Re: [Nutch-general] Re: project vitality?

[Greg Boulter <gr...@hotmail.com>]

Hi,

I think that this is my first post. I follow the mailing list and read as
many of the emails as I can.

I'm going to make a few proposals.
I have obtained some money to spend on them.
I use and get paid for my nutch expertise.
I have some experience.
I don't just speak for myself but also for some people who use nutch now,
have a commercial interest in nutch and who will contribute money to the
effort.
This money is not a great deal but it could both escalate and become
ongoing.
I sympathize with the people who are (with no offense to any "side", if
there really is one) the "complainers".
I am grateful to the coders.
I can and do make code improvements to nutch for my own uses that nobody
ever sees.
I have a web interface (sort of), and many other tools that work with nutch,
from maps to communication with nutch via telephone.
I expect to gain from my association with nutch although how I can't really
put my finger on yet.
I wouldn't say that I'm frustrated - I'd describe it more as a feeling of
hope mixed with helplessness and despair.
I think the moment is almost gone.
I"m old and scatterbrained and don't spell check or reread before I post.
I will elaborate as soon as I see this on the list - but I don't like to
type until I know what I have to deal with, I have about 3000 emails a day
to sift through and I have so many email addresses I've signed up for that I
never really know whether I'm going to hit the wrong list or something or
whatever.

Greg.

RE: [Nutch-general] Re: project vitality?

[Richard Braman <rb...@bramantax.com>]

I'll take part in your forum. Just added first post.

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Boulter [mailto:gregboulter@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 6:33 PM
To: nutch-user@lucene.apache.org
Subject: Re: [Nutch-general] Re: project vitality?


Hello again.

OK - first of all I hate mailing lists. I don't consider them to be a
valid form of communication for anything but the people doing the coding
and don't really consider them of much use at all unless there is no
other alternative. Except one - and that is when there needs to be
something communicated to the people doing the work and it has to get
through - in other words I think mailing lists are a last resort.

I've been a part of a few areas of the net where what I was involved
with just took off. One of them was in 1999 when Flash 4 came out and
suddenly anyone with an ability to use Flash was hot and Flash was the
big news and I was part of a forum called "were-here.com" which was the
"adult" flash forum as opposed to the kids' "flashkit.com" site. My name
was/is Mapp and for the most part of were-here's life I was moderator of
the XML forum. I think that if anyone has or cares to read my posts
they'll see that I always try to help, my help was usually complete, I
am always polite. We had quite a ride for awhile but then the owners of
the forum for some secretive reason just took the site down leaving the
thousands of contributing posters "homeless". I still keep up with all
the XML stuff and I suppose I must be sort of an expert in XML - at
least in knowing the different formats, vxml, aiml, on and on.

I was also part of a few areas of the net where it looked like things
were going to take off and never did. One thing I noticed is that
technologies that take off have forums dedicated to them and ones that
don't take off resist going off the mailing list.

I like it how people say "take it off list" but oh where should it be
taken to please? Nobody says "take the discussion to the wiki" because
traditionally wikis aren't real discussion areas. What really should be
said is "take it to the forum" but there isn't really one is there? If
there is nobody says anything. I have the name "nutchforum.com" and am
#1 in MSN, Google and Yahoo and one person posted there one day. I know
there are other efforts too but if they have any good discussions about
relevant topics I'm unaware of them.

I agree that the people doing the coding shouldn't have to read this and
so obviously I'm proposing a nutch forum with myself for example (could
be others too) as a moderator. At least I have a history and it is
decent. Were-here.com is back up now - bought by a corporation and
maintained as a learning resource to the Flash community  but I don't
post there much and that is because I resented my hundreds if not
thousands of hours of painstakingly trying to give back to "the
community" by being complete, coherent, etc lost because whoever
happened to have the "luck" of owning the forum decided that oh well,
see you around, I'm going to work for Microsoft, or whatever. I still
resent it even if some corporation knew that they could garner enough
good will by buying the forum and restoring the posts/knowlege base.

So, what I've done is pick "Moodle" - an open source php learning
system, which has a forum and I've decided that I'll attempt to start a
useful forum and that what I'll do is every week or two make the forum
sql dump available so if I ever decide that I don't care about anyone or
I get snapped up by Google any knowlege will live on. Moodle is being
developed by teachers, the people I'd trust to do things right (except
for librarians - check out the open source library software that
librarians write for an example of a dominant open source effort). So I
assume that any forum posting will be long-lived and "free".

I've also decided to pay for posts - the surest way for a
forum/community to not get started is by there being no posting
activity. So, I arranged to get posts paid for. I'm not sure yet how
much is reasonable but I started off figuring that a few dollars for a
well thought out question and 20 -100 dollars for a reasonably
comprehensive answer might be alright. Also, I've arranged for some
hosting space for people who want to make search engines but don't have
the resources. I have a few dedicated servers and unique IP addresses
and the like for people who will share their experiences. I don't know
what is reasonable to pay but I have arranged some funding and resources
albeit with conditions.

Also there are other things that normally cost money as well as I'll
give support to people who want to use the "web interface" that I've
been working on and if somebody else has an idea that needs a little
money well right now the people that I've set up with older not so up to
date nutch search engines are becoming desperate to get the stuff I told
them would be available to them. These aren't people who want billion
page indexes spread over 10 separate beowulf clusters - they're just
people who thought they could spend a few hundred and get some
additional functionality out of open source software. That being what I
do mostly, set up and integrate open source software for people who have
reasonable goals. I'm old now and not as competitive as I once might
have been.

Anyway, I agree this discussion should go off list - if anyone cares to
go to http://www.nutchforum.com I will discuss/help/be helped there.
Thanks again to the people who work on nutch.

Greg.

Re: [Nutch-general] Re: project vitality?

[Greg Boulter <gr...@hotmail.com>]

Hello again.

OK - first of all I hate mailing lists. I don't consider them to be a valid
form of communication for anything but the people doing the coding and don't
really consider them of much use at all unless there is no other
alternative. Except one - and that is when there needs to be something
communicated to the people doing the work and it has to get through - in
other words I think mailing lists are a last resort.

I've been a part of a few areas of the net where what I was involved with
just took off. One of them was in 1999 when Flash 4 came out and suddenly
anyone with an ability to use Flash was hot and Flash was the big news and I
was part of a forum called "were-here.com" which was the "adult" flash forum
as opposed to the kids' "flashkit.com" site. My name was/is Mapp and for the
most part of were-here's life I was moderator of the XML forum. I think that
if anyone has or cares to read my posts they'll see that I always try to
help, my help was usually complete, I am always polite. We had quite a ride
for awhile but then the owners of the forum for some secretive reason just
took the site down leaving the thousands of contributing posters "homeless".
I still keep up with all the XML stuff and I suppose I must be sort of an
expert in XML - at least in knowing the different formats, vxml, aiml, on
and on.

I was also part of a few areas of the net where it looked like things were
going to take off and never did. One thing I noticed is that technologies
that take off have forums dedicated to them and ones that don't take off
resist going off the mailing list.

I like it how people say "take it off list" but oh where should it be taken
to please? Nobody says "take the discussion to the wiki" because
traditionally wikis aren't real discussion areas. What really should be said
is "take it to the forum" but there isn't really one is there? If there is
nobody says anything. I have the name "nutchforum.com" and am #1 in MSN,
Google and Yahoo and one person posted there one day. I know there are other
efforts too but if they have any good discussions about relevant topics I'm
unaware of them.

I agree that the people doing the coding shouldn't have to read this and so
obviously I'm proposing a nutch forum with myself for example (could be
others too) as a moderator. At least I have a history and it is decent.
Were-here.com is back up now - bought by a corporation and maintained as a
learning resource to the Flash community  but I don't post there much and
that is because I resented my hundreds if not thousands of hours of
painstakingly trying to give back to "the community" by being complete,
coherent, etc lost because whoever happened to have the "luck" of owning the
forum decided that oh well, see you around, I'm going to work for Microsoft,
or whatever. I still resent it even if some corporation knew that they could
garner enough good will by buying the forum and restoring the posts/knowlege
base.

So, what I've done is pick "Moodle" - an open source php learning system,
which has a forum and I've decided that I'll attempt to start a useful forum
and that what I'll do is every week or two make the forum sql dump available
so if I ever decide that I don't care about anyone or I get snapped up by
Google any knowlege will live on. Moodle is being developed by teachers, the
people I'd trust to do things right (except for librarians - check out the
open source library software that librarians write for an example of a
dominant open source effort). So I assume that any forum posting will be
long-lived and "free".

I've also decided to pay for posts - the surest way for a forum/community to
not get started is by there being no posting activity. So, I arranged to get
posts paid for. I'm not sure yet how much is reasonable but I started off
figuring that a few dollars for a well thought out question and 20 -100
dollars for a reasonably comprehensive answer might be alright. Also, I've
arranged for some hosting space for people who want to make search engines
but don't have the resources. I have a few dedicated servers and unique IP
addresses and the like for people who will share their experiences. I don't
know what is reasonable to pay but I have arranged some funding and
resources albeit with conditions.

Also there are other things that normally cost money as well as I'll give
support to people who want to use the "web interface" that I've been working
on and if somebody else has an idea that needs a little money well right now
the people that I've set up with older not so up to date nutch search
engines are becoming desperate to get the stuff I told them would be
available to them. These aren't people who want billion page indexes spread
over 10 separate beowulf clusters - they're just people who thought they
could spend a few hundred and get some additional functionality out of open
source software. That being what I do mostly, set up and integrate open
source software for people who have reasonable goals. I'm old now and not as
competitive as I once might have been.

Anyway, I agree this discussion should go off list - if anyone cares to go
to http://www.nutchforum.com I will discuss/help/be helped there. Thanks
again to the people who work on nutch.

Greg.