Magazines on the wiki

[Gryzor]

Hello guys,


Lately some of our members here have been uploading magazine scans to the wiki, spurred by the multi-upload facility too.


While I'm only too grateful for those effors, I can't help wondering - why?


The wiki is not an archive, and we do have a Downloads section here with lots of magazines already. So why go into all that trouble? Yes, I know you'll say some want to browse the magazines online, but I think these are very few cases and I'm really starting to worry about both the overlap with the Downloads section and the size of the project, since we're already at 43GB (if you can believe that).[nb] so, yeah, upload them to the Downloads section won't save any space of course; but, it's much more easily managed; if there's a need to, we can delete/reup stuff very easily to the forum, whereas this is impossible with the wiki).


So, please, do consider stopping all that uploading and instead moving stuff here...


Thanks,
T

[CPCLER]

Hi Gryzor

The reason for the upload of individual pages to the wiki, is the ability to use the referencing and search facilities of the WIKI (That's sort of a prime purpose)

Directly link from a game to the review of a game in the magazine. Also to see what games was reviewed in what magazines... etc.

The same for hardware devices etc.I think one of the really clever things of a wiki is the ability to create structure in uploaded material.. This is not easily achieved in an archive (which have other advantages :-) )


Regards,
CPCLER

Hello guys,


Lately some of our members here have been uploading magazine scans to the wiki, spurred by the multi-upload facility too.


While I'm only too grateful for those effors, I can't help wondering - why?


The wiki is not an archive, and we do have a Downloads section here with lots of magazines already. So why go into all that trouble? Yes, I know you'll say some want to browse the magazines online, but I think these are very few cases and I'm really starting to worry about both the overlap with the Downloads section and the size of the project, since we're already at 43GB (if you can believe that).[nb] so, yeah, upload them to the Downloads section won't save any space of course; but, it's much more easily managed; if there's a need to, we can delete/reup stuff very easily to the forum, whereas this is impossible with the wiki).


So, please, do consider stopping all that uploading and instead moving stuff here...


Thanks,
T

[Gryzor]

(heh, can't help laughing when I see your avatar )

I do see your point, but again I'm not sure it warrants a mass upload of magazine pages. For one thing, it'd be better if we had an index of all the reviews/ads/whatever, rather than simply uploading the pages. A huge job, of course, not easy. And when someone wanted to reference something, wouldn't it be very easy to just attach the image they're talking about?

The forum Downloads section also supports multiple uploads, so there'es that, too. It's just as easy. As for structure... well, there's no real structure on the wiki right now - sure, you can put the issues in order by year, but so can you here. Not a biggie.

So how's that? Or maybe I'm missing something?

[AMSDOS]

You'll have to ask the person uploading all that stuff, I'm only giving them the scans.


But of course I could just stop sending and delete the whole lot since nobody is interested in that old stuff.


What I don't understand is why the Wiki is being setup as an archive. I mean you've got books and other magazines scans which is simply inviting people to scan in what they have and upload to it. At least that's the feeling I get. 

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

How much more money is needed for the site to get 1GB of storage, so this is never an issue going forward?


(Apart from the poor sap doing the backup.)

[CPCLER]

Hi Amsdos

I love your scans on the CPCWIKI and I know quite a few others that do! ... I think it is great with all knowledge of the CPC in an ordered and structured manner. This wiki i think is much more than a plain archive.. Content is ever evolving and linked to other CPC related topics. You can get the same stuff as from and archive but in a structured way - I read the mags but in a context!

For instance lets take the article about Chase HQ - It's pretty obvious which articles is linked from Chase HQ to other articles, but also I can tell which articles link to Chase HQ. To put it simply - structure is the connections between articles ..






Same can be done with individual files...

So I would say keep files flowing in.. Unless for some technical reason space is running out :-(

Kind Regards,
CPCLER

You'll have to ask the person uploading all that stuff, I'm only giving them the scans.


But of course I could just stop sending and delete the whole lot since nobody is interested in that old stuff.


What I don't understand is why the Wiki is being setup as an archive. I mean you've got books and other magazines scans which is simply inviting people to scan in what they have and upload to it. At least that's the feeling I get. 

[Gryzor]

@Amsdos: of course not, I wouldn't 'cut the source'. As for deleting, that's the point, you *can't* delete anything in the wiki, which makes it les manageable...

@Sykobee: 1GB wouldn't do much good, the database alone is a good 200MB when compressed .

Yeah, I know you meant 1TB. The problem is not that we're running out of space (it's a 250GB system I think). The problem (apart from the poor sap doing the backup being me, and seeing it taking longer and longer just to parse the files list!) is that I like to keep things tidy. You never know, that's the principle; keep things tight... Let's take a scenario of server migration: with the wiki, I would have to copy everything at once, including the zillions of scans. If these scans were in the forum Downloads I could complete migrating and upload the files at a later date since it's much more modular.

@CPCLer: yes, once more, I see what you mean. But what percentage of mag scans are referenced to or linked in such a structured way? Very, very few I'd dare say. What's more, would it be hard to just upload the relevant, say, mag review to the game page in question? I'm trying to weigh pros and cons...

[Axelay]

While I'm only too grateful for those effors, I can't help wondering - why?

As AMSDOS suggests, I thought with the Wiki already having some mag scans and links to uncreated pages for others it seemed like an invitation to fill those gaps?  If there is a better place for them, that's fine by me, I just got the impression that's where they were wanted.

[Gryzor]

Let me take a step back here and make it absolutely clear that I don't want to scold anyone or diminish anyone's support and contributions. I'm just trying to make things a bit more efficient.


And of course, Axelay, you wouldn't know I was thinking something else (unless I talk in my sleep and my wife sends you the transcript). I'm just trying to discuss things.


If people say it's more convenient to have them mags on the wiki, and also that it gives them more exposure, so be it.


At least I hope people know and check the Downloads section before uploading anything in the wiki

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Maybe we just need a wiki plugin to link to the file archive then, so we don't get duplicated images. Each magazine can still have a wiki page, but instead of direct images we can use the plugin to link in the image (and other formats) from the downloads section.

[Gryzor]

I don't think you'd need a plugin; just link to the image file


But I'm afraid this could pose issues down the road - it makes it harder to maintain both systems...

[CPCLER]

Hi Gryzor


I agree... There has been issues with "rotten links" before!


Regards,
CPCLER

I don't think you'd need a plugin; just link to the image file


But I'm afraid this could pose issues down the road - it makes it harder to maintain both systems...

[CPCLER]

Hi Gryzor


I know, right now there might not be many pages interlinked in this way! .. But who knows about the future. There advantage of having content and contex t side by side HUGE.   Also when content is there some might create the structure!


Maybe there should be more focus on creating the structure or filling in some of the many stubs.. But again that is a community task which is hard to coordinate (or even not desireable/imposible to do so).


I also se your point.. But I am affraid there is no easy fix..


Kind Regards,
CPCLER

@Amsdos: of course not, I wouldn't 'cut the source'. As for deleting, that's the point, you *can't* delete anything in the wiki, which makes it les manageable...

@Sykobee: 1GB wouldn't do much good, the database alone is a good 200MB when compressed .

Yeah, I know you meant 1TB. The problem is not that we're running out of space (it's a 250GB system I think). The problem (apart from the poor sap doing the backup being me, and seeing it taking longer and longer just to parse the files list!) is that I like to keep things tidy. You never know, that's the principle; keep things tight... Let's take a scenario of server migration: with the wiki, I would have to copy everything at once, including the zillions of scans. If these scans were in the forum Downloads I could complete migrating and upload the files at a later date since it's much more modular.

@CPCLer: yes, once more, I see what you mean. But what percentage of mag scans are referenced to or linked in such a structured way? Very, very few I'd dare say. What's more, would it be hard to just upload the relevant, say, mag review to the game page in question? I'm trying to weigh pros and cons...

[Border_7]

I'll lob in my two cents since I'm apparently a massive culprit (all that damn hard work scanning man... to only get into trouble!  )


A couple of things...


- As others mentioned, using TAU as an example, it did seem unfinished to just have cover scans whereas other mags elsewhere were scanned in full. Hence the enticement there - scan some of these mags, share them with the world and maybe I can get rid of the ones taking up too much space.


- As for the Australian Magazines, they are hard to find these days! Very hard! So having a centralised store for them all seems logical to me. Especially since other people are making the contributions... and I wish they were already in the downloads section... that seems to be only the case for the Big time British mags - ACU, AA etc (no CWTA though   )


- Unfortunately, the scans I have etc are not a compact single PDF file... they are individual files and to be honest I don't think I'd bother making a PDF file just so I can put it in the download section. I also wouldn't even bother downloading a magazine if it wasn't in PDF as well...


- It may or may not draw people to the wiki who do the old Google search for an article/program they may be looking for or wrote and had published back in the 80's, I know I enjoy reading over them for nostalgic/reminiscing even doing some of the type-ins... so there is nothing bad really about having old magazines up there! It's the way it was!


- For ACU where some scans have been done, perhaps a direct link to each PDF download is a good idea...??


- Finally, I don't think there are too many Aussie mags left to upload... TAU is almost done. CWTA Australia has a few left... that will be it for me then. 

[AMSDOS]

@Amsdos: of course not, I wouldn't 'cut the source'. As for deleting, that's the point, you *can't* delete anything in the wiki, which makes it les manageable...

Well I'm not sure what the process is involved, though I could of swore there used to be lots of AA Scanned pages on the Wiki and now it's nearly a clean slate.


Border_7 has done a great job and we've found a lot of interesting Amstrad stuff from other magazines which people like myself didn't even know existed, which was amazing to discover.


It's still not clear what to do with the remaining magazines. Should they go to Bit-Torrent or something?

[CPCLER]

Hi Amsdos


No issues of Amstrad Action have mysteriously disapeared on  CPCWIKI. Uploaded issues (as articles) are 1,7 and 100-117 (19 almost complete issues).


It would be a shame not to make TAU and the australian editon of computing with the Amstrad complete as articles on the wiki, i think!


I agree that you and Border 7 have made a great job, and I love to read about the CPC from far away countries! :-)


Regards,
CPCLER

Well I'm not sure what the process is involved, though I could of swore there used to be lots of AA Scanned pages on the Wiki and now it's nearly a clean slate.


Border_7 has done a great job and we've found a lot of interesting Amstrad stuff from other magazines which people like myself didn't even know existed, which was amazing to discover.


It's still not clear what to do with the remaining magazines. Should they go to Bit-Torrent or something?

[Border_7]

Well, I think we're going to finish off those Aussie mags since there's only a few left now....


as for the rest of them, AA, ACU etc? Who knows. They are all available for download in the forum - so maybe they shouldn't have all their pages scanned into the wiki. BUT - The problem is, some of them have been done, so it looks incomplete. There's also no CWTA mags for download.... which is a different problem in itself. Gryzor?


I also like the idea of each magazine having some searchable metadata like CPCLer was getting at.


At some stage all of AA was online at cpc oxygen in those magazine viewers.... those magazine viewers were kinda cool. Who knows where all those scans have gone now....

[AMSDOS]

Hi Amsdos


No issues of Amstrad Action have mysteriously disapeared on  CPCWIKI. Uploaded issues (as articles) are 1,7 and 100-117 (19 almost complete issues).

Well unless I'm reading this incorrectly, this thread from 2007 is saying there's Amtix!, ACU & AA is all there, though that was before there was a big hack on the site.

It would be a shame not to make TAU and the australian editon of computing with the Amstrad complete as articles on the wiki, i think!

True.

[CPCLER]

Hi Amsdos


What was meant with the post from 2007 was that in file upload section (not actually part of the wiki framework) those files was present. I think the location has changed a lot of times since then 


Even the current Amstrad Action article contains rotten links (Links outside the wiki to sites gone or moved somewhere else) I will remove those links asap!


Amstrad Action - CPCWiki


Regards,
CPCLER

Well unless I'm reading this incorrectly, this thread from 2007 is saying there's Amtix!, ACU & AA is all there, though that was before there was a big hack on the site.


True.

[Border_7]

Discussion over?


Status quo remains then ?

[AMSDOS]

What was meant with the post from 2007 was that in file upload section (not actually part of the wiki framework) those files was present. I think the location has changed a lot of times since then 

Well I must of been messing around in the Downloads Link at the top of this forum, because there seems to be 117 Issues of AA in it.

[Border_7]

Hey Gryzor,


Any news on those CWTA mags to be added to the downloads section?

[Gryzor]

Well, here's the issue, and I think I'm going to have to insist on this, unfortunately.

I'm probably buying a second server for off-site backups. The solutions I'm considering usually max out at 50GB of space, and this is something we're approaching fast.

Consider this: we have the forum Downloads section where everything can be uploaded, if need be. The Downloads subsystem is much easier to maintain, because I can choose to ommit it from backups and just have them someplace else and reimport them, should the need arise. However, this is impossible to do with the wiki database.

Googling and attracting visitors to the wiki will not have much better results, I think, if the mags are in the downloads section instead of the wiki.

And it's different posting specific pages related to an article, rather than a whole magazine - I can accept that.

Btw, I'm going to up CwtA pretty soon, so please don't upload any more issues on the wiki! Thanks for asking and reminding me, I'll start FTPing them tonight most probably.

Again, do understand - this has become a huge, huge site. 46GB and some 260.000 files - and counting. Thank god for delta- and incremental backups, or maintaining it would already be impossible.

Thanks for your understanding,
T

[steve]

You could fit all that on a single SD card .

If you need to raise money you could offer portions of the database on SD card to be read in an HxC.

[Gryzor]

Will you be building a mediawiki parser for the CPC?