POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.advanced-users : POV-Ray help site Server Time
30 Jul 2024 00:31:54 EDT (-0400)
  POV-Ray help site (Message 1 to 10 of 10)  
From: Doug Eichenberg
Subject: POV-Ray help site
Date: 17 May 2000 20:40:53
Message: <01bfc069$5b4c7660$5b0890d8@default>
I'm considering the possibility of creating a POV-Ray help site and I want
to get some feedback.  Basically, what I have in mind is a website with the
following:

1. All the text from the newsgroups.
2. All the tutorial text that's floating around on the net.
3. All the example code floating around on the net.
4. A search function that accesses all of the above.
5. Any good ideas that other people have.

I've already talked to an ISP about hosting it, and I'd be willing to do
the work myself if enough people are interested.  Please let me know what
you think of the idea.  I'm certainly not going to waste my time if no one
is interested, so BE HONEST!  If you do like the idea, let me know what
you'd like to see on such a site.

Please don't hesitate to give me your opinions and suggestions, either here
or by e-mail.  My e-mail address is:   dou### [at] nlsnet

Thanks for your feedback.

-Doug


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From: Peter Popov
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 05:15:03
Message: <lpc7isg25v4pa3gnrsjun348lo4jtk672q@4ax.com>
On 17 May 2000 20:40:53 -0400, "Doug Eichenberg" <dou### [at] nlsnet>
wrote:

>I'm considering the possibility of creating a POV-Ray help site and I want
>to get some feedback.  Basically, what I have in mind is a website with the
>following:
>
>1. All the text from the newsgroups.

This could pose copyright problems. Also, the text in these newsgroups
is well over a hundred megabytes, where are you going to host that?

>2. All the tutorial text that's floating around on the net.
>3. All the example code floating around on the net.

With all due respect, Sir, I don't think it's a task for one man. I
might be wrong, though, as I am judging by myself :)

>4. A search function that accesses all of the above.

That should be the easiest part once you've done the rest, but the
most vital as well.

>5. Any good ideas that other people have.

Gimme a few days to think and we'll see :)


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] usanet
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg


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From: Saadat Saeed
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 07:12:05
Message: <3923CEFD.AA1D11DA@batelco.com.bh>
Well it is a difficult task but possible.

I work with Lotus Notes and Domino! The good think about Domino is that it is
pretty easy to create a web based documentation database and a pretty good one!
Discussion Databases in Domino is functionally perfect!

I think if you use something like Domino as a tool... the foundation for your
site will already be there; the next task would be to gather all the
information.

Well the difficult part is to gather all the information..... and copyright
stuff and legalities and ifs and buts!

Or you could make an independant website where users can submitt their
source-code / tutorials and it'll get automatically hosted!!! almost like this
discussion page but I'd say domino makes these things better!

BR/Saadat
"Life is a test, so do your best"


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From: Ron Parker
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 09:51:07
Message: <slrn8i7u2h.5np.ron.parker@linux.parkerr.fwi.com>
On Thu, 18 May 2000 12:14:24 +0300, Peter Popov wrote:
>This could pose copyright problems. Also, the text in these newsgroups
>is well over a hundred megabytes, where are you going to host that?

That's not including the .binaries groups, though.  Counting the size
of all the text in those groups would be a little difficult, but it's 
probably at least as much as in .general (which is about 50 megabytes.)

>>4. A search function that accesses all of the above.
>
>That should be the easiest part once you've done the rest, but the
>most vital as well.

Not necessarily the easiest.  See my post in .general.  (By the way, Doug,
could you pick just one newsgroup next time?  It's nice to have the whole
discussion in the same place.)

-- 
Ron Parker   http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.


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From: Jerry
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 11:03:38
Message: <jerry-E871A2.08033818052000@news.povray.org>
In article <lpc7isg25v4pa3gnrsjun348lo4jtk672q@4ax.com>, Peter Popov 
<pet### [at] usanet> wrote:
>On 17 May 2000 20:40:53 -0400, "Doug Eichenberg" <dou### [at] nlsnet>
>wrote:
>>1. All the text from the newsgroups.
>
>This could pose copyright problems. Also, the text in these newsgroups
>is well over a hundred megabytes, where are you going to host that?

I'd say don't host it at all, just use PHP and contact news.povray.org, 
perhaps caching the most popular requests automatically. I've 
occasionally considered doing a "best of" page of news.povray.org this 
way, but always decide that it's more fun to write basic tutorials.

I did do a CD-ROM of all newsgroup postings as of December 1998, I 
think, before going on Christmas vacation that year. It was extremely 
useful in learning POV, and a lot of fun. Very annoying getting POV to 
work in an 8 Meg Windows 3.1/640/x480 setup!

Jerry


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From: C J 
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 14:01:24
Message: <39242ff4@news.povray.org>
Doug this is the direction that I am taking my site (minus the news post).
Currently I am in the middle of a rebuild so no new tutorials have been add
and no search feature is used, simply its not needed yet. But the site
centers around tutorials that I and others have made. Although I do not
collect tutorials from other sites they can submit them.

C.J. - POV User
Site: www.crosswinds.net/~povstudy
e-mail hou### [at] yahoocom


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From: Peter Popov
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 17:33:28
Message: <nao8iso96g94sq9hg4vm09sj5mtrtgns6s@4ax.com>
On Thu, 18 May 2000 08:03:38 -0700, Jerry <jer### [at] acusdedu> wrote:

>I'd say don't host it at all, just use PHP and contact news.povray.org, 
>perhaps caching the most popular requests automatically. I've 
>occasionally considered doing a "best of" page of news.povray.org this 
>way, but always decide that it's more fun to write basic tutorials.

This could increase the povray.org traffic substantially and you know
this traffic is paid for...


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] usanet
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg


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From: Ken
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 18 May 2000 17:38:34
Message: <392461FE.747A2F9A@pacbell.net>
Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 18 May 2000 08:03:38 -0700, Jerry <jer### [at] acusdedu> wrote:
> 
> >I'd say don't host it at all, just use PHP and contact news.povray.org,
> >perhaps caching the most popular requests automatically.
> 
> This could increase the povray.org traffic substantially and you know
> this traffic is paid for...

Not to mention being in direct violation of the news server acceptable
use policy which prohibits taking a feed from this news server.

-- 
Ken Tyler - 1400+ POV-Ray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/


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From: Jerry
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 19 May 2000 12:00:11
Message: <jerry-4BAD6E.09001019052000@news.povray.org>
In article <nao8iso96g94sq9hg4vm09sj5mtrtgns6s@4ax.com>, Peter Popov 
<pet### [at] usanet> wrote:

>On Thu, 18 May 2000 08:03:38 -0700, Jerry <jer### [at] acusdedu> wrote:
>>I'd say don't host it at all, just use PHP and contact news.povray.org, 
>>perhaps caching the most popular requests automatically. I've 
>>occasionally considered doing a "best of" page of news.povray.org this 
>>way, but always decide that it's more fun to write basic tutorials.
>This could increase the povray.org traffic substantially and you know
>this traffic is paid for...

It should actually decrease traffic if they cache, which is what I 
suggested above. Also, it would decrease traffic because readers would 
no longer have to download everything to search for the good 
stuff--since his proposed site is an attempt to link to 'the good stuff' 
pre-selected. (The only way to search a newsgroup, currently, for 
something in the body is to download every file in the newsgroup. When 
you set your newsreader to search the body of messages, it is 
downloading every message that you tell it to search, whether you read 
those messages or not. There have been side remarks in these newsgroups 
to indicate that some people do search body text for information, 
multiple times.)

Ken said:
>Not to mention being in direct violation of the news server acceptable
>use policy which prohibits taking a feed from this news server.

Yes, but does this have anything to do with *how* the data gets 
transferred? The original suggestion was to download all posts and host 
them elsewhere. Are you saying that doing *that* would be acceptable to 
the policy, but linking and caching would not?

I was assuming that each case would require permission from the 
appropriate parties.

Jerry


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From: Glen Berry
Subject: Re: POV-Ray help site
Date: 23 May 2000 02:32:30
Message: <lyAqOVi3puwKYvrZb9xVUvEESakj@4ax.com>
On 17 May 2000 20:40:53 -0400, "Doug Eichenberg" <dou### [at] nlsnet>
wrote:

>I'm considering the possibility of creating a POV-Ray help site and I want
>to get some feedback.  Basically, what I have in mind is a website with the
>following:
>
>1. All the text from the newsgroups.

I believe this is nearly impossible to do with complete legality. I
wouldn't even think of trying it. Unless I'm mistaken, you would need
the permission of all the original authors as well as the POV-Team, or
whoever actually owns this news server and all its content.

>2. All the tutorial text that's floating around on the net.

This is only slightly less complicated to obtain permission for. Why
not just add nice descriptive links on your site, taking you to all
those other tutorial texts? Be sure to link to the "front door" of
each of these sites, and not directly to select files within the site
- unless you have special permission to selectively link to only
certain files.

>3. All the example code floating around on the net.

My response to this is the same as my response to #2.

>4. A search function that accesses all of the above.

This would be okay, especially if the search engine links to all those
external sites with all the aforementioned content.

>5. Any good ideas that other people have.

I suggest either creating your *own* set of tutorials, example code,
etc - or simply catalog and link to the sites that exist already. A
central index of all things POV-Related could indeed be handy, but you
don't need to actually warehouse all the content yourself. It isn't
worth all the trouble. 

You should also find a way to make your site unique, even if it is a
collection of links. Remember, Ken maintains a great collection of
links already. Personally, I wouldn't even think of starting this
project until I was satisfied I could provide something useful that
couldn't be obtained at any of the current sites.

Whatever you do, please don't place other people's comments or files
on your site without their permission.

Later,
Glen Berry

( Remove the "7" from 7no### [at] ezwvcom to email me. )


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