why techie sites don't cross-link their good articles ??

[BillA]

to restate:
why do (presumably) technical sites ignore the content of other such sites ?

pHaestus commented on this re his flow optimization article
I see it all the time with my stuff
and some other really good stuff gets hidden away in places like amdmb.com and hardwareanalysis.com

now I can understand about egomania and being a big-fish-in-a-small-pond
and I accept that there may not be universal support for 'my' definition of 'good'
additionally different sites have different interests
but this head-in-the sand NIH attitude is materially retarding 'our' progress

every so often I get an e-mail referring me to an article on a site I've never heard of and its a goddamned jackpot
but all too often these articles remain hidden 'till 2 years later someone says 'oh yeah, so-and-so did that ages ago'

popular selection does NOT work, look at the proliferation of stickys filled with shit links and stupid info by people that don't have a clue

and this site represents another dimension of the same problem
-> the person that designed the search function should be forced to (try to) use it
tits on a boar, and then some
there is some (but by NO means all) really good info in some threads, but as time passes it becomes totally un-recoverable

JoeK
I know you love my suggestions - but here is a serious one:
to increase the utility of your site -> put together an internal reference system
and do the same for external identified 'sources' (very subject specific, NOT general)

this is not a task for an enthusiast as vetting each reference is required; calling for both a breadth and depth of knowledge by the reviewer
- perhaps even culling extraneous protions of threads ? (is 'editing' more polite ?)

got to be a better way . . . .

[deeppow]

Hummm, I like this idea. But then I'm very new to this forum as you'll note.

I've worked in the thermal sciences for 20+ years and have to say the information age has its serious downside. Last time I looked, the time needed for available information to double was < 5 years and that involved journals and other "official" type publications. You could spend all your time staying current, much less doing real work.

The WWW must be far worse and there are few if any filters applied to most of the info being placed here (the WWW). I have no doubt that the crap far outweighs that of any value. Stepping up to this task is NOT for the faint of heart and would require significant resources!!

One might pick a particular area to gain a little understanding of how difficult it might be. Those that helped would have to do it for the love of the subject. Could make a site that is successful a resource for all those interested in the subject.

[pHaestus]

It would be a full time job to try to catalog all the useful bits of water cooling info on the web. About the best I can come up with would be "keywords" for articles that were more or less standardized at many different sites. Would that even do it though?

What exactly do you have in mind? It looks to me like this site's search works "ok" if you you put the query in quotes but horribly if you do not. Also the excerpt seems broken or at least not in english. The forum search and site seach are of course separate.

[BillA]

ahhh
did not use quotes, and it sure did not work so well
but even so, the problem remains; all citations are not the same as useful citations
but making a search function that is also a filter, . . . .

just thinking that a compendium of informative and useful stuff should be more accessible

consider the OCers topic listing
now if such were severely edited to remove fluff and outdated and simply inaccurate articles,
and a branching hierarchy more clearly defined
- it might be more useful

or consider the news forum here
sure something may get a posting along with all kinds of other foolishness, THG droppings, etc
and in time it will dissappear along with everything else
this is a loss (at least for the useful references)

on another thread a WCing component calculator was discussed
hell, lets try something much more basic, and useful
why not a list so we don't forget what has already been 'learned' ?

much of the real 'problem' is the reluctance of many to actually go to such a reference
but if it were easy to use then forceful POINTING could occur
- such pointing is not permitted on OCers, contributing greatly to its repetitious uselessness

I have recieved an e-mail:
"As far as why other sites don't cross-link, I don't think it has to do with ego so much as fear. Readers are fickle. The real reason may have to do with fear. What if the readers like the other sites better?
Mass migrations have happened before. It doesn't take too much to piss off the readers of a site or forum."

ok, but that works in both directions too - perhaps they could be attracted ?

[pHaestus]

well...

I DO think this is a good idea, but it lives and dies by the quality of the caretaker. I have actually started something like this before on a website that has since gone inactive:

http://www.voidyourwarranty.net/review/links/

Our thought was we could include the obligatory links to other sites and then try to cull the actually useful bits of information from the daily news and keep a permanent record.

If Joe would allow it, I would do the same for Procooling with the restriction to a fairly narrow range of categories. It would also require that users (that would be you guys) would have to keep submitting links to the search engine that an administrator (me) would approve.

Is this something that would be useful? If so then the next step would be to set some categories up I think.

[BillA]

please expand a bit

I don't think its links to sites (proper) that are needed (too often do I wander around trying to guess at the organization)

what is needed imNho are titles/5 word descriptions and a link to the article (or post even) of interest

WILL contribute (inc a brief description)

[pHaestus]

Ok just spoke to Joe and he also was favorable to the idea. It will take a bit of server configuring and then making the result look right on the procooling layout. As I said I will dedicate some time to doing it as long as the links pour in.

What about categories though? That would be the important thing

[pHaestus]

Yes exactly would be a search engine with an input of direct links to articles and forum posts that are USEFUL. Not necessarily just PC hardware sites either. I suspect that among us we have a pretty large bookmark list that would be nice if it were shared.

But logical layout of categories would be the first step.

[Cathar]

I really like the idea. I'm now thinking of implementation.

OC.com possibly comes closest, but it is an eclectic collection of article of mixed quality and varying degrees of (mis)-information, and is inadequately indexed.

Also, I'd vote for the articles to be hosted at the same site. All too often these "gem" articles suddenly disappear when a site goes off-air. Provide a link to them by all means, but also keep a back-up copy formatted in a manner consistent to the hosting web site.

Really though, what we're talking about is a HUGE editorial task of collecting and collating information, reading over it, ascertaining the quality bits, perhaps even culling inaccurate sections (as is often the case of good information mixed with "not-so-good" in the same article).

Indexing articles by keywords is an excellent idea. I'd love a well thought out index that linked keywords to articles, and a small search function that allowed one to type in a few keywords and in a google fashion bring up a small list of pertinent articles.

The quality of such also depends on the quality of the editor(s). I'd say it's too huge for one person to undertake, but perhaps for a group of the dedicated it may be manageable.

Another way to invite content is to browse the forums for interesting experiments, and then invite the pary to write a summary piece for the site, and have it vetted by the editors, rather than linking to a hodge-podge forum thread of mixed garbage with a few gems, or the editors could do this in their stead.

I'm guessing it's a good idea. There are some keen minded individuals being Bill, Phaestus, myv65 (Dave Smith), Les, who all just quickly would make great editorial staff.

[bikr]

The idea is definatley awesome , however alot of sites get all weirded out , and want to be all big and bad and have bragging rights and ideas get stolen and sometimes becomes a mess just my 2 cents --Josh

[pHaestus]

The issues of copyright become pretty muddled when one starts hosting local versions of sites. Perhaps though it would be acceptable to have a local copy in the event a site went into the ether in pdf format preserving the original layout and all.

I would HOPE that the effort would initially be large due to the backlog of content to add but that it would eventually become manageable. This would be the case as long as only articles that are actually good are submitted

And it would also be a big boon to o/cers.com readers; I can never find ANYTHING on that site when I go back to look for it!

[bigben2k]

It sounds like a great idea.

Of course you'll get requests for all kinds of things, some OT (?), like "how can I build my own rad?".

What's the extent of the scope of this?

Are we going to pick the articles apart? Are we going to list the incorrect info, or just give it a general rating (i.e. 5 star?)

Are we going to define some categories right here, in this thread?

What if the article isn't so much an article, as it is a thread in another forum? Could we download it and host it here?

Does it have to be anarticle per se, or can it include good reference sites? Calculators? Converters? Do we include them if one needs to register? What if it's a pay site?


Many questions...

[jaydee]

Originally posted by pHaestus


And it would also be a big boon to o/cers.com readers; I can never find ANYTHING on that site when I go back to look for it!

Isn't it amazing. I can NEVER find anything there I am looking for. I cannot figure out why it is (un)organized the way it is. Seems it could be much simpler. How they got the CPU database working, yet have such a lowtech main site is beyond me. There is a lot of good stuff there but it is usually not found or found by accident looking for something else.

[BillA]

Ben
there is NO "we"
you, I, or anyone, may propose to pHaestus
thats it
pHaestus will exercise HIS judgement
period

JD
I am a fair contributor to that site and I have had to ask JoeC for a link to stuff I've written

I heard someone was working on a reorganization

[BillA]

I'm thinking that there are 2 distinct ways of using such a resource
by searching,
but also by browsing - which will necessitate a 'tree' if the OCers jumble is to be avoided

Cooling
...Air Cooling
......Components
.........Fans
............Mfgrs data sheets
.........Hsfs
............Test results

...Thermal Interface Materials
......Materials
.........PCM mfgrs data sheets
.........Thermal grease mfgrs data sheets
.........Test results

...Watercooling
......Systems
.........Design
.........Construction
......Components
.........Pumps
............Mfgrs data sheets
.........Radiators
............Database
............Test results
.........Tubing/hose
............Test results
.........Waterblocks
............Design
............Dimensional data
............Fabrication
............Test results
......Miscellaneous
.........Coolant/additives

...Testing
......Methods and Procedures
......Equipment

(what a pain to format)

this is the barest of an outline to enable browsing
- each actual link to content could have an alt text display (mouseover) of a few words indicating a complete title or something about the content (or the keywords ??)

thoughts ? (jump in here Ben)

[pHaestus]

Bill that format is quite reasonable and not a problem to put together. Think Yahoo.com layout and you have the idea of how the script and database I have in mind would work. I would think that a proper Procooling database would also include categories for:

Extreme cooling
-Insulation
-Failsafes and other considerations
-Peltiers
---theory
---implementation
-------air-cooled
-------liquid-cooled
-Phase-change
---theory
---water chillers
---direct die
---refrigerant tables
---components

I am probably not doing the complexity of phase change justice but you get the idea.

[BillA]

pHaestus

why don't you (boy I love that word) draft a category outline with a numbering system
and people could e-mail you (or post) category additions by numbered section, subset, etc

such would also symplify the submission of links and 'stuff' to you for (potential) inclusion

man, just the collected pump and fan P-Q curve links makes this a winner

speaking of which, are you going to maintain your composite pump curve graph ?
(you guessed it, I can't find the damned thing !)

you will deserve a medal for managing this thing, it will become a beast
(implement a server back-up, eh ?)

[pHaestus]

I was looking at the distributed folding statistics and how one can generate graphs from x-y data by merely selecting columns and trying to figure out how to make that work with pumps the other day. Out of my league unfortunately.

[LegumaN]

I too think it's a great idea.

Where do we sign up ?

[pHaestus]

I sent Joe a link to the scrips and will hopefully get it all configured in the next couple of days. At that point links and assistance will be solicited

[Cova]

To put it in very simple terms - this sounds to me like a overclocking/cooling specific, moderated, Yahoo. If done right, it could quickly become my most favorite reference on the 'net.

As for categories, I wouldn't worry about defining them just yet - it should come naturally as articles are submitted, though an interface will be required for the moderator(s) to easily add/edit/remove categories on the fly. At first there may just be "Cooling", when cooling fills to the point that it becomes hard to find things (say, 20 articles), it could be split into "Air Cooling" and "Water Cooling", with the single phase-change article lingering in the "Cooling" root. As more and more articles are added, categories will be further sub-divided to maintain a good organization and reduce clutter, without having piles of nearly empty categories spread around (which IMHO can make things easily hard to find)

As for keeping local copies, besides storage of them, and bandwidth serving them, it shouldn't be too much of a legal problem so long as the original structure/formatting/credits are preserved. Google provides links to their own cache of virtually every page they index, and I've personally found cached versions of pages that are long-gone and very old. If they can do it we should be able to as well, and some searching on their site can probably turn up the legal loophole they are using to be able to do it. (at the worst, upon request by the author you can remove their page from our cache)

I wish you good luck with it, and should you ever need help I'm sure you'll be able to find lots of it here on the forums, from myself or others.

[koslov]

I think this task would be quite manageable if you used the biggest asset at your disposal: the forums! If you recruit people to start collecting links on a certain topic, then submit them to a knowledgeable editor, the task could be handled very efficiently.

We could all start by submitting our cooling bookmarks. I know I have a huge collection of categorized bookmarks, at least 50 links in my "[Computer] Hardware" folder, and 30 or so in "H2O [Cooling] Resources."

Visit www.everything2.com and check out how they catalog their user-submitted articles. Maybe the node format is something we could use here, at least in a modified form.

Ah, but then again a simple hierarchical archive would be simpler and more powerful. But I really like the idea of cross-links, maybe that could be integrated somehow.

Library science in the 21st century, lol.

[pHaestus]

This is still happening; I haven't forgotten about it

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by unregistered
thoughts ? (jump in here Ben)

Finally, I've come back to this thread!

It's missing an airtrap section, and other optional items, including those great flow monitoring options posted everywhere. It's also missing a general cooling theory section, for stuff that doesn't directly apply to watercooling, like the article on jet inpingement, for that Korean nuclear station.

pHaestus, how do you want us to submit links to you?

[pHaestus]

At the moment, I don't.

When I get Joe to get the script set up and the links database working, then there will be an option to "submit a link". This will hopefully all be relatively simple and will only require my approval. I THINK the script also will verify links so that dead pages can be pruned and alternative links to backup copies can be posted.