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4 Nov 2024 23:17:03 EST (-0500)
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From: Chris B
Subject: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 07:31:55
Message: <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


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From: Jim Holsenback
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 10:23:55
Message: <4abcd27b@news.povray.org>
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


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From: Sabrina Kilian
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 11:15:12
Message: <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.


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From: Jim Holsenback
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 11:27:49
Message: <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


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 11:49:35
Message: <4abce68f$1@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.

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.


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 11:59:45
Message: <4abce8f1$1@news.povray.org>
"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.


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From: SharkD
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 25 Sep 2009 23:57:58
Message: <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


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From: Jim Holsenback
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 26 Sep 2009 04:35:49
Message: <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


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From: Jim Holsenback
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 26 Sep 2009 04:45:41
Message: <4abdd4b5@news.povray.org>
"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


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: Geocities Follow-up
Date: 26 Sep 2009 04:49:05
Message: <4abdd581$1@news.povray.org>
"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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