Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Steven M Jones]

On 08/15/2019 23:21, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> 
> I have on several occasions posted appeals to this list for people to
> contribute content to it, and gotten almost no response (with one notable
> exception), in terms of added content; that was a large part of why I merely
> mentioned it in an offhand way.

I don't want to discourage anybody from contributing to this or any 
other project. However...

Imagine if you will that many people, over many years, put a lot of work 
into pulling information together on a site with forums, and then 
distilling that information into a lot of wiki pages. Many discussions 
in the forums, with hard-won facts and interesting projects documented 
there. Things the manufacturer(s) never admitted you could do! So many 
wiki pages carefully explaining things, recording specifications, 
procedures, configurations, part numbers, substitutions. An incredibly 
useful resource and a very active community.

Then imagine that a law is passed in a far away land, and the site owner 
decides it's is too risky to bother with, and they then take the entire 
site down - wiki and fora - with no warning and no access to the material...

I'm not arguing against community collaborations at all - I guess I'm 
mostly just venting my considerable spleen. :(

But I would strongly suggest that if people are going to do something of 
the scale you describe, they might want to consider setting up a 
distribution or replication mechanism at their earliest convenience.

--S.