins means politics. Take a look at the political dded that is Wikipedia's MMORPG Editor/Admin situation and recoil in horror.

That's only the obvious stuff.

There's a lot that's great about the wiki model, but it's far from being a silver documentation bullet, or even a probable success.

FWIW, I think a better approach would be to invite selected people to write up their process, tool, whatever, in a blog/web page/how to format, get others to proofread/edit it, and then publish on a centralised site. Less work and heartache allround, and more chance of getting a usable result as opposed to a cock-enlargement-pill and WOW gold-farming spamfest.

[MontuckyMadman]

FWIW, I think a better approach would be to invite selected people to write up their process, tool, whatever, in a blog/web page/how to format, get others to proofread/edit it, and then publish on a centralised site. Less work and heartache allround, and more chance of getting a usable result as opposed to a cock-enlargement-pill and WOW gold-farming spamfest.

Hey tufty these are really great comments.
As far as quoted above this site should perform that function but the owners have left it abandoned and change is in order.
We should just really be able to post "how to's" in the new site in a concise format that is easily searched.