As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
October.

I've been quickly through the 439 pages that I could find that mention 
POV-Ray - Many only mention it in passing.
I've picked out ones that I think might be of interest and split them out 
into 3 groups; Galleries, Information/Tutorials and downloadable goodies.

Personally I only intend to look any further at the pages containing 
downloadable source to see if there's anything that can be harvested into 
the POV-Ray Object Collection.
I don't plan to do anything further with the other pages in the other lists.

I've published all 3 lists in case anyone is passionate enough about the 
other two to pursue anything there.
The lists contain hyperlinks to the pages, plus hyperlinks to English 
translations, for those pages that are not in English.
I've included a very brief note about what I saw in the very brief time that 
I spent poking around each site.


Objects and Utilities
--------------------
There are about 80 pages where there seem to be downloadable objects or 
utilities. I'll be looking at them more closely to try and work out whether 
there's stuff that can be saved. If you are the author of anything on that 
list, please let me know ASAP.  Any assistance with this effort would be 
most welcome.
See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/objects.html

Galleries
---------
I found 71 pages from about 35 different people:
See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/galleries.html
If you know these people it might be polite to make sure they're aware that 
their hard work is shortly going down the pan.


Tutorials and Tips
------------------
I found 30 pages from 10 authors
See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/wiki.html


Regareds,
Chris B

Post a reply to this message

Great work Chris .... I've made some progress in getting the links pages on 
povray.org migrated over to the Wiki. Once some of this stuff has been 
tracked down and new homes have been found, the task of refreshing the links 
page will be much eaiser! Kudos!

"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote in message 
news:4abcaa2b$1@news.povray.org...
> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
> October.
>
> I've been quickly through the 439 pages that I could find that mention 
> POV-Ray - Many only mention it in passing.
> I've picked out ones that I think might be of interest and split them out 
> into 3 groups; Galleries, Information/Tutorials and downloadable goodies.
>
> Personally I only intend to look any further at the pages containing 
> downloadable source to see if there's anything that can be harvested into 
> the POV-Ray Object Collection.
> I don't plan to do anything further with the other pages in the other 
> lists.
>
> I've published all 3 lists in case anyone is passionate enough about the 
> other two to pursue anything there.
> The lists contain hyperlinks to the pages, plus hyperlinks to English 
> translations, for those pages that are not in English.
> I've included a very brief note about what I saw in the very brief time 
> that I spent poking around each site.
>
>
> Objects and Utilities
> --------------------
> There are about 80 pages where there seem to be downloadable objects or 
> utilities. I'll be looking at them more closely to try and work out 
> whether there's stuff that can be saved. If you are the author of anything 
> on that list, please let me know ASAP.  Any assistance with this effort 
> would be most welcome.
> See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/objects.html
>
> Galleries
> ---------
> I found 71 pages from about 35 different people:
> See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/galleries.html
> If you know these people it might be polite to make sure they're aware 
> that their hard work is shortly going down the pan.
>
>
> Tutorials and Tips
> ------------------
> I found 30 pages from 10 authors
> See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/wiki.html
>
>
> Regareds,
> Chris B

Post a reply to this message

Thanks for gathering it all into links. I will go through and make a
copy of anything that is available for download. In case we get in touch
with anyone after the sites close, the source code and other stuff will
still be available.

And if it is free to redistribute under a non-CC license, I can drop it
on my personal domain for others to use.

Post a reply to this message

"Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
news:4abcde80@news.povray.org...
> Thanks for gathering it all into links. I will go through and make a
> copy of anything that is available for download. In case we get in touch
> with anyone after the sites close, the source code and other stuff will
> still be available.
>
> And if it is free to redistribute under a non-CC license, I can drop it
> on my personal domain for others to use.

It just occured to me the some of the macros that a new home can't be found, 
could exsist on the Wiki enclosed in the <pre> </pre> tags, then just use 
copy/paste to get the code. Wiki export page function wraps things in xml 
maybe that's a possibility as well. I could follow up if everyone thinks 
theres any merit.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
news:4abcde80@news.povray.org...
> Thanks for gathering it all into links. I will go through and make a
> copy of anything that is available for download. In case we get in touch
> with anyone after the sites close, the source code and other stuff will
> still be available.
>
> And if it is free to redistribute under a non-CC license, I can drop it
> on my personal domain for others to use.

That would be good. Even if I get permission to make changes and put it on 
the Object Collection, it would be good if people can still get to the 
original, in case they've any old scenes that use the old names.

If you find any that already say they can be unconditionally used and 
redistributed or that are already on a CC-LGPL license, or if you spot 
contact details hidden away in the files, let me know.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Holsenback" <jho### [at] povrayorg> wrote in message 
news:4abce175@news.povray.org...
> "Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
> news:4abcde80@news.povray.org...
>> Thanks for gathering it all into links. I will go through and make a
>> copy of anything that is available for download. In case we get in touch
>> with anyone after the sites close, the source code and other stuff will
>> still be available.
>>
>> And if it is free to redistribute under a non-CC license, I can drop it
>> on my personal domain for others to use.
>
> It just occured to me the some of the macros that a new home can't be 
> found, could exsist on the Wiki enclosed in the <pre> </pre> tags, then 
> just use copy/paste to get the code. Wiki export page function wraps 
> things in xml maybe that's a possibility as well. I could follow up if 
> everyone thinks theres any merit.
>
> Jim

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.

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote in message 
news:4abcaa2b$1@news.povray.org...
> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
> October.

Maybe a bit after the fact, as it looks like you are fairly deep into your 
investigation, but I have the source files for the links page(s). I've found 
the CSV files useful once I loaded them into a spreadsheet. I've been using 
open office on linux, but I'm sure excel on doze would suit just fine. Sorry 
I didn't think to offer this up sooner. At any rate email me and I send them 
too you if you think it might help out.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"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

I find myself agreeing with Chris on this one .... maybe the Wiki would suit 
for single files, but packages of files might prove cumbersome. As I 
mentioned earlier the built in Wiki export was designed to companion with 
the Wiki import feature. It works great on bundles of files that I've been 
moving from my test bed to the POV-Wiki but it doesn't include the images 
embedded with those files. I've had to upload those separately.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"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.

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Holsenback" <jho### [at] povrayorg> wrote in message 
news:4abdd265$1@news.povray.org...
> "Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote in message 
> news:4abcaa2b$1@news.povray.org...
>> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
>> October.
>
> Maybe a bit after the fact, as it looks like you are fairly deep into your 
> investigation, but I have the source files for the links page(s). I've 
> found the CSV files useful once I loaded them into a spreadsheet. I've 
> been using open office on linux, but I'm sure excel on doze would suit 
> just fine. Sorry I didn't think to offer this up sooner. At any rate email 
> me and I send them too you if you think it might help out.
>
> Jim

I should be able to read an Open Office spreadsheet.
Can you send it to chris.bartlett2 on the server virgin.net  (I'm assuming 
it's no more than a few hundred KB).

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> 
> "Jim Holsenback" <jho### [at] povrayorg> wrote in message
> news:4abce175@news.povray.org...
>> "Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message
>> news:4abcde80@news.povray.org...
>>> Thanks for gathering it all into links. I will go through and make a
>>> copy of anything that is available for download. In case we get in touch
>>> with anyone after the sites close, the source code and other stuff will
>>> still be available.
>>>
>>> And if it is free to redistribute under a non-CC license, I can drop it
>>> on my personal domain for others to use.
>>
>> It just occured to me the some of the macros that a new home can't be
>> found, could exsist on the Wiki enclosed in the <pre> </pre> tags,
>> then just use copy/paste to get the code. Wiki export page function
>> wraps things in xml maybe that's a possibility as well. I could follow
>> up if everyone thinks theres any merit.
>>
>> Jim
> 
> 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.
> 
> 

The university does not provide very much in the way of storage or
access. But, I have what used to be google pages for lots of storage,
and a very cheap domain with lots (near unlimited) storage. The only
downside is paying bandwidth, which for text files is negligible.

If you all find more pages that need to be backed up, please post them
or email them to me. I will get to them as fast as I can.

Post a reply to this message

If there is no E-Mail item on your list, does this mean you
did not find one on the page? I had a look at the first two
entries on your objects list (8,12?) and found an email for
both. I have a bit of time this week to go address hunting
if this would be helpful to you ;)

Although any address which has been plain readable for years
on an abondoned geocities cite is probably dead by now ...

Post a reply to this message

Jim Holsenback wrote:
> I find myself agreeing with Chris on this one .... maybe the Wiki would suit 
> for single files, but packages of files might prove cumbersome. As I 
> mentioned earlier the built in Wiki export was designed to companion with 
> the Wiki import feature. It works great on bundles of files that I've been 
> moving from my test bed to the POV-Wiki but it doesn't include the images 
> embedded with those files. I've had to upload those separately.
> 
> Jim 

At least the progress list could be moved to the wiki.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
> October.

Just a note, I already got permission and uploaded most of the stuff 
from this page to the Object Collection. Might want to double check to 
make sure I didn't miss anything.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6575/frames.html

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

SharkD wrote:
> Chris B wrote:
>> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
>> October.
> 
> Just a note, I already got permission and uploaded most of the stuff 
> from this page to the Object Collection. Might want to double check to 
> make sure I didn't miss anything.
> 
> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6575/frames.html
> 
> -Mike

Actually, I think I only uploaded the self-contained objects, not the 
whole scenes.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

"SharkD" <mik### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:4abf3d1f$1@news.povray.org...
> Jim Holsenback wrote:
>> I find myself agreeing with Chris on this one .... maybe the Wiki would 
>> suit for single files, but packages of files might prove cumbersome. As I 
>> mentioned earlier the built in Wiki export was designed to companion with 
>> the Wiki import feature. It works great on bundles of files that I've 
>> been moving from my test bed to the POV-Wiki but it doesn't include the 
>> images embedded with those files. I've had to upload those separately.
>>
>> Jim
>
> At least the progress list could be moved to the wiki.
>
> -Mike

I think that would be a good idea for the potential Wiki content 
(Tutorials/Tips etc) http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/wiki.html 
and for the Galleries links 
http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/galleries.html.
I'm not planning to update those two lists further and it would mean that 
anyone interested in pursuing that content could manage it through the Wiki, 
so please feel free to go ahead with those two any time you like.

I'm still working on updates to the Utility and Objects spreadsheet. Having 
merged the CSV links data that Jim sent me I now plan to take the list down 
to a level more detail to enable individual downloadable content and author 
permissions to be tracked.

One word of caution about email addresses. The ones I've published so far 
are direct copies from existing web pages. If we get email addresses any 
other way then we should be careful and treat them as private data so that 
the poor souls don't get spammed to hell and back.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

"Christian Froeschlin" <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote in message 
news:4abf3a7f@news.povray.org...
> If there is no E-Mail item on your list, does this mean you
> did not find one on the page?

That's right. I picked up the email address if I happened to notice it, but 
I was mainly focussed on identifying the type of content so that I could cut 
the list up into something manageable, so I've probably missed quite a few.

> I had a look at the first two
> entries on your objects list (8,12?) and found an email for
> both.

Links 8 and 12 are on the list of 'Galleries' which I'm not planning to do 
anything further with myself. Maybe someone else will step up for that list, 
or for the Tutorials/Tips list.

> I have a bit of time this week to go address hunting
> if this would be helpful to you ;)

Yes please, for the 'objects' list at 
http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/object.html, where I think I'm 
likely to want to track down about 40 authors, that would be really helpful.
You could drop me a line on the account chris.bartlett2 on the server 
virgin.net then we can coordinate a little to reduce the risk of duplication 
of effort.

> Although any address which has been plain readable for years
> on an abondoned geocities cite is probably dead by now ...

Which reminds me that we should be a little careful to only publish emails 
that are already out there (and that are therefore already spam-ridden). Any 
addresses we get that aren't already on web pages we should do what we can 
to keep a bit private.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

"SharkD" <mik### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:4abf3e02$1@news.povray.org...
> SharkD wrote:
>> Chris B wrote:
>>> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
>>> October.
>>
>> Just a note, I already got permission and uploaded most of the stuff from 
>> this page to the Object Collection. Might want to double check to make 
>> sure I didn't miss anything.
>>
>> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6575/frames.html
>>
>> -Mike

Oh yes! Shows how much my brain was on autopilot when going through those 
439 links :-)

> Actually, I think I only uploaded the self-contained objects, not the 
> whole scenes.

Did the permission you already get cover the whole site content?
If so, presumably it would cover Sabrina taking a copy?
Do you think the various complete scenes would be good additions to the OC?

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
....
> Objects and Utilities
> --------------------
> There are about 80 pages where there seem to be downloadable objects or
> utilities. I'll be looking at them more closely to try and work out whether
> there's stuff that can be saved. If you are the author of anything on that
> list, please let me know ASAP.  Any assistance with this effort would be
> most welcome.
> See: http://povhouse.freewebsites.com/geocities/objects.html
....
The entery for StephenS about Moray, plugins, fullmoon Lua_scripting_plugin, is
mine.
I'm still around, but no longer actively working on the plugins, but will still
support questions as time permits.
My work, as hosted on geocities, can be freely used/modified. If hosted
elsewhere, please add a note that it is a copy that is no longer maintained.

Stephen S

Post a reply to this message

#387 and #388 in the objects list are part of my old site,
it's fine to license the objects on them CC-LGPL and
to archive the site. (my PW was locked out in 2001)

#387 is the home page and doesn't contain objects directly
#388 is the link page, and has 4 objects/macros (targeted at
POV 3.0), I've already cleaned up rewritten and submitted
2 of them to the object collection, I'll try to get the others
up there too.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> Did the permission you already get cover the whole site content?
> If so, presumably it would cover Sabrina taking a copy?
> Do you think the various complete scenes would be good additions to the OC?

Here's the thread where the permission was given. Might want to link to 
that thread.

http://gearheadrpg.com/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum=5&topic=860&page=0#msg9644

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote in message 
news:4abcaa2b$1@news.povray.org...
> As per Mike's note; Geocities is closing all its free websites on 26th 
> October.

The source for the POV-Ray Links Collection has been posted on the Wiki:
http://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:Contents

Under the heading "Resources" notice the two POV-Ray Links Collection links 
....

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"SharkD" <mik### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:4ac016c2$1@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> Did the permission you already get cover the whole site content?
>> If so, presumably it would cover Sabrina taking a copy?
>> Do you think the various complete scenes would be good additions to the 
>> OC?
>
> Here's the thread where the permission was given. Might want to link to 
> that thread.
>
>
http://gearheadrpg.com/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum=5&topic=860&page=0#msg9644
>
> -Mike

Ok thanks. I've added that link into my spreadsheet.

The permission specifically refers to the objects, so doesn't explicitly 
cover Sabrina archiving the geocities content. Having said that, the pages 
relate exclusively to the objects, so I can't imagine he'd have an issue 
with it.
Could you contact him again to see that he's aware of the geocities closure? 
If he's already moved or is planning to move his geocities content it could 
save Sabrina some unnecessary work.

I also noticed that the permission for the objects covered GPL (CC-GPL) and 
BSD whereas the Object Collection is on the CC-LGPL (the Lesser GPL) 
license. I think this is probably ok, because I think the BSD is generally 
more liberal than the LGPL and I believe it authorises you to 'trade-up' to 
other, more restrictive licenses, though it would probably be polite to draw 
his attention to this distinction. The GPL license by contrast is stricter 
and doesn't authorise redistribution under an LGPL license.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:

> You could drop me a line on the account chris.bartlett2 on the server 
> virgin.net then we can coordinate a little to reduce the risk of 
> duplication of effort.

I sent a mail to the above account yesterday, did you receive it?

Post a reply to this message

"Christian Froeschlin" <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote in message 
news:4ac0abc8@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>
>> You could drop me a line on the account chris.bartlett2 on the server 
>> virgin.net then we can coordinate a little to reduce the risk of 
>> duplication of effort.
>
> I sent a mail to the above account yesterday, did you receive it?

I got one from your EeePC just a few minutes ago, but the timestamp shows as 
being today 28/09/2009 13:24. I didn't get anything from you yesterday. I've 
added the addresses you found into my spreadsheet. Thanks for that.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:

> I didn't get anything from you yesterday.

ok then that part got lost, possibly due to me attaching
a list instead of including it. I'll try it again now.

Post a reply to this message