[Coco] We need an FAQ

[Brian Blake]

At the time I thought it would probably be the quickest to implement - pretty sure I was wrong now...

I was already looking into the database possibility - downloaded this months archive (some 35,000 plus lines in an Excel spreadsheet). I have a good bit of experience with MS Access (though 'good' and 'MS Access' in the same sentence might be considered an oxymoron) and will be starting SQL shortly. From where I sit, it'd take a monumental effort to change the format of the data to work properly in a database that I'm familiar with. I'm not a coder, but, I can't see how it could be done with a program - looks like it would take complete human interaction to properly sort From, Date, Subject, Message Content, etc... into usable fields in a table. And that would have to be done for each archive. After that was done, simple search forms would suffice. 

The whole txt file CAN be imported into a table, and then text search could probably be done, but, there would be no way to search by subject or author.

Roger imported a few of the older mailing lists into the new coco3.com, I'm wondering if there was a difference in the delimiter (archive appears to be TAB) or how the data was stored, or if he just imported the raw messages/threads and cleaned them up after making the text of the entire message/thread searchable. Maybe, with Dennis' permission, he could do the same with the archives and attach them to coco3.com?

At this point I'm inclined to agree with Allen and say we should start making entries to the CoCopedia whenever interesting Q/A's come up and maybe even add tutorials to it. Regardless, I think that will be much more effective, and quicker, than trying to create a searchable database from the message list archives.

Brian




----- Original Message ----
From: Dennis Bathory-Kitsz <dennis-ix at maltedmedia.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Mon, January 18, 2010 12:22:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] We need an FAQ

At 11:39 AM 1/18/2010, Brian Blake wrote:
> There have been so many good questions asked and answered here, I'd think the best thing to do would be to make the archives searchable.

That's not going to happen from the list end.

However, downloads are available as zip files for each month since 2003 and can be turned into a searchable database if you'd like to take that on. I have stored previous list contents from from the princeton list from 1999-2003 in mbx format if you'd like to add those into your database. I believe some of the earlier lists are also posted on the maltedmedia.com/coco ftp site.

Dennis







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