More on manuals plus rescue

[Jason Scott]

Are we going to do this here? I guess we're going to do this here.

So, the way that I found out there was any issue at all happening between
Al and myself was that a particular high spectrum colleague of mine
happened to buffer a chat box in which Al insulted me. To say that I was
floored and shocked and sad wouldn't begin to explain it. Al is a hero of
mine, a true hero, someone who impresses me with both the breadth and focus
of the work he has done over the years. Well I knew that this colleague of
mine had crossed the line in bringing what had been thought of as an
ethereal conversation to my attention, I definitely couldn't let it drop. I
wrote to Al asking what the source of his dislike or distrust of me was,
and what I could possibly do to make amends or at least reach a neutrality.
Perhaps not surprisingly, he has never written back.

Subsequently, it has apparently taken this mailing list to read and
understand what exactly the scope of the issue is.

If the core problem is that the structure of bitsavers is not being
honored, it was a simple matter of a couple of nights and a few hundred
keystrokes to bring it in order. As it is, a script is what brings new
items on to the archive. I did some basic separating by vendor, but again,
it would be trivial to do it according to whatever directory structure
would be wanted. It would also be trivial to do backlinks in every item, if
you are concerned about falling back in Google or other search engines.
This sort of problem is a speed bump in the road to progress. The fact that
I have to hear about it in detail, couched in insults, on this mailing
list, perhaps strikes to the core of the problem.

I can only imagine how many people would be disappointed to hear that
collaboration between the Computer History Museum the Internet Archive is
being held up by a misunderstanding about the mirroring of files between
two locations.

Al, for all my flaws of personality which I am more than happy to own, you
have gained a reputation of being a brilliant man with skills and passion
and a propensity to hold feuds that never end. Why do you do this? Why
waste that energy, quietly seething over things that could be fixed? I'm
not asking to be your friend, or someone you even respect. But at the least
we can work together towards the many many common goals we share.

My mailbox, phone and arms are always open, Al. Please help me to make this
disagreement right, and help me to work to achieve the same goals as you
are, even if my methods are unorthodox or strange.
On Aug 18, 2015 12:09 PM, "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:

> On 8/18/15 9:02 AM, geneb wrote:
>
> Bullshit.  His mirror has zero effect on your original site or
>> organization.
>>
>>
> Google disagrees.
>
> IA saturates the channel. Jason and IA are deliberately working to
> redirect all search
> traffic to IA from the original mirrors by constantly creating useless
> 'new' content that
> Google thinks is real.
>
> I have watched over time as the volume of Google top search hits have
> migrated to IA hosted
> content from the mirrors.
>
>
>
>
>
>