Homebrew PCBs

OK, it's pretty clear I've ruffled a few feathers here. That was honestly not
my intention...

To start with, I wanted to collect at least some of the mass of PCB 
manufacturing information into a single place. Back in 2007, I did a similar 
thing -- in that case, I installed MediaWiki on my server, set up a subdomain 
for it, and created a Wiki for homebrew PCBs. That one pretty much boiled away 
to nothing -- I don't think anyone other than me (and maybe one other person) 
ever edited it, and

> - you are "toying" with this and asking people to spend there time donating
> to it with no real guarrenty that it will stay up. On the other hand,
> http://techref.massmind.org/techref/pcbs.htm has been UP and been an
> operational wiki since 1999.

No, there isn't a 100% guarantee that it'll stay up. But I doubt there's one 
for Massmind either -- what if your datacentre is flooded out, at the same day 
lightning strikes your house, and you lose your backup CDs?

Admittedly it's not likely something like this would happen (I suspect William 
Hill might give you odds of somewhere around a few million to one) but my 
point isn't about likelihood, it's a question of "is it possible for this site 
to go down in a way that means it might never come back?"

No matter what you do, the answer is always going to be "yes, it's just very, 
very, very, *very* unlikely".

In any case, the current wiki is backed up remotely on a nightly basis. If 
something did happen to the server, recovery wouldn't be particularly 
difficult (upload the cPConfig file, tell cPanel to load it, then use rsync to 
re-upload the files).

> - you haven't solved the spam problem except by restricting access.
> http://techref.massmind.org/techref/pcbs.htm allows anyone to post (login
> required only to add new pages, or to rearrange or delete content from the
> page) and I've learned how to block the spam effectively with little
> effort. And the effort that is required, I have been supplying since 1999.

I don't expect the "only registered users can post" restriction to stop all 
spam, only the bulk of the automated "drive-by" spam attempts.

> Where is all the data that was entered into the mfgr/dist
> database you used to have on your site?

The semiconductor logos database?
I removed it because I just didn't have time to keep it up to date. In any 
case, ELNEC made a copy and have been updating it:

http://www.elnec.com/support/ic-logos/

I've still got a copy of the database somewhere around here, and I've been 
meaning to re-add it as a web-accessible database. Real life, however, keeps 
getting in the way.

> - Who out there has so little reguard for thier time that they would
> contribute to someones 'toying' around project?

Linux started out as someone's "toying around" project.

Ref: Torvalds, Linus. comp.os.minix, 1991-08-25  20:57:08 GMT, "What would you 
like to see most in minix?"

I'm not saying this wiki is the next Linux, I'm just pointing out that other 
projects started out as someone's pet...

> - If you can't use http://techref.massmind.org/techref/pcbs.htm, for god
> sake, why would you not use wikipedia? They have the spam thing solved,
> they aren't going anywhere and they aren't a toy project.

1) Wikipedia is meant as an encyclopedia. A location that houses a small 
amount of information about everything.

2) I don't get on well with the Wikipedia admin team. The bickering and 
infighting gets boring after a while.

3) Reinterpreting the question as "why not use MediaWiki?" (MW is the software 
that runs Wikipedia) -- it's too complex. While that complexity is needed (for 
sites like Wikipedia), I can't see any reason why that power and complexity is 
needed for a small wiki that's meant as a companion to a Yahoo mailing list...

> Again, I like you, I like your site, I love your published projects, but
> you DID ask for criticisms.

Maybe I should have said "Comments and constructive criticism welcome"... :)

I have responded to the other criticisms -- the page history feature is now 
enabled. To revert a page, click "History" (next to the edit button), then 
click the little "R" next to the revision you want to revert to.

Thanks,
-- 
Phil.
ygroups@...
http://www.philpem.me.uk/