new classiccmp.org service

[Jay West]

As many of you have probably seen, the ClassicCmp KnowledgeBase has been 
announced in Evan's Computer Collector Newsletter.

It is my sincere hope that this feature will be of use, not only for 
seasoned collectors but also for "newbies" just getting in to the hobby (or 
most wonderfully, maybe pushing a bystander to finally get into the hobby). 
The knowledgebase software that I chose has some great features, but it also 
has some bugs. Most notably the penchant for apostrophe's in articles to 
randomly be escaped as \'. The bugs will be worked out eventually.

Note that I have been in contact with the author of the software, and an 
email interface IS on the schedule of todo's. It will likely be along the 
lines of sending an email to a special address with a body containing "show 
articles", and a list of articles with categories gets emailed back. Then 
you could email something like "show article xxxxx" and get that article is 
emailed back to you. You could also submit articles and comments via email 
in an automated fashion. There is no timetable for the email interface, but 
I wanted to let people know that it won't be forgotten. Of course, the web 
interface is already there :)

This knowledgebase is NOT going to be a replacement for the ClassicCmp 
lists. Rather, it is meant to augment them as a repository of the somewhat 
frequent "golden nuggets of wisdom" that appear on the list in a form that 
is more usable than the archives. In addition, it is meant to keep certain 
subjects from being rehashed over and over again. When someone new brings up 
"how do I.....", we can point them to "see knowledge base article XXXX".

I want to keep the knowledge base clean (and ensure it doesnt edge into 
competing with the list) by being quite rigorous about the 
editing/moderation of submitted articles. In the moderation process I want 
to make sure that the "comment" feature does not become "conversational". 
Think of it more as a reference guide, not a novel.

It is my hope than when a wonderful tidbit of information appears on the 
list, that the person posting that will consider writing up a short article 
for the knowledge base as well. Bear in mind that articles do not need to be 
large multi-paragraph writeups (although it's great when they are). They can 
be as brief as a few sentences, or as long as many paragraphs. The topic can 
be extremely general, or very specific in focus. Feel free to comment 
(add-to) or submit new articles, even if a similar one is already there. 
Don't feel you have to be an electronics expert to submit an article. For 
example, we could use an article about storage of systems to keep mold/pests 
out. We could use an article on tips for building shelves for manuals, cable 
management, etc. And yes, we could use an article about basic switching mode 
power supply troubleshooting.

There have been past posts to the list that I would be happy to write up for 
the knowledge base, however I'm slightly leary of doing that because I think 
the person who takes the time to write up the knowledge base article should 
get credit for it (their name as the poster). But of course I don't want to 
post an article of text that someone ELSE posted to the list and "take 
credit" for it. I'd just as soon see the person who posted the info to the 
list write up the knowledgebase article. But perhaps I will post things from 
the list with both names, the article writer and the information provider as 
an alternative.

The knowledgebase feature grew out of my current task of rewriting the list 
FAQ. As I was going through it, it occured to me that the FAQ should really 
be about the list specifically, and not about classic computing in general- 
ie.. a list FAQ, not a computer FAQ. The old faq did have some good computer 
faq info, so instead of including that information in the list FAQ I created 
the knowledgebase and put that information there. Now that that is done, I 
can go back and revisit the written FAQ and make it specific to just the 
list which I feel is more appropriate.

And yes, you can expect some other new features on the ClassicCmp.org 
website soon, there's quite a few more interesting things in the way of new 
services coming up there in the not to distant future. They are currently 
being worked on and will be announced when complete! They will also be 
simultaneously announced in the Computer Collector Newsletter.

The ClassicCmp Knowledge base is currently available at 
http://www.classiccmp.org/kb but links will be added to it from the main 
page at some point soon.

Kind regards...

Jay West