#Initial Comments
3 messages in this thread
Rich–
Here are some initial thoughts.
MarketPlace:
This is probably a good place to warn users about "trading" or "selling" old
versions of disks; My guess is that a lot of the advertisements are for illegal
trades.
—————————-
Looking at the message counts–they are greatly imbalanced in favor of the
general forum. Argument to rethink categories.
New Categories:
Titles – Discuss new titles, best titles, etc.
User Interfaces — What are the best features for CD-ROM Electronic
Books
Technical Advice — where people with problems go for help
Technology and Standards — Discussion of technical issues
Industry News/Announcements (name change)
For Sale or Trade — formerly Marketplace
I had already uploaded SFQL 2.3 and my CALS Journal article this past March.
But for some reason (my fault?) it is in CD-ROM Production. Again this
emphasizes that we need a "Standards" keyword in a name. Also, Peter Ciufetti
has uploaded DXS to "General" (or something like DXS–I did not download it.).
If I am going to upload a bunch of "Standards" stuff, it would be better if
there was a good section for it like above.
I am not a typical "CD-ROM" user, but I think that the Compuserve audience in
general is quite sophisticated. So I think that it would be good to try some
technical areas. I'll test the waters for some of these sections by sending
some messages on these topics–we'll see what kind of response we get.
Neil
Hi Neil — long time no see. My impression was that, apart from distributors,
most the "marketplace" black market or flea-market
or whatever its status may be, was people selling the largely useless
or unwanted titles they got in a bundle with their drive. One title
in the bundle was probably great so it's not for sale, but the rest
are used once or still in shrink wrap. Whether such re-selling is
illegal or not is beyond me, but imagine OK since it is a purchase
not old disc from a subscription (which I agree would almost be QUITE
illegal) — but these looked liked almost all non-subscription titles?
Neil:
Thanks for the critique. We are in fact preparing to make a couple of the
changes you suggest. Starting the first of July there will be a Titles section
and a new Networking section. And maybe a surprise or two if we can work it
out.
Your files are in CDROM Production because these subjects are of the greatest
interest to producers. I'll have to look for Peter's file and move it there as
well. I'd be happy to institute a Standards section if 1) we can find someone
to serve as a section leader, who has the knowledge or at least the interest to
learn about related standards and seek out documents to upload, and 2) if we
can find a body of docs that are uploadable. Note that we have a late version
of High Sierra, but 9660 is copyrighted and controlled. Most final documents
are. The CDCINC doc from SIGCAT is great and I'd love to have more. But I
don't know what kind of impact we could have without access to JPEG, MPEG, et
al. Do you know some sources? SGML Open/GCA? HyTime? Even a file with a
decent directory to help people locate the sources of such documents would be
good, but I have tried twice now over the last couple of years to assemble such
a doc with no luck.
Would you be willing to participate on a regular basis? If you are free
tonight, we have a regularly scheduled conference. Maybe I can get John Nairn
to attend as well, and we could discuss some mechanics.
Thanks again, and I lok forward to hearing from you!
Best – Rich