[nos-bbs] To be or not to be

[Dave]

Hi Skip-  Likewise, Merry Christmas and season's best to everyone. 

For sure a Wiki is needed; I fully agree with you and I'm sure most of the
folks on this board agree too. Our hobby is not growing due to a multitude
of issues not under our control. But availability of information about our
products and solutions should not be one of those reasons.

I would like to see a matrix of all the different digital server systems,
like Airmail, RMS, Echolink, Echoserver.. etc so that one could understand
the differences before settling on a solution to a problem. After all the
reading and monitoring I'm still not sure what the differences are between
RMS, Airmail, JNOS and any other BBS system and which is a 'best case'
solution to what problem.

For one, I would like the Wiki to go on. I think, in a way, some folks
-don't- add information to the Wiki page, and others -can't- add information
to the page. I can't. Others can but maybe there's a glut of info. I see
info from 1990's and from 2005 and it goes on and on. Some places have
screen shots of outdated menu options.  A Wiki solves this issues and by
design creates the best, latest, and most accurate info.

Jolly good show, Skip. Please continue.

Dave Mynatt
/====================================/
http://sciencecenter.no-ip.org
SID ID #S-0258
APRS Tier II Server @ http://pueblo.aprs2.net:14501
10 meter CW Beacon @ 28.234.5Mhz
RMS Server: 144.950Mhz // KA0SWT-10
Echolink Server Node: 473082 @147.480Mhz Simplex KA0SWT-L
LAT: (38.15.49) 38.26349"N LON: (104.36.48)  -104.613297"W  Alt: 1460m
DM78qg // KA0SWT
/++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/
 
 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: nos-bbs-bounces at tapr.org [mailto:nos-bbs-bounces at tapr.org] On Behalf
Of George [ham] VerDuin
Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2009 19:26
To: TAPR xNOS Mailing List; MI-AMPRnet
Subject: [nos-bbs] To be or not to be

That is my question to the NOS user group in ending this year.
Greetings and happy holidays to everyone.

SO -- a few years ago I discovered JNOS2 and found it to be just what I
wanted.
Jnos has the feature set that scratches my itch very nicely.
Yes -- I have only been around for a little while in this camp.
In my process of discovery and application I discovered some things that
troubled me.
   First, to discover jnos in depth, many sources of information needed to
be uncovered -- reading "C" is not my favored approach to learning a new
application.
   Second, to tailor my installation to my needs was torture, it took
many(?) mis-steps -- in-depth example configurations are hard to find.
   Third, to hone performance required many hours of reading dumps and
computing optimal settings -- defaults are provided but not the basis for
the numbers.
All of this is just fine, no complaint from my QTH, it can be a valid part
of the ham hobby.

While tapping the resources of this group, it seemed reasonable to give
something back.
My first choice was to publish a work bringing the various source info
together into one document.
I chose the jnos1.10 doc as the basis [same as jnos2], got permission, and
began merging.
During this labor, it hit me that I was engaged in tying together a group
effort.
I also saw that the day after my work hit the streets it would be
out-of-date.
These things brought me to the wiki -- a collaborative tool used elsewhere
to give structure to a project.

With mostly clerical effort, I converted the material I was assembling into
MoinMoin WIKI format.
For a while the wiki seemed to whet some appetites, and the search engine
feature got a fair amount of use.
The feedback from the community was mixed -- positive and disinterested, not
negative.
I carried the hope that the wiki would "catch on" and folks might come to
rely on it to replace surfing.
More to the community concept, I hoped others would publish their own
success stories via the wiki.
A well used wiki contains answers as they develop and never goes
out-of-date.
It appears none of that actually happened.

Today, the wiki is sick.  A bug crept in during an automatic upgrade from
V1.6 to V1.8.  The fix escapes me.
More importantly to the question:
   -->nobody has noticed the absence of wiki since it went down.
It seems like I have successfully perfected an appendix transplant --
nice(?) but nobody can use one.

The bug is repairable.
My question to this group today is:
    Is it a waste of effort to put jnoswiki.no-ip.org back on the web?
If the NOS community is to grow, newbies (like me) might use the wiki as a
resource.
The reflector hot button of today "adjusting the content at the jnos prompt"
deserves to find it's way into wiki.
Yet the wiki is not today's research tool for users who want to attempt new
features.

Building the wiki has provided the discovery I needed.
If others expect it could be useful in the future I'll fix the bug in the
server.
It's a story for some other time, but we won't be casting off the dock lines
and sailing the seven seas, so the wiki could continue to live here IF it
gets used.

I wish everyone the best for the holidays, and a prosperous 2010.
73
Skip

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