Hang on there, Mike. I'm
not going to integrate anything into the Pagoda113 site format. Dorian has taken that site off line. He's provided all of the material of that site to me (so both the message database and all the photographs and attachments).
I am
not going to replicate all of the messages and insert them into our forum. That would actually jeopardise the structural integrity of our current system. The transfer of the old Snitz forums into this new system was a one-shot affair, for which I had to write many, many programs, and performed many, many test runs. The problem you see, is not to just take across topics, and replies, and ensure that they all get transferred intact. No, that is in fact the easy bit. The most difficult bit is making sure that internal links, and references contained
within the message text remain intact: This is where someone inserts a link to a completely different topic in their message. These messages are identified by topic and reply number. You wouldn't believe how many of those links there are... in 64000 messages I converted there were thousands of these.
That is why it was a one-shot affair, and why the system needed to be off-line whilst I did this. And it is the reason the transfer took over 6 months of preparation, just so that it could be done correctly just once.
Now if I were to do something like that with the Pagoda113 content, I'd have to spend another 6 months doing that sort of painstaking work. And no, the 6 months is not full-time, but I reckon I have a good 400 manhours invested in it.
So what I discussed with Dorian off-line is what I'll do:
- I'm writing database queries to make single, correct text page per topic.... so the original question, the responses in order, with usernames and date times inserted. These will be formatted in a very simple manner (with Technical Manual Wiki Markup, see http://www.sl113.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=PmWiki.BasicEditing).
- I'll filter references to attachments and downloads so that they can be linked from the Technical Manual
- I'll end up with a stack of files as large as the number of topics that were on the PagodaSL113 site... from these I'll just keep the interesting technical articles, How-To's etc. Stuff on events, chit-chat and all that other "noise" that is essential for a forum and a community, but not relevant for the Technical Manual, will be deleted.
- Then with each of these pages I will add them manually into the correct place in the Technical Manual. And then hopefully other people jump in (see this page: http://www.sl113.org/index.php/FAQ/items/how-can-i-help.html) to help edit these threads into real Technical Manual material.
- This process is analogous to how I used the old archive of Yahoo content to form the basis of the Technical Manual. By the time I'm done, you'll see references to Yahoo content and Pagoda113 content in places in the manual. By the time the manual is done (if ever), it will be a complete and conclusive manual on our cars.... And yes, the small but merry band of people who work on this do need more help.
Peter
