I love this site and have been a daily visitor for over 6 years. I have seen members come and go over time and with them goes a wealth of knowledge and history. Unfortunately, much of that information is buried within posts here that are very difficult to search. I can remember only so much and need to rely on the experts here or the posts they left behind. I am sure other members here feel the same way.

My thought is that while the site should have all the great funtionality it currently has, it should become THE source of historical information. A wiki specific to this site could accomodate this or some other basic feature... for example... have a web page set up for each old school manufacturer and allow content to be added/registered. Images could be used to illustrate differences in models over time etc.

I know alot of this is already documented here or on members PCs so it could be a great starting point.

What do you think Mike C??? There are so many people out there that just don't know the facts and people get tired of setting others straight.

-mike

Anybody care to comment???

Not a bad idea. But.... now all ya need to do is convince Mike. I'm sure he could do this in all his SPARE time.

A wiki would be hard to moderate. If you open the source, lots of bad info could get in. As much as I like the site itself, just look at BMXMuseum.com. I am a regular member and mean no disrespect, but there is a lot of mis-information there.

Doug

+1

I like the idea of a wiki...in fact, I have two domain names around the idea (BMXIPEDIA.COM and BMXWIKI.ORG), reserved in the days following my acquisition of this site last year.

The problem, as noted, is the administration of such a project. You'd really need a team of people who knew the TRUE history of a brand, rider, etc so they could put down any spammers, or people who think they know but just do not.

No doubt that it is needed. It's the "HOW" that has me a bit stymied.

Suggestions always welcomed.

M

I'm not really that familiar with wikipedia (as a Know-it-all I really have no reason to... ), but couldn't each topic/brand be written by the people actually involved? I.E., SE written by Devitt and Breithaupt, GT written by Gary Turner, RedLine by Linn Kastan, BMX Action by Oz, etc. And make it just "there" and not able to be edited by knuckleheads who think they know the story...

tuRBo todd has an idea that would give accurate info and that to me is most important. It is a monstrous job but worthy of accuracy.

That idea ROCKS--IF you can get those guys to sit down and write the thing.

A lot of the people we're talking about have a soft spot for their place in BMX history, and might do it, though as a volunteer effort, we'd have to expect "when I get around to it" service

And others have moved on and are too busy with other stuff to bother with it...

...and still others left the sport with a bitter taste, and choose never to have anything to do with it ever again.

Harsh, I realize but that's where it's at.

M

Obviously, the best info would come from the likes of OM, Hill, Stu, Gary Turner, and the list goes on. It would certainly be alot to expect for us to get these guys to sit down and write it all.

I was thinking that we have plenty of resident experts here on certain brands. I think it would be more realistic to start small with a particular bike or component. As the bike and component info grows, so will the content on the company and riders.

-Identify the resident experts on a particular bike/component
-Ask them to do a brain dump into a specific thread.
-Allow members to add comments to improve the conten.
-Compile a final draft that can get posted. From there, only let known experts submit additions.

Another approach could be:
-Get into the "everything brand x" threads and copy out the important stuff.

I think the most import thing would be to define the process and the only way to do this would be with a simple example. Perhaps Surf's profile stuff or the flight crank stuff someone had a while back. I know there are other examples of this out there but are starting to get buried over time. STR-1 had some awesome Quad comparisons or the Titron pedal interview that a member did last year.

We also can't expect to get it 100% complete or correct in the final draft. Whether we like it or not, we are old and don't always remember the facts.

Just some thoughts. I really think that if any site is up for this task, it is this one. It was very cool to see that the old timers ( 3 digit member ids or less) still check in alot but don't post. These are the guys we need to tap for their knowledge and would probably set us 4 digit guys straight.

I think that this could really bring the involvement of the members back to the site as well as give the Legends a reason to check in more often and proof read our BS.

-Mike

I'd proposed the same thing awhile back, but unfortunately life got in the way and wasn't able to follow through.

If you search the threads you should be able to find something on a BMX Wiki (in fact I think we have one set up in some back corner of the domain) where we got into how to moderate and all that -- which really I didn't think was that big a problem. Mostly it'd just take five or so people who could really dedicate themselves to the project.

I had set up a Wiki for this site about the time Mike took over. If the site has been moved to a new websever then its gone. THey are not difficult to set up, its the content administration that is the bear.