"SharkD" <mik### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:4abd9146@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> I reckon that a web site would be best and simplest. There might be a 
>> mixture of pov, inc and ini files, plus maybe height field graphics etc. 
>> and it's easiest to just redistribute this sort of stuff as it comes.
>> If Sabrina has one at an educational institution she can probably save 
>> zip files, inc files etc. without the limitations that most of the free 
>> web site hosts put on that sort of thing (a limitation that geocities 
>> didn't suffer from).
>>
>> Regards,
>> Chris B.
>
> I would prefer the Wiki. Otherwise, we'd just be switching to another 
> "host" that might some day fail--and this time with little or no advance 
> warning.
>
> -Mike


Well a Wiki is really designed for collaborative document editing (a sort of 
Groupware function) rather than as an object database, a file repository or 
as a multi-media web-site. I suspect that trying to use a Wiki for this 
diverse sort of content (TGA files, CSV files, Videos, POV, INC and INI 
files) would be a cumbersome/painful process. I think the best option will 
be to add searchable and downloadable content into the POV-Ray Object 
Collection. The Object Collection is on a povray.org server, the same as the 
Wiki is, so should address your concerns about the server taking a dive. 
This still requires work/pain and getting permission to distribute stuff 
under the common Object Collection license (currently CC-LGPL).

I believe Sabrina's idea was as a sort of safety net because:
  o We might not get enough people with sufficient motivation to harvest all 
the material for the OC
  o This process may overrun the 26th Oct deadline
  o People may still wish to get hold of the original files for a while 
longer to support old scene files

I thought it was a very good idea. Taking a copy onto a Web site is still 
likely to be a chunky piece of work, but IMO, being able to copy most 
content in it's original form should be far less painful than trying to 
squidge it into the Wiki. Once it's all sifted through and consolidated onto 
a single Web Server I think it should probably be quite simple to dump the 
whole directory structure and maybe zip it up, create mirrors and backups 
etc. This should avoid losing it and should avoid the need to go through the 
same process in the future (at least with this particular content).

I think the best sort of stuff to harvest for the Wiki would be tutorials 
and tips style content (which I didn't see anyone volunteer for yet).


Regards,
Chris B.

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