Amigawiki.com

[Wayne]

Good morning one and all,

In the interest of transparency, and just to make everyone clear on what's going on, I was just going through my GoDaddy account this weekend clearing out and releasing about 50 domains I currently own.

Amongst those 50 domains is Amigawiki.com that I registered on behalf of Alex Whittaker about 7 years ago.  I've also been providing the hosting for the domain free of charge forever.

If you've forgotten Amigawiki.com even existed, you should really check it out.  Alex has done a phenomenal job over the years.

I hate to speak for him, but I contacted Alex directly over the weekend and he tells me that he's really just ready to let it go because of inactivity and having to constantly battle spambots and other miscreants.

The domain is set to expire on June 23rd.  

If there's any interest in keeping it going, PLEASE contact Alex directly to discuss the alternatives.  I hate to see another Amiga site disappear, but not quite enough to keep funding it out of pocket forever.

Regards,

Wayne

[klx300r]

@Wayne

thanks for letting the community know about this & hope it finds a new home soon.

fyi about wikis :
"what  makes them different from any other type of website—is collaborative  editing by the users. Think about that for a moment: the ability for the  users of a wiki to collaboratively edit it. If you can read it, you can  edit it."

[Wayne]

@klx300r

I think Alex just hit the wall with all the spambots, combined with the fact that there is a certain (small) faction in the community who aren't happy unless they're causing problems, and he just kinda lost interest.

The idea of Amigawiki is still incredibly good, valid, and even needed.  Putting it into practice using a freeware Perl program however might have been a shortcoming.

My original idea -- all those years ago -- would have been to roll it all into Amiga.org as a new section, but "the best laid plans" and all that..

I just posted this because I didn't want people to think I had let go of the domain out of spite or something...   I also didn't want someone the likes of Franko to take credit for my decision, so there is that.

Wayne

[giZmo350]

In the interest of transparency,......

 What a joke!  

If you've forgotten Amigawiki.com even existed,...

 

I just posted this because I didn't want people to think I had let go of the domain out of spite or something... I also didn't want someone the likes of Franko to take credit for my decision, so there is that.

 If most peeps have forgotten it even existed, why would you think anyone here would think Franko would take credit for your decision? Your statement doesn't even make sense.  Please, just take this flamebait somewhere else...  Those that stir the $hitpot should be made to lick the spoon!

[Wayne]

What a joke!

Not joking at all.
 

Please, just take this flamebait somewhere else... Those that stir the $hitpot should be made to lick the spoon!

Absolutely not trying to stir the pot in any way.  
 
I totally have no concept of how you might consider what I said to be either flamebait of $hitstirring.  TBH, IDGAF... The "flame" around here apparently never died, because it would appear that I can't seem to say anything without someone taking offense no matter the context.
 
I was simply pointing out the situation so that -- if anyone cared -- they might have reached out to Alex and worked something out to save the site before it goes away, so stop taking it, or making it some sort of personal thing here.

 
Wayne

[cgutjahr]

There is an excellent and constantly updated Amiga wiki at amigawiki.de, which contains such gems as high quality circuit diagramms for all Amiga motherboards.

The english section needs (quite) some work, but they'd be the one obvious recipient for the domain.

Unless this is a sales offer, of course.

[Wayne]

This is *not* a sales offer, or in any way related to money on my part.  (Just to be clear).

 Wow... 10.. (TEN!) years ago now (before I sold Amiga.org), I thought to build an Amiga-based Wiki site to complement AO... I registered the domain, then I realized that Alex was already doing exactly that.   I reached out, offered to provide him with hosting and use of the domain name, free of charge.

I just realized on Saturday that the domain name was still in my account under my name, and I hadn't talked to Alex in YEARS, so I reached out.  He is still updating the site, but doesn't want to spend the $10 to $15 per year to keep the domain name once it expires.

ALL I am asking is that if someone wants it, reach out to Alex to see about reaching some sort of agreement or understanding.  Whether or not you inherit his content or whatever is entirely between you two and not my deal.

Once you reach an agreement (and you both tell me about it), I would simply unlock the domain and the receiving party can transfer it into their own registrar account, then do with it as they will.

All I want is for the domain to be out of my name, a little hosting space cleared up, a little bandwidth freed up, and for the name to be put to good use..  I don't however want to just take the domain away from Alex without his input.  That would be a {bleepy} thing to do.

So, reach out to Alex and see what you can come up with.

Wayne

[Wayne]

I'm also not going to take any grief over this...  

I am simply trying to do the right thing here by letting everyone know what's coming.  

If I had simply let the domain die (June 23rd btw), some of you would then be up-in-arms screaming about how "that evil bastage Wayne is trying to destroy the Amiga community again!" when the opposite is actually true.  

I have zero interest in harming this community, or its users.  I simply have an Amiga-related domain name in my name that I don't want any longer and the current user of the domain is kinda just "meh..." over it.

Over the last 10 years, I've spent about $150 out of pocket just to keep the domain active, not to mention the hosting for it (negligible) but I'm not asking for anything -- not a single dime -- to help someone transfer it into their own account (thereby keeping it alive).

I'm just asking for any interested parties to reach out to Alex and work something out.

[cgutjahr]

ALL I am asking is that if someone wants it, reach out to Alex to see about reaching some sort of agreement or understanding.  Whether or not you inherit his content or whatever is entirely between you two and not my deal.

Thanks, that a nice gesture - I'll let Micha know. He contacted you via PM, apparently, but he says his English isn't all that good.

I'll see if he needs me as a translator, otherwise he can take care of the rest himself.

Could you supply Micha or me with contact details for Alex? His profile on amigawiki.com only links to his other (now dead) Amiga related website, and I can't seem to find anything on amigawiki.com.

[Wayne]

Contact info sent via PM.  I believe Micha sent me a PM, but since he used the name amigawiki.com as the subject, I can't read it.  

This is due to a bug caused by the fact that the site's software version is like 10 years out of date now.  All I see is a subject line, but when I click on it, I get taken to amigawiki.com because the software is interpreting the .com as a hyperlink, not a link to the message.  (hahaha)...

Different subject, I still would have hoped Trevor (or Bill) might have upgraded the site by now...  Wonder if it's too late to upgrade from the 3.8.4 AO runs now to the version 5.x that is current?

Wayne

[alx]

Hey everyone,

Long time no see - very pleasantly surprised to see my account's still working here

Firstly, many thanks to Wayne for hosting the domain (for free!) all these years - and for not simply removing it after the site's been inactive for so long.  Massively appreciated.

Just a bit of background for anyone interested: At the time I set up the site (close to ten years ago, probably) it seemed like there'd be a use for a wiki for the Amiga Community.  Since then, things have happened that meant the site never reached its potential:

* Firstly, Wikipedia is now a much, much better resource for Amiga-related stuff than it was when I started out - back then, it seemed like a dedicated site would be a better repository for much of the more specialist information (e.g. Wikipedia didn't even have a page for HAM until 2005).  That's all changed massively, and Wikipedia looks like a decent resource for many topics.  There's potentially still room for a site that takes the Wikipedia content as a start and goes into way more detail than Wikipedia would allow. But having a site that just acts as a worse version of the Wikipedia would be pointless (as would duplicating any existing site - if AmigaWiki.de is active, perhaps best to focus attention there rather than splitting resources?).

* Secondly, user-editable sites like wikis are just magnets for spam.  I ended up having to spend every day clearing out junk links and shock pictures.  Some of this might have been fixable with a lot more effort, however...

* We never ended up with a base of regular contributors, which are the lifebood of any wiki.

As you can probably tell from the last time I logged in here, I'm not actively involved in the community at the moment (although I still follow what's going on from time to time).  So I'm very happy to see the domain go to anyone who's able to make use of it (or, failing that, just fade away when it expires, and probably be replaced with a link farm!).

When I last looked at the site, there were a few future directions I thought that it could be taken - but I'm not sure these would work now.  One possibility would be to try to make it a central repository for all the specialised information hosted on other sites that are slowly sucumbing to link rot (i.e. try to get permission from owners of Amiga resource sites that aren't being updated to mirror the content on the wiki).  It could also probably work as an uber-detailed reference that goes beyond Wikipedia - but that would need considerable contributions from the Community.  I'd been working on translating the entire Wiki to an offline AmigaGuide file that could then be bundled with emulation environments (see http://www.amigawiki.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Amiga_Wiki_Offline_Edition).  But the content would again need huge amounts of work.

Given other commitments I'm not in a position to do anything like that myself.  But, if anyone ends up taking on the site and needs information on the ancient wiki engine etc, happy to help - just PM me.

Cheers,

Alex

[agami]

Since more than one person is interested in moving the AmigaWiki forward I just want to say I am prepared to contribute in a way that works with others.

[jj]

Good to see you posting after all this time Wayne   As you can see nothing ever changes and the site still full of the usual crap ever it what.  Not sure what gizmo350 problem is.  He might explain, but then who cares.   How you keeping ?

[klx300r]

Good to see you posting after all this time Wayne   As you can see nothing ever changes and the site still full of the usual crap ever it what.  Not sure what klx300r problem is.  He might explain, but then who cares.   How you keeping ?

hey JJ I think ya got me & Mr. gizmo confused there;)

[Wayne]

@JJ

I'm actually doing pretty well these days.  Played the "follow the money" trail when the economy collapsed in 2008 and ended up (now) in D.C. working on Intranet stuff for da gubment.  

It's funny that I ended up being a SharePoint Developer when I hate Microsoft so much, but here I am..

Don't really have much time for hobbies any more.  The most I've done recently is buy a Mac Mini, a few 27" monitors, and a 16tb RAID array for playing with video conversion.

I hover around all the old haunts (including this one) and all-too-often, I tend to be drawn in like a moth to a flame whenever flamebaite is introduced, but otherwise, I just sit and read...

Even building Web sites has gotten really stale for me.  I haven't even updated my other live sites in a few years -- which is shameful, but there ya go...

In regards to Amigawiki.com, Whatever Alx wants to do.  It's his baby...  All he needs to do is let me know when to unlock it, and to whom the domain is transferring, then we're golden.

Wayne