Hi Declan, At 2005-07-27 13:09, Declan Moriarty wrote: >Recently, Somebody Somewhere wrote these words > >A couple of things become strikingly clear from that lot. > >1. Everyone here loves the mailing list, but nobody uses it. It's gone >from 20+ messages a day to a couple per week, unless some topic gets >hold of people. Nobody has gone away - we just don't use it. Therefore, >we don't need it - we just like it.
You are one of the people asking a lot of technical questions on this mailing list (which is nice) so you should know how useful it is. When I was still working for an OEM (till 1997), I sometimes used the 6811 mailing list to ask questions, which was very useful. And I also like to use this mailing list to ask things about my WWW site and other things that I am interested in and that a small discussion among 500 users like yourselves can quickly shed some light on. Never underestimate the value of having such a response group at hand. About 20 replies on the forum-issue already... >2. A clear goal is lacking. There is no convergence of opinion as to >what Jaap is trying to achieve, and he hasn't really explained it >himself. That's because I'm not clear about it myself. But it's a fact that fora are a new medium and mailing lists an old medium and that it would be dum not to try out this new medium. >Income? - hardly. Well, fora do create a so called community and therefore people will return to the site more often. And yes, more ad-views create more income. As long as I maintain the Chipdir, I don't mind getting income from it. >Useful Service - maybe. Service to whom? There is more competition now, but in the earlier years all major companies had people visiting the Chipdir. It was nice to check the stats and see how all the fortune 500 companies visited my sites. (Probably still...) The visitors seem to consist for a large part of people repairing things, people trying to track down manufacturers (Siemens is now Infineon etc.) and students and hobbiests. We tracked all the compliments that I got for a couple of years: http://www.chipdir.org/about/complime/ >Keeping the Chipdir relevant? (i.e. not obsolete) - Possibly. Jaap? In itself it will not help keep the Chipdir data relevant. >Exactly what are the goals behind this? What is your target audience? >Did you simply roll this up one wet afternoon because you were bored, or >people were nagging? Yes, nagging and it was quite easy. And what are the goals? Do you think I had clear goals when I started the Chipdir? It was an experiment to learn HTML. We had compiled a list of about 100 chips that we used ourselves within the small company that I worked for and I decided to put it on the WWW, just as an experiment. It grew from that. Of course I soon felt that it had a lot of potential (which I and my boss/friend had discussions about), but the concerns from then (copyright of logos and copyright of company-listings and how the site could earn income) are quite different from what the main concerns turned out to be. BTW. A Unix programmer from Adobe donated his chip data and helped a lot in the beginning! The amount of help I got in the beginning was amazing anyway. >3. That forum will probably founder if there is no pretty direct link >between the experts who currently populate the list and resist the >forum(Like myself), and the potential user who would be the lifeblood of >a forum. That also relies on us instructing them with patience. Fine if >I'm being paid for it (I could use a job). But otherwise there'd be a >limit. There are only 500 people here. That is only a very small fraction of the people busy with electronics. The Chipdir sites still have about 60000 visitors per month (used to be more) or about 3 visitors per minute. >4. There has been very little mention of the competition. What other >mailing lists do people sit on? I'm on one general linux list besides >this. I would like a more active hardware list as well. Any suggestions? >What other forums do people use? I have tried to keep an overview of this over the years, but it's far from complete: http://www.chipdir.nl/ml/ - general and miscellaneous subjects http://www.chipdir.nl/ml/proc.htm - processors (Motorola!) http://www.chipdir.nl/ml/pic.htm - PIC mailing lists >The best use of the archives I have seen is when my prospective >son-in-law wanted my e-mail address, and he lives in Italy. He googled >for the expression "Declan Moriarty" and found it in the chipdir >archives. I think archives are hugely overrated and largely redundant. >Electronics is simply too varied - too many parts. There are very >interesting design discussions, enginneering standards, and >hairsplitting over engineering correctness, but otherwise they >are redundant. Who cares if I wanted data on an STK7138 chip two years >ago? The archives should be edited into FAQ's but that would require a lot of volunteers and a lot of their time. I have done it for a couple of subjects in the Chipdir, but it's a lot of work. What we could consider is setting up a Wiki (public encyclopedium) about electronics. I have studied Wikipedia for the past years. In fact I persuaded the people on the appropriate mailing list to start using wikipedia.org instead of wikipedia.com. >By contrast, Uwe's contribution to the "What is it?" debate some >time back listing links and papers to Bipolar Mode Fets a.k.a. Static >Induction Transistors a.k.a (I forget) a.k.a (I forget) was a landmark >piece of careful research that informed me about the devices I was >meeting. Coming across a SIT when you haven't ever seen/heard of them >was a mind bending experience. Yes, it's amazing how specialized some people here are on some subjects. It would be nice when people would setup sites about their subject, or edit pages about them in an electronics Wiki. I could perhaps set up a Wiki system as part of the Chipdir. What I disagree on with the Wikipedia community is that ad's are not allowed. I think that ads should be allowed and that the writers and the organizer should share the income. Wikipedia is some sort of communistic system where all the fanatical contributors of data provide the content, but the organisation will in the end own all of the copyright and may change policies later. >A forum will be rated and reccomended only if it >produces quick results for a lazy generation. Yes, using Google etc. And by the way, you may dislike your Declan offspring, but they will learn and make choices relevant to their own situation and they will take over our world later and when you're lucky they will take care of you in your old age. >And websites (Including forums) are in the >business of selling advertising. That's the bottom line. What is wrong with selling advertisements to keep the data free for the visitors? Just don't click on the ads or even use special ad-filter software and the other visitors who are 'stupid enough' to click on the ads will pay for your free access to the site and BTW. the people clicking on the ads and buying the products don't mind. They want those products. It's a win-win-win-win situation: visitors get the data for free, clients find the products they want, advertisers get clients and the site owner gets paid. Greetings, Jaap -- Author: Jaap van Ganswijk INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Hosting, San Diego, California -- http://www.fatcity.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
