Great idea.  I'm not sure I'd want to see all the back-and-forth discussions we have in a format like that, but I could see it being a great summary site.  It would be quite nice to be able to synthesize knowledge about common features such as rudders and rigs from the input of all the different proa designers and fans.

  Good luck.  I look forward to seeing it grow.

        - Mike

 

Micha Niskin wrote:

 

Hi, everyone.

Sorry for cross-posting this, but I think it's relevant to both
proa_file and harryproa folks.

I have been following a number of proa groups for a few years now. I
think that we need a good set of tools where we can collect and
organize the results of these discussions. Yahoo groups are not really
up to the task in that department. So, I got the domain http://proa.me
and set up the mediawiki software on it (that's the same wiki software
that wikipedia.org uses). I hope to be able to create a comprehensive
encyclopedia of proa information, with an emphasis on engineering,
testing, and design. I think that the wikipedia format of topic page
combined with the associated discussion page, editable by all,
moderated by all, has been very successful---look at the success of
wikipedia itself---and we will all benefit from better organization.

The wiki software has a number of features that are lacking in the
forum/mailing list format:
1. Organized by topic, rather than by thread.
2. Built-in math rendering---fractions, exponents, subscripts,
Greek/Hebrew letters, square roots, sums, etc. drawn properly.
3. Can be edited and moderated by all. Anyone who wants to contribute
can, and anyone who wants to moderate or act as editor can!
4. Excellent google indexing. Google has optimized their spider
software for understanding how wikipedia works, which is a bonus for
other sites using mediawiki software.
5. Each topic page has an associated discussion page. This acts as a
forum or mailing list, where contributors can discuss that topic.
Since the discussion page is "attached" to the topic, it is very handy
and easy to find. No need to search yahoo's groups by message ID.
6. Full history for each page. No edit is permanent. If the community
wants to roll the page back to an earlier version, or if you just want
to see the progression of edits on a page, you can do that.
7. I set it up to publish all content under the Creative Commons
Attribution/Share Alike copyright. This allows anyone to use the
information as long as they attribute the creator and publish under
the same copyright. I think you can modify this, though.
8. I will be able to make the wiki database available to anyone who
wants it, so you could have a copy of the info locally for your own
researches.

I also am thinking about some kind of Q&A or frequently asked
questions type of software like http://stackexchange.com. Still
working on that though.

So what do you guys think?

Regards,
Micha