What do you think - Video Tutorials?

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

The idea of a LotusElan.net is the birth of a nightmare; it will quickly become an uncontrollable circus beast with any form of honest knowledge being contaminated by here say, unfounded theories & dubiously un-qualified "facts".
I think I can safely say that I won't be interested in either contributing to or reading its contents.

Sorry if that sounds nose in the air but IMHO the Wiki will be a possibly dangerous & in any case frustrating place to be!

God bless all who sail in her

Cheers
John

[jcocking]

The idea of a LotusElan.net is the birth of a nightmare; it will quickly become an uncontrollable circus beast with any form of honest knowledge being contaminated by here say, unfounded theories & dubiously un-qualified "facts".
I think I can safely say that I won't be interested in either contributing to or reading its contents.

Sorry if that sounds nose in the air but IMHO the Wiki will be a possibly dangerous & in any case frustrating place to be!

God bless all who sail in her

Cheers
John

Wow, John. Talk about sucking the air out of the room.

As usual, John brings up a good point. This is one of reliability of the information.

Reliability of information focuses predominately in these three areas:

• Accuracy of information provided
• Susceptibility to false information
• Susceptibility to editorial bias

We dealt with the issue of reliability when the mailing list started in 1999.
We dealt with the issue of reliability when the forums started in 2005.
We will deal with the issue or reliability when the Wiki starts in 2013.

Will there be difference of opinion? Yes.
Will there be difference of facts? Yes
Will there be disputes, blow-ups, hurt feelings? Yes
Will someone pick up their toys and go home? Probably

Does this sound like life? Yes.

Welcome to living in a community.

Will it be challenging? Yes. Everything in life worth doing is challenging.

There is a line from a movie that comes to mind when typing this response. It is "get busy living or get busy dying". There will always be the potential for "uncontrollable circus beast with any form of honest knowledge being contaminated by here say, unfounded theories & dubiously un-qualified facts". I have to ask myself: Do I get busy living and jump in with both feet, or do stand on the sidelines and get busy dying?

It is a choice each of us makes everyday.

jeff

[AHM]

John,

It won't be any worse than the forum. But it will be a better way of storing and accessing the information.

You might just find it easier to use!

[Quart Meg Miles]

Jeff,

The video is good and a good potrayal of the site as we know it but would need to be slower for things people are not already familiar with. However, I realise you are just demonstrating the presentation and not putting it forward as a finished article.

Interesting that you pick-up on the voice-to-text distortions. Your English is excellent but, like all Americans, you do pronounce the name "Lotus along" in the French manner, whereas in the UK we alway say "Lotus El-lan" to rhyme with can, man and van. We already have to boot up our trunks and put bonnets on our hoods so soon we'll need alternative audio tracks too.

[billwill]

From politeness I was not going to comment on your Texan (?) pronunciation of Elan, but since others have already commented I might as well chip in.

In the UK we pronounce Elan with a short a, same as the end of the male name Alan, or the girls name Ann and a long E; to me it sounded as if you were pronouncing it as Ellon.

No real objections, it just sounds unusual to me.


This dictionary seems to think it should be a longer a , spelled out as Ey-lahn
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Elan?s=b&path=/
It has a spoken bite as well.


This one pretty much agrees with your pronunciation as an alternative.
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=e ... mit=Submit


Three more version here:
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries ... onary/elan


Heh, heh as usual, no single answer to this matter.

[AHM]

QED

[rgh0]

QED

Don't they sell engine bits????

cheers
Rohan

[alaric]

Jeff the wiki is a great addition to the site and should be a great resource. Video tutorials are a good idea, and I would enjoy trying to create videos of tasks on the car that could be put onto the wiki.

I had one comment / question / suggestion, which actually touches on the question of reliability of information etc as mentioned above. Each page of the wiki can be edited, yes, but could there be a flag to indicate that the content is considered correct / useful, and the option to switch to a last known good version. Is this possible? Maybe it could take the form of a vote system so that we don't need an owner for each page - once a page has received a few votes for being correct / useful it gets a green flag.

Sean.

[Spyder fan]

Video's and tutorials are always a good idea, I'm self taught on PC's and can find my way around most programs, I even used to write code back in the day when a monitor was someone who handed out the milk at break time, but I'm often surprised at how few people there are who really understand how to do everyday tasks such as re-sizing photo's or attaching files or even saving a word document in a different format so that people with less up to date versions can read their documents. Often on here we see messages where people say they will post up some images when they can get the hang of how to do it, so it's a very good idea to have these videos available for those who can make use of them.

On the other subject:
I love Wiki's, they are always good for a laugh. A good example is to go to the big daddy itself wikipaedia and search Lotus Elan.

Lotus Elan is the name of two convertible cars and one fixed head coup? produced by Lotus Cars. The original Type 26, 26R Racing version (of the S1 Elan), 36R Racing version (of the S2 Elan), 36 Fixed Head Coupe, 45 Drop Head Coupe, and the "Type 50" +2 Coupe, circa 1962 to 1975, are commonly known as the '60s Elans. The Type M100 from 1989 to 1995, is also commonly known as the 1990s Elan.

There must be people all over the world lusting after a Type 36R and Tim's getting all upset because Sprints are obviously not a recognised variant

I'm sure our Wiki will be a lot of fun and maybe useful at times.

[AHM]

Well at least they didnt call it the B**y elan.

Anyone a contributor to wikipedia? Please do the decent thing. (should also be 2 Coupe)

[billwill]

So why don't you register on Wikipedia and correct it, Alan. That's the whole point of a Wiki.

You don't even have to register, but it is best to do so as it gives your version greater authority.

[billwill]

Jeff the wiki is a great addition to the site and should be a great resource. Video tutorials are a good idea, and I would enjoy trying to create videos of tasks on the car that could be put onto the wiki.

I had one comment / question / suggestion, which actually touches on the question of reliability of information etc as mentioned above. Each page of the wiki can be edited, yes, but could there be a flag to indicate that the content is considered correct / useful, and the option to switch to a last known good version. Is this possible? Maybe it could take the form of a vote system so that we don't need an owner for each page - once a page has received a few votes for being correct / useful it gets a green flag.

Sean.

Sean, the way that Wikis work is that any incorrect statements irritate those people who know the correct answer/method, so they go in and edit the page to correct it. New pages can start of wildly wrong, but get corrected in due course until they settle down more or less conforming to popular knowledge.

Every page has a history page associated with it and you can view that page to see which persons made revisions and what they changed. You can even view any previous edition of a page. Any person can revert the main displayed page to an earlier edition if it is edited by someone incorrectly or to give wrong information.

There is no point in having any kind of flag that says a page is correct and by implication that a page without the flag is incorrect, because the people who were capable of assigning such a flag would be more productive simply going in and editing the page, correcting it to their opinion. Eventually no-one dissents enough to want to edit it, thus it has settled down to the correct state as determined by common knowledge.


It all sounds like chaos, but the strange thing is that it works.

Just don't trust a 'young' page; check the history file to see how many and which people have contributed to editing the page and then make your own assessment of its probable accuracy.

[billwill]

The idea of a LotusElan.net is the birth of a nightmare; it will quickly become an uncontrollable circus beast with any form of honest knowledge being contaminated by here say, unfounded theories & dubiously un-qualified "facts".
I think I can safely say that I won't be interested in either contributing to or reading its contents.

Sorry if that sounds nose in the air but IMHO the Wiki will be a possibly dangerous & in any case frustrating place to be!

God bless all who sail in her

Cheers
John

To behave as if your posting was part of a Wiki, methinks you left out a crucial word in that first sentence.

[Spyder fan]

So why don't you register on Wikipedia and correct it, Alan. That's the whole point of a Wiki.

You don't even have to register, but it is best to do so as it gives your version greater authority.

Where's the fun in doing that Bill? I much prefer the howlers that result from a worldwide bunch of know it all experts.

As stated I have been connected with computers since Pontius was taking flying lessons, I certainly know how to add to a Wiki.

I look forward to the Elan.net wiki with glee

Such fun! It will certainly liven the place up a bit, it's been getting a bit stale and stuffy recently.

[jcocking]

To wet you appetite for the wiki, here is the link to the wiki. I am still working on a few areas, so you will occasionally see errors. You will be able to see the major areas planned and my initial outlines to start creating content.

We have integrated the forums login system into the wiki. This will require you to only know one username and password. If you login, you should see a message that indicates you need additional posts to edit the wiki. This is what users below 1st gear will see. This will go away for our members who are 1st gear or higher when we go live.

jeff