What would be the best way to archive/wiki the knowledge in the tech forum?
 

Pelican could disappear overnight, one never knows.

What is the best way to cooperatively archive the "how to" resources in this archive?

Are there tech guys here who know how to start a wiki type of repository that we can add to?

Is anyone interested in attempting to start an archival undertaking?

We aren't going anywhere, but if you're worried - grab one of the 101 books. It's an even more comprehensive guide to the DIYs that we have on the site.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/catalog/accessories/101-projects-books.htm

The 101 books are great, I've got 2 of Wayne's books, the 101 for boxsters and the engine rebuild book.

I do however think that there are various details about all sorts of technical/car/race related subjects (completely discounting the craziness from OT) that haven't made it into those books.

What about the Internet archive project?

I don't really think there's anyway to turn the data into a wiki without it being via a bunch of folks reading threads, cross-checking facts and manually entering it into a site.

Pretty much all of this including the wayback machine.

I suspect if some people attempted to undertake it the result would be like when your friend who has a massive collection of CD's or VHS or photos decides to digitize it all and gets about 15% through before he says **** this or just generally loses interest because it's tedious and unrewarding.

Someone needs a bunch of women to point at this project. I'm not trying to be funny. I've heard that women in general are much better at tedius, repetitive tasks than men. That's why they hired a bunch of young women to run the machines to create the nuclear material for the first nuclear bombs. The girls (many of them HS girls, IIRC) did a better job of keeping the machines on track than the nuclear physicists did.

start with searches using terms such as:
Grady Clay
Early_911S_man (or whatever the exact user name Warren used)
Jim Sims
etc.

- you can then copy them to a word processor and condense the relevant info

IIRC, Dr. Brakeburg already collected a lot of his info in some tables.

The 101 books, fine works though they might be, contain nowhere near the amount of detailed, quality, helpful-in-a-real-world-DIY-garage information that's to be found in the tech forums here.

Not close.

_

Glad to see others recognize that the 101 books are very limited in their value. They are closer to a coffee table book than a true DIY manual like Bentley. There is no substitute for the discourse in the threads compared to a 1 page summary with 1 photo. Not even in the same universe.

Add Roland Kunz and John Walker to that list:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/search.php?searchid=19680250

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/search.php?searchid=19680429

With access to the database creating a local export to be used as a directory of web pages on a local machine would be almost trivial. Then there is software to convert the same to be a PDF w/ index, or an EPUB or whatever other format.

As for just you or me, it would be trivial to abuse the web server and use wget or curl or similar to pull down complete copies of the forum(s) you are interested in. Depending on how the webserver is configured, there may be a copy already in the Wayback machine at archive.org

Whoops - just checked. There is a copy - https://web.archive.org/web/*/forums.pelicanparts.com Pick a day, any day and see the madness. Didn't check the tech forums, but if OT and PARF are archived....

So amend that last one to " as long as the webserver config doesn't change regarding robots.txt and such, and as long as archive.org has funds for bandwidth and disk space..."

But yes, I can understand the desire to have a "offline" copy that you are in control of....

FWIW for a long time before the 356 Registry moved into modern times with a forum they used an email listserv. A true treasure trove of info. Since I had my own webserver at the time( 2000-2001) I simply set up mail, received copies of messages, archived and then processed them making a completely searchable indexed and fully linked archive of all the messages I had access to (multiple years worth). When gmail came out, I used my first invite (remember those?) to create a 356 related email address and only subscribed it to that list... I still have the account :)

You guys are ignoring the elephant in the room.

Pelican owns the rights to all those posts.

You can't replicate it or reuse them verbatim.

You would have to manually parse each post / thread, reorganize and manually re-enter all that data in a non derivative manner.

And I can assure you, if the business failed that content would be considered a monetizable asset by the liquidators.

what makes you think that?

see TOS 1.4

Yup, TOS 1.4 spells it out, Pelican owns it.

No. That says they own the web system, not indiv. posts.

We grant them rights to the posted content.

" Any suggestions, information or feedback provided by you to Company regarding the Services or Products (including, without limitation, with respect to modifications, enhancements, improvements and other changes to the Services or Products or any ratings or reviews of the Services or Products) or materials you post or submit to the Services for review by the general public (each a “Submission” and collectively “Submissions”) is voluntary, and you hereby grant to Company a world-wide, royalty free, irrevocable, transferable, perpetual license to use (and authorize others to use) any Submission without restriction. "

A poster is the original owner and by submitting grants Pelican a perpetual use license which includes rights to authorize others to use.

If the content is derived from a post on Pelican then Pelican has rights to authorize. or by logical extension, deny the use.

If the content is posted verbatim on say Pelican and Rennlist by the same OP that's one thing.

But if it only exists on Pelican then they have the right to control if and where it gets reposted from their Service, unless you get a separate license from the OP.

they have a right "to use" and a right to "authorize others to use"

that is a few sticks shy of the full ownership bundle of sticks

Not the way I read it. Mind you I've spent 5 minutes in the Levin School of Law at UF and that was looking for a bathroom and a vending machine... but I don't see the word "exclusive". Nothing can be done about Pelican using the posts in any way they want.... but in theory anyone else would need permission from each and every poster, or from Pelican, for every single post.

That said, from what I understand this thread isn't about "hey i'm gonna make a bathroom book of the More Random Pics thread and sell it for $29.99 on Amazon" but "hey, that howto on changing the generator on the 356 when you don't have replacement woodruf keys was really helpful, I may need that some day, let me save a copy to keep". Only instead of grabbing one post/thread at a time, the op wants to grab them all.... after all you never know what you'll need in the future...

owns the rights, owns rights to, semantics

My original point is still valid.

We can't just take the content and do with it what we please, I mean we could if we did not care about the potential consequences.

End of day, someone has to give permission or it needs to be made a unique work.

....anyone else would need permission from each and every poster, or from Pelican, for every single post...

That's exactly what I said so you read it right.

OP wants to take and republish the work.

Whether he intends to profit from it or not is not relevant.

I've been involved with way too much of this type of stuff over the years.

This stuff is intentionally worded to be interpretive.

Not saying Pelican intentionally tried to obfuscate because it's fairly standard boilerplate you'll find everywhere.

One thing I've found about litigation, it rarely resolves who is right or wrong, it just determines who had the better attorney.

Example, I know that the difference between using refundable instead of recouple in a 10 page contract is worth $7 million.

You don't even wanna know.

can we assume you specialize in IP law?