Repair wiki-an idea

[ScottYates]

Hey guys,

Been kicking around an idea the last several days and thought I would get you input. What do you think of starting a Defender wiki that just deals with troubleshooting, repair, and upgrade otions?

Inlight of my issues I was thinking this would reduce the time and frustration of finding the gremlins inherent in these vehicles. The wiki idea would let everyone who wanted to contribute to the available content and verify/update its accuracy.

While the tech section of this site has been helpful, I find it pretty limited in the material covered and difficult to locate applicable information.

Would this be something others might be interested in? Better ideas? Would some of you be willing to contribute content towards such a thing over time?

Flame away...

[Andrew Vick]

That's an outstanding idea. Far better than a bbs in terms of search capabilities and so on.

[Jon_Winningham]

I think this is a good idea too. I find the search option to be a great tool, but it has its limitations.



How would we moderate it and keep its accuracy though?

[ScottYates]

I am looking in to the moderation, cost, etc now. I was thinking that if it was possible, we would start by limiting it to members of D-90 source. That would insulate it a bit from random post by the ill informed or those with just a personal beef against the vehicle (some people I have heard don't like the Defenders, they must be nuts right?)

There seems to also be a lot of information in the public domain, scatter all over the internet that we could consoladate into one stop repository.

[artm]

Come on now...

1. You're going to take countless pages of info from this board and consolidate it all to another?

2. What's wrong with the search function here? Nothing.

3. "tech section of this site": sure, the tech section is the ENTIRE board! Sure, the tech section, per se, has the owners' rigs and some upgrades but the true tech info is throughout the board.

If I were to search for "overheating" on Wiki I'll get better info that already present here?!

If you want to "improve" anything why not do it and keep it on this board? Oh, right...do a Wiki because it's trendy and cool. Oooh, look, we've got a Defender thing on Wiki!

[ScottYates]

That is not at all my intension. I am not talking about taking anything from this sights outside what people wish to post on there own. Is it easier to read through 20+ pages of threads looking for answers only to find that most threads dead end with out the solution ever being posted or find all the combined experience in one page. The wiki idea allows people to edit out incorrect or inapplicable information.

[artm]

1. A problem may be people are not finalizing a thread by posting a solution.

2. Another problem is a troubleshooting question is very often too general and the solution may be very specific. So a simple topic on overheating has many "answers", all similarly valid.

3. Whos' to say one person's editing is better than another's? The whole Wiki stupidity is post what you think and then have it "corrected" by anyone.

I still say just improve what we already have here. Why waste all the time and effort just to have a "Wiki". Oh, right. I forgot...'cause it's cool man!!!

[Chaucer]

I think the Wiki is a good idea, and Art (through sarcasm) and Scott both have good points. :-)

The problem with the current BB system is the search results are a bit limitting. When you search for a word, say "filter". You get a list of threads, and each instance of the word filter is highlighted in bold red. The problem is, you have to scroll through everything to get to where that word is. Talk about a waste of time. Try searching for something in the "International HS2.8L" thread you have to manually search through 23 pages to search after you've already searched.

Are there any updates to the BB software that would improve this? Stickies don't really solve the problem either. The FAQ is out of date and almost never updated.

I like the idea and intention of the wiki, but it would have to be properly moderated to keep it clean and accurate. Who would do this? It would also take a lot of effort up front for it to be useful; to collect and consolidate the information.

[artm]

My point is that all the threads on this board are a huge database of information that you will NEVER consolidate in a Wiki. I am not referring to upgrades or substitute/actual parts but troubleshooting issues.

You're right, the search does not go to the first instance of the search item in a thread. That can be fixed by the bbs developer.

So, let's fix this minor nuisance and get on with it. Why start a new board??? It's a large effort that you'll be entangled in.

[evilfij]

How to fix D90:

1. Get frustrated
2. Put it up for sale cheap
3. Let pendy or evilfij buy it
4. evilfij or pendy fixes truck
5. evilfij or pendy drives it around for a year or two
6. buy back truck from pendy or evilfij once sorted

[Chaucer]

I say give it a shot (the wiki)...try hard and make it succeed. If it fails, oh well...another learning experience. Life goes on.

Why not use the information in the board? Not like it would be stealing someone's revenue stream or intellectual property (well may a little, but I doubt anybody would be offended). Scour the BBS and BBS archive too. Collect as much of the information as possible to be as complete as can be.

Meanwhile, let's try to get a tweak to the search function...

Make it tied to this BBS so that it is limited to board members.

[JimC]

I'm up for anything really, I'll try to make free, not for profit, effort succeed. I'm the local glutton for punishment.

[chrisvonc]

Are there any updates to the BB software that would improve this? Stickies don't really solve the problem either. The FAQ is out of date and almost never updated.
There have been about 8 major updates/new releases to this software the forum uses but I haven't applied them. The problem is 2 parts. First when I went to this version currently running here, I started working on developing a front end for the rest of the site to be pulled into one single backend base. I spent quite a number of months testing and coding the whole mess and as some people who saw the Beta site up and running, was right about to shift the site into the new format. Sadly some personal matters in my life came into play, dealt with that, then moved, dealt with that and so on.

Since then many, version changes and updates for the software has been released, making all the work i put into the original new front end worthless if I wanted to bring the software current. Some testing I did when the site moved to Charles hosting a few months ago, showed that upgrading not only broke a lot of things already in place (like the links section for one), quite a bit of coding and formating to other things currently in place, broke as well.

The FAQ is very outdated. The times when it was still being updated, the info was simply info from other sources. Updating it in that manor is no longer really viable which lead to the plan of recreating the old FAQ section by merging it with the Tech section here on the forum and breaking the tech section out into specific sub-sections layout like the old FAQ is now, but now would be live up-datable as the thread here in the this section are, no longer depending on updating misc. html pages that arent searchable in the sites main search engine.

This would also help with the searching problem not that there really is one here. Now if you want to search for something say Sparkplugs, using the advanced search engine page, already in place here on the forum, type Sparkplug and select it to search only the sub-forum you want to see results from, like the Tech section for example, you'll find a lot closer to home hits on what you might be looking for. This way you wont see classified listing with sparkplugs or non-tech post where someone was tossing sparkplugs at birds for fun. The reason you get 4000 hits on results that dont really do anything for what you are looking for is, that you need to narrow the search, same as you have to if you go to google, wiki, etc. and search. The quick search at the top will only does a complete forum search of the entire forum and will give you any thread that has Sparkplugs in it. Go to the advanced search and narrow where you want it to search and your search results will be more focused. But then again, Wiki, D-90 Source, Google etc., it doesnt matter, it applies to all search engines the more focus you make the search, the closer results you will get. But here you can select specific sections to search or exclude.

All I can say is that I havent been really able to catch up with it all. I'm trying to set time aside to start readdressing all that I wanted to do with this site and my others.

Follow-up Post:

Why not use the information in the board? Not like it would be stealing someone's revenue stream or intellectual property (well may a little, but I doubt anybody would be offended). Scour the BBS and BBS archive too. Collect as much of the information as possible to be as complete as can be.

Meanwhile, let's try to get a tweak to the search function...

Make it tied to this BBS so that it is limited to board members.
Just so its clear, the info submitted by people here in the posts is pretty much "public use at your own risk". I dont equate the 2 shirt sales a month to the submissions in the tech section so you dont have a revenue stream issue with me.

The intellectual property though would only bother me if someone start lifting the site graphics or pictures that were submitted here for something like special product sales, for example the White Dog cartoons, site header or banner graphics. But someone posted a pic of their oil change in a tech section I would say could be fair game as long as you obtained the posters permission.

But, I have to say, I dont know what all is involved with tying user accounts to a Wiki gadget. Honestly, I dont have a problem at all with someone wanting to start another resource site for the community, but personally, intergrating Wiki into this site, is not going to make my todo list. First and foremost, I am already so far behind in not only site updates, getting up to speed on the software changes, and restarting the effort to pull the rest of this mess of a website into one seamless format, its simply just not something to look at for me at the moment. Second, once I get the site software updated, not only fix the broken things I dont yet know about, but then start looking at what kind of improvements the newest software gives us.

[Chaucer]

The advanced search function definitely works and helps get specific to narrow down searches. Good point, and I have used this before.

EDIT:

Chris, my posts were in no way intended to be passive-aggressive pokes at you as an admin. I just want to make that clear. I think you do a good job. I'm just throwing out some food for thought. Thanks for the informative replies on the situation. I certainly don't expect you to be upgrading all the time, and anything custom takes an even more enormous amount of time. We all have other priorities, so do you.

[chrisvonc]

The advanced search function definitely works and helps get specific to narrow down searches. Good point, and I have used this before.
Cool.. because if it was not working like that you guys need to let me know. Sometimes a re-index of the search engine does need to be done to get it back on track.

Chris, my posts were in no way intended to be passive-aggressive pokes at you as an admin. I just want to make that clear. I think you do a good job. I'm just throwing out some food for thought. Thanks for the informative replies on the situation. I certainly don't expect you to be upgrading all the time, and anything custom takes an even more enormous amount of time. We all have other priorities, so do you.
No worries at all, I didnt take it that way in the least bit. Scott asked me a while back about the idea and again, while I support anyone wanting to provide something that helps us all out, my personal energys should be focused on getting the site back on track, and then once thats done, then can have the time to look at these other helpful tools.

And for the record, I of all people will be the first to say, havent been doing a good job. Since my separation/divorce, the site as well as Rovergirls.com have received almost zero forward movement in updates and improvements. The newer format was supposed to greatly improve my ability to update on the fly and reduce the administrative stuff I needed to do for updating and its still just kind of hanging in the middle still. So for that I apologize to all members here. As i said, I'm trying to get my game back. I love this site and no one is more disappointed than I in the stale state its been in. The only saving grace has that the forum runs so well and the members interact so well for the most part, between Mike being busy with things in his life, me in mine, you guys dont (and never really have) need to be babysat.

[artm]

Chris,

There is really nothing wrong with the site so stop worrying about it. As for lack of updates to various departments, big deal. As long as the board works and I can search I'm happy. I do not need to see the latest and greatest in owner profiles or FAQ.

I do find it a pity that people here are eager to abandon helping out on this board to start another all for the sake of being WiKi-cool...

Please!!!

I do not rely on Wikipedia for ANYTHING! If I want REAL information I go to a REAL source not one where any idiot can post info as fact.

Are you all serious to take Wikipedia as a serious site?!

[Craigd]

I must be lame. What is Wikipedia??? I finally upgraded my cell phone from analog two years ago so I am kind of slow. By the way I think this site is great.

[artm]

I upgraded from a Motorola Startac in December. Beat ya!

[chrisvonc]

Chris,

There is really nothing wrong with the site so stop worrying about it. As for lack of updates to various departments, big deal. As long as the board works and I can search I'm happy. I do not need to see the latest and greatest in owner profiles or FAQ.

I do find it a pity that people here are eager to abandon helping out on this board to start another all for the sake of being WiKi-cool...

Please!!!

I do not rely on Wikipedia for ANYTHING! If I want REAL information I go to a REAL source not one where any idiot can post info as fact.

Are you all serious to take Wikipedia as a serious site?!
Thanks for those words of support Art. In fairness, I haven't publicly asked for editors, contributors or additional moderators yet. That was going to come after everything got into place. Some people have offered privately and publicly here and there, the process is just not in place yet.

[ScottYates]

I don't think I am explaining myself well. What I was envisioning is no different than a well developed repair manual made by the members of D-90. I have purchased four so far and the troubleshooting guidance is pathetic.
I'm sorry you have such an issue with the theory behind the Wikis. Your craze as you put it exist because in a serious field this leads to information sharing (academics was by and large the first to utilize the system and where the crude design originated).
I was in no way criticizing Chris, I know the effort involved in running a community. That being said, I think a resource where in 20-30 people can moderate and add content makes is much easier than 2 or 3.
Do you honestly find the disjointed and often incomplete post on the forums and tech sections so complete as no improvement is possible. If so I acquiesce, I will not be able to facilitate a useful discussion if you have made up your mind.
Are there any constructive comments for or against? I have no issue putting some material and a site up but would others contribute? Or is this something that you feel would be unproductive?

[Rod Hayward]

I dont equate the 2 shirt sales a month to the submissions in the tech section so you dont have a revenue stream issue with me.

Well, I for one am embarrassed by my lack of support. I imagine the coffee cup on top of the fridge contains nothing but dust bunnies.

I hope there's still a couple of hats available on the old store. That thong-thing is by far the most uncomfortable underwear I've ever worn.

[chrisvonc]

I hope there's still a couple of hats available on the old store. That thong-thing is by far the most uncomfortable underwear I've ever worn.
Now that cracked me up. LOL
Sadly I only have 2 more of the original hats left and I think I'm keeping them since mine is getting pretty ragged. I'd reorder them but out of the whole lot I had of the 100 or 150 or whatever it was, I gave away about 65 - 75 % of them over the years.

[Erimus 1]

Hi Chris

If it's of any help, I am a Web Designer by trade and build CMS systems based on Joomla and other Open Source sofware for global Clients. I can offer my support totally free of charge. I recognise the high value of this site in the very short time I have been using it and would love to contribute to its continued success. CMS systems as you know are totally integrated and seamless and use MySQL to store data and drive its components and modules. I'm sure D-90 could benefit from such a system and these would be significant in terms of spreading the responsibility and burden of managing and adminstrating the site as well as updating content and the software.

This work would require some effort to achieve and although I have plenty of paid work coming my way from clients in the UK, Canada and the US, I do leave myself the luxury of being able to contribute to the odd not-for-profit project/organisation from time to time.

While your search engine does work the way it should, the split between the forum and the rest of the site is probably an area you'd like to improve most. A good CMS system will get around this problem. It is also possible to build a knowledge base with both questions as well as in-depth answers that would further meet the needs of Members.

Chris, please note I am not looking to steel your thunder as you have an excellent forum and website with some really neat tools and you manage it really well. All I would look to do is to add my expertise to help you reach your goals of taking this great site to the next level, just as you envision.

This is a genuine offer and a willingness to support you in a very worthwhile cause.

Neil

There have been about 8 major updates/new releases to this software the forum uses but I haven't applied them. The problem is 2 parts. First when I went to this version currently running here, I started working on developing a front end for the rest of the site to be pulled into one single backend base. I spent quite a number of months testing and coding the whole mess and as some people who saw the Beta site up and running, was right about to shift the site into the new format. Sadly some personal matters in my life came into play, dealt with that, then moved, dealt with that and so on.

Since then many, version changes and updates for the software has been released, making all the work i put into the original new front end worthless if I wanted to bring the software current. Some testing I did when the site moved to Charles hosting a few months ago, showed that upgrading not only broke a lot of things already in place (like the links section for one), quite a bit of coding and formating to other things currently in place, broke as well.

The FAQ is very outdated. The times when it was still being updated, the info was simply info from other sources. Updating it in that manor is no longer really viable which lead to the plan of recreating the old FAQ section by merging it with the Tech section here on the forum and breaking the tech section out into specific sub-sections layout like the old FAQ is now, but now would be live up-datable as the thread here in the this section are, no longer depending on updating misc. html pages that arent searchable in the sites main search engine.

This would also help with the searching problem not that there really is one here. Now if you want to search for something say Sparkplugs, using the advanced search engine page, already in place here on the forum, type Sparkplug and select it to search only the sub-forum you want to see results from, like the Tech section for example, you'll find a lot closer to home hits on what you might be looking for. This way you wont see classified listing with sparkplugs or non-tech post where someone was tossing sparkplugs at birds for fun. The reason you get 4000 hits on results that dont really do anything for what you are looking for is, that you need to narrow the search, same as you have to if you go to google, wiki, etc. and search. The quick search at the top will only does a complete forum search of the entire forum and will give you any thread that has Sparkplugs in it. Go to the advanced search and narrow where you want it to search and your search results will be more focused. But then again, Wiki, D-90 Source, Google etc., it doesnt matter, it applies to all search engines the more focus you make the search, the closer results you will get. But here you can select specific sections to search or exclude.

All I can say is that I havent been really able to catch up with it all. I'm trying to set time aside to start readdressing all that I wanted to do with this site and my others.

Follow-up Post:


Just so its clear, the info submitted by people here in the posts is pretty much "public use at your own risk". I dont equate the 2 shirt sales a month to the submissions in the tech section so you dont have a revenue stream issue with me.

The intellectual property though would only bother me if someone start lifting the site graphics or pictures that were submitted here for something like special product sales, for example the White Dog cartoons, site header or banner graphics. But someone posted a pic of their oil change in a tech section I would say could be fair game as long as you obtained the posters permission.

But, I have to say, I dont know what all is involved with tying user accounts to a Wiki gadget. Honestly, I dont have a problem at all with someone wanting to start another resource site for the community, but personally, intergrating Wiki into this site, is not going to make my todo list. First and foremost, I am already so far behind in not only site updates, getting up to speed on the software changes, and restarting the effort to pull the rest of this mess of a website into one seamless format, its simply just not something to look at for me at the moment. Second, once I get the site software updated, not only fix the broken things I dont yet know about, but then start looking at what kind of improvements the newest software gives us.

[rover4x4]

site still rocks i think maybe the faQ section is really the only thing thats been neglected. anyways this is the best place on the www for land Rover Defenders

[cgalpin]

I personally find wikis extemely productive and have nothing to do with bing cool. I think it's worth a shot. Worst thing is that it won't get used.

Chris, just day the word and I can add my favorite wiki (dokuwiki) to the site, integrated with the VB logins for authentication. I'll even take a stab at skinning it to match the site, but thats not really my forte.

http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki


hth
charles

[chrisvonc]

Moving this to the suggestions section if no one minds...

[cgalpin]

Chris, what are your thoughts on letting me add a wiki to the site? No work required on your part. I'll set it up to require a login (the same as the board) and we can see if it's useful or not. If not, no harm. If it is useful, I can't see how anyone who doesn't want a wiki should care - they don't have to use it.

Hit me up on AIM to discuss please.

charles

[chrisvonc]

Lets catch up tomorrow on AIM.

[Erimus 1]

Chris, did you read my post?

[chrisvonc]

Hi Neil.. I just did. Let me touch base with you this weekend.

Thanks

[Erimus 1]

Hi Chris

Sounds like a plan!

Regards,

Neil

[Gkase]

sounds like something may be happening behind the scenes...I think it'll be a positive experiment...looking forward to it.

[Erimus 1]

There seems to be four choices to ponder here Chris:

1. ScottYates - Separate Wiki which can be 'wrapped' - seeks to resolve gaps in existing FAQ section.
2. cgalpin - VB integrateable 'unskinned' Wiki - seeks to resolve gaps in existing FAQ section.
3. Erimus 1 - full CMS system with knowledge base - not only seeks to resolve gaps in existing FAQ section, but would provide a massively improved fully integrated site with ability to ease management and maintenance of website on an ongoing basis.
4. Leave as is.

The window of opportunity is about to close in terms of my offer of donating my time and expertise totally free of charge so feedback would be very much appreciated. A new voluntary project is winging its way to me as I write, so I have to prioritise between the two sites in the next day or two.

Cheers,

Neil

Hi Neil.. I just did. Let me touch base with you this weekend.

Thanks

[Erimus 1]

No. 4 it is then.

[chrisvonc]

Sorry I missed your last post Neil. Yes, go with #4 for now. Reason being is a bunch has to happen here before forward movement on the Wiki stuff were to happen for full integration.

I had a long phone conversation with Charles on this subject after our last round of posts here in the thread. Surprisingly there seems to be a few add-ins now that assist in the integration and one that appeared to offer full integration of a wiki into the single backend as well as all the other stuff I would like to put into place (cms, etc). However, the first step is to being the software up to current version and allow all this to happen and then fix the stuff I know the upgrade breaks.

So, I am greatly appreciative and very much thank you for your offer to help but cant hold you up on something else you might be looking to work on. When the upgrade gets done, I would very much like to talk with you and hear your ideas if at that time you are available.

[shawnpalmer]

Wow, that is too bad guys. I was hoping to see some cool changes on the site this year. I was looking over at the Rangerovers.net forum and they have some cool things going on over there. The way the site is organized impressed me. One of our other members turned me on to it because he said the help (FAQ) section is full of knowledge.

[Erimus 1]

Suggestion: While you're upgrading the software, there's nothing stopping us putting a project team together to take the Wiki forward in preparation for the changes you plan. A lot of good groundwork can be done which will go some way towards speeding up the whole process. We know you're already very busy Chris, so with your permission the team can consist of Members who have some knowledge and/or interest in online knowledge bases/FAQ's/Wiki's. On this basis, I will be able to contribute to this, albeit in a smaller way.

Don't leave it so long in getting back to me please. :)