The Sinclair QL Forum

Although there appears to be a lack of people wanting to run a not for profit organisation, I have put together some notes based on some of the discussion which might help people to fully understand the issues and implications, as well as some of the potential benefits that I can see....

Remember - at the moment, it looks as though the QL Wiki will cease from January 2018, as no new domain name / owner for the site has come forward. Norman is looking at the code with a view to potentially moving it onto a new Wiki engine, but there is a lot of work required, so it cannot be left up to Norman to resolve on his own!

The SinclairQL GIthub is safeguarded for now as I have added a few more administrators who can continue to maintain it (apparently even should my own GIthub subscription lapse).

The SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual online is on a site owned by Norman so is ok so long as Norman is with us - not sure what would happen in the event of something happening to him. However, bear in mind that as 99.9% of any updates are now left to Norman to do, even if access remained, it is unlikely that any further updates would be done.

I guess the same could be said of SMSQ/e, QPC2, SMSQmulator etc if something happened to Marcel !

Hi Rich,

Studied the document. Just thinking along the lines, any chance of resolving the situation by Quanta overseeing all this activities? Taking new votes at annual general meeting, allowing for cross border chair and seats?

Also how about `Sinclair Research' or `Armstrad' to step in with non-profit but possibly promotional intent, manifesting their legacy, at least they could endorse domain space?

Tomas

Quanta struggle to fill the posts it has. I also think that it would make it difficult to get the message across that the overall organisation was for all Sinclair machines, not just the QL...

The SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual online is on a site owned by Norman so is ok so long as Norman is with us - not sure what would happen in the event of something happening to him. However, bear in mind that as 99.9% of any updates are now left to Norman to do, even if access remained, it is unlikely that any further updates would be done.

FYI, the site is not owned by me. It's a site dedicated to open source documentation. For a small fee, a couple of minor ads on the home page of your docs, and making the docs public, you get free hosting space. So, if anything happens to me, my wife probably did it! Seriously, the docs will not go missing overnight, even if I get beamed up by aliens, or something similar.

I did post details a wee while back about how it is possible for anyone to update the manual, I even posted a complete (?) Set of instructions at http://updating-superbasic-manual.readt ... index.html - so far, no comments.

Don't forget, yes you do need a few bits of software, I've tested Windows 7 and Linux, Mac users can play too, but when you have it installed, you can generate all sorts of document formats, Web sites, pdf files, epubs, Word, Libre Office, LaTeX etc etc, and all from the same source file. If you do anything with documents it's incredibly useful.

Cheers,
Norm.

I use RST, it's explained in the above link, at work to generate my documentation for my current projects. The standard is Word''s *.docx format and pdf, so when I finish a document, a quick 'pandoc' or two and I have the required documentation, with TOC, links, etc. Plus, RST doesn't bugger up my formatting like Word always does if I need to delete or add a spare bulleted point!

NormanDunbar wrote: FYI, the site is not owned by me. It's a site dedicated to open source documentation. For a small fee, a couple of minor ads on the home page of your docs, and making the docs public, you get free hosting space. So, if anything happens to me, my wife probably did it! Seriously, the docs will not go missing overnight, even if I get beamed up by aliens, or something similar.

OK - but you mention a small fee - was that a one-off fee, or something that someone would have to continue paying ?

Sorry Rich, that commas hold have been a dash.

The one off fee is nothing more than to have:

* a couple of small ads occasionally added to the documentation main page,
* the docs must be publicly viewable.


No cash required.


Cheers,
Norm.

OK sso the SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual online is safe as such for now (assuming the website keeps running!)

Instead of concentrating on a specific website - people need to think more around what they would like to happen in say 10 or 20 years time - how people will find out about the Sinclair range of computers and access software, hardware and many other resources. I am sure there are several amongst us who can read between the lines in the document I uploaded, and maybe see how an actual organisation could be advantageous in securing a future.

I jokingly suggested that myself and Dilwyn should disable our websites and not answer emails / forum messages etc for a week and see how much panic set in (akin to when WorldofSpectrum was not working for a short while last year and loads of other websites were suddenly being set up even if only to have a forum to discuss what to do!). Alas, once WorldofSpectrum was back up and running, that was the end of the discussion.

RWAP wrote:I jokingly suggested that myself and Dilwyn should disable our websites and not answer emails / forum messages etc for a week and see how much panic set in (akin to when WorldofSpectrum was not working for a short while last year and loads of other websites were suddenly being set up even if only to have a forum to discuss what to do!). Alas, once WorldofSpectrum was back up and running, that was the end of the discussion.

Some form of that may actually not be a bad idea. I have to do similar things in my work to make people actually use and appreciate the community. Ill bet 90% of private messages you get would have been better suited to mailing list or forum anyway?

Hi,

Just installed `mediawiki' package on my RPI, B model (-), while
reading user docs. Currently no `domain', no `fixed ip', address may
change on daily  basis.

How to get RWAP  Wiki source, I could try `wgetting' it recursively,
with a kind permission of Rich? I think I have downloaded `sql' export
already. Hosting to come later.

Tomas

Hi,

This is just a start, after some initial setup on my RPI. I am now thinking of either:

[a] registering a domain, with my IP that is dynamic, question is how I could update DNS entries automatically.
do some free inexpensive hosting, but surely I would not have root access there, which makes administration difficult.

NOTE my ISP does not offer fixed IP.

What do you think?

Tomas