SV: SV: [sdiy] A book about analogue synthesizer circuits?

[Scott Gravenhorst]

My $0.02...

There is no doubt that we have a wealth of experience and information in this
group of fine people.  The idea of a either a book, or an "electronotes" like
collection of articles is excellent in principle, but there are practicality
problems.  IMHO, what is needed more than deciding on a format or what to put
in it is a place to put it.  I have personally realized the convenience of
building an FAQ to answer the oft asked "Should I build a FatMan" question, but
my particular site is small and almost completely filled.

What we currently have is a searchable archive, and many many websites
dedicated to one project or topic or another.  Finding them and specific
information in them can be challenging.  And it's in a constant state of flux,
with people losing site space, or simply replacing things with other things
(due largely to space limitations), we cannot depend on any of it being where
it is or even being at all.  This is one of the several reasons I started
archiving known SDIY sites here at home.  But it has been a challenge to manage
the archive because things keep moving about.  I have to check the logs every
time I do a collection pass to see if sites have gone away and adjust the
script to reflect reality.  There are currently about 80 sites in the archive.

The bottom line is that what is needed above all is a rather significant amount
of web space that is both free and either accessible for write by members of
SDIY or there needs to be a central manager or managers to whom updates can be
emailed for updating the site.  This means that someone(s) have to actively
manage it since information that sits in a "to be done" box is useless. 
Another issue is that most all of us have "day jobs", families and other sundry
obligations that limit both the amount of time we can spend writing as well as
managing the "Repository".  Many of us already complain about the lack of time
to _do_ SDIY, let alone write about it.

I believe we've had this same discussion thread many times in the past and it
does seem to end the same way...  I would be happy enough to see even a small
site that contains a major FAQ and an _up_to_date_ list of site URLs of SDIY
members.  Even this would require management, a person who can be counted on to
update the site list and FAQ.  I believe that to be effective, the URL to this
site would have to be posted to SDIY on a regular basis both as a service to
new subscribers and as a reminder to old farts like me with memory problems.  I
would volunteer to handle a monthly (or whatever) FAQ posting, since I have
equipment here that is up and online 24x7 and I could script this up in a
jiffy, I could also manage the posted FAQ itself.  I would, however, need to be
assured that this would not annoy people since there are issues with the length
of a post.  Things that would be omni-useful would be a list of current URLs,
URL pointers to particular projects (like ASM-1) and "How to unsubscribe". 
However, not being a very good mind reader, I would need to be informed of site
URL changes that invalidates the FAQ URL list.  This way, the "table of
contents" comes in the form of a posted FAQ, and each of us can continue to
develop and manage our corners of the info-pile as we currently are doing.

I will now go back to sleep.  zzzzzzzz.

=========================================================  
- A smoking gun is one that's already been fired.
- That which gets rewarded, gets done.
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- Government: The other religion.
- The media's credibility should always be questioned.

-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
-- Linux Rex         | RedWebMail by RedStarWare
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