PRESERVING THE INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE ON MTFCA

[StevenS]

I have a very important question for the MTFCA and the board of directors;

How are we going to preserver and make available all the conversations, information, and knowledge on the MTFCA website for the future generations to access in order to keep the Model T hobby and cars running?

Because as technology advances (and this is a problem with the digital age) the platforms that information is stored on become obsolete. Just like the old forum back before 2019. Will that old forum be gone in the future and all that information be lost? Will that also happen to the new forum? As a new person to the hobby (five years), I use that information a lot to learn about what to do and not do. I would be lost without it and not have learned so much in a short time. Also, as more of us old timers die off and there is less of us, who will teach the young? If all the conversations, information, and knowledge on the MTFCA website were preserved in a perpetual library (like the way a cemetery is set up for the future) then that would be a legacy of all the club members alive and passed on would be preserved forever as well as their names as contributors. A digital "Model T Library of Congress" that will always be around and be accessible when we are long, long gone.

The reason why I am asking this question was, I was involved with another website like this. I gave 10 years of my life to it and did research and articles for them. Many more people before me did much more than I did. After 25 years of the conversations, information, and knowledge of that website (some of it by people who passed away) it was totally lost/destroyed. I am still angry and devastated by this today and do not want this MTFCA to fall into the same fate in the future. WE MUST ADDRESS THIS QUESTION.

[Mopar_man]

I agree we have to have some IT people in the hobby.

[ModelT46]

Print on paper is still the best

[Don D]

I have many sharp chisels and stone tablets to offer if it will help.

Seriously, the preservation of and access to these records is truly important.

I will be interested to hear the results of action taken by our Board.

Dom

[dykker5502]

Not sure who's behind, but can this be used?

https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/mtfca.com

[TRDxB2]

I agree we have to have some IT people in the hobby.

I'm a retired IT guy (50+years 1968-2014)
Understand that much of the old forum data is still available but not searchable within the tool being used. The information can still be listed using the current MTFCA application (but not searchable by it).
2017 http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/708324/708324.html
2013 http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/331880/331880.html
I do not know if there was a provision to re-index to the old data to work with the new application version or not. I assume that all the data is stored in a database (SQL Server) not sure if it is all together in one or two instances. If so it should be able to be accessed without the forum application provided that access permissions are given. SQL server is a very poplar database and as databases change it would be easy to migrate from it to the next best thing. But an application will still be required to view it.
b]The objective then is to:[/b] Preserver and make available all the conversations, information, and knowledge on the MTFCA website for the future generations to access in order to keep the Model T hobby and cars running. As technology advances the platforms that information is stored on becomes obsolete. It always best to have a second form of backup that is different than that of the current application. This may sound strange but technology already exists to search printed material that has been copied (GOOGLE Books) so this can be another form of backup. I'll be happy to discuss and investigate further.. Frank

[Susanne]

I ended up with a few copies of Ford Dealer & Service of various years, all of them in really dry, crumbly, fragile shape (as in if you tried to open them in anything less than over a humidifier the likelihood was that the page would crumble in your hands...) I decided (after gritting my teeth) to start (carefully) disassembling them and putting the pages in plastic sleeves in binders... so far I've saved 2 of them, and while it's sad they're not in their original bound magazine format, at least now they can be perused and read without destroying them in the process....

The only problem with storing them digitally is technology changes fast enough where, unless you have restored a computer *and* have the appropriate software to run both it and the various programs needed, anything stored digitally won't be readable in 20 years. (I already have that problem with 2 novellas I wrote on my old CP-M Kaypro, in Word, stored on 5 1/4" floppies... )

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I wholeheartedly agree, unless we do something to save this history in our midst, it won't be there for those coming after us. ANother issue (as said above) is indexing what we already have - back when we had annual installments of the forum, it was already problematic, now it's like pulling bear teeth to find stuff...

If I knew, I would be jumping in with both feet.

[Jonah D'Avella]

Print on paper is still the best

Is this even possible? it seems that it would only be possible with help of a printing company. It also would be quite expensive. Is there much reason some USB jump drive or hard drive can't store the information? It could be paired with a device that is non-web based, and if treated well would hold the information for decades even if the web shut the site down, and be accessed from one place, like the library in the MTFCA museum in Ohio. Even with our present technology, it seems that in the future, if the computer can still decode what is on the hard drive or USB drive, we should be able to sent it to the web fairly easily. I am by no means an expert with computers, please tell me if my ideas are perposterous.

Respectfully summited,
Jonah D'Avella

[varmint]

In 1981 (yes, 40 years ago) I entered a program on a TRS-80 Radio Shack computer. In 1982 I got a Sinclair computer and had to start from scratch as not only could I not transfer the program over but it had to be coded differently. In 1985 I had to type in the code again and re-program for the same two reasons on a Compaq computer, which has since been bought out by HP. I was finally now on the IBM compatible realm but in five years everything was switching over from 8-bit to 16-bit and old programs did not necessarily in the new format. I remember one instance when old files were destroyed just by reading the 8-bit data. Since then the world has moved to 32-bit and 64-bit.

Media: I have stored info on reel-to-reel tape, disk pack, cassette, 8", 5-1/4", 3-1/2" floppy, zip disk, 120LS disk, CDROM, DVD, dual layer DVD. Cobalt blue DVD discs are good for 10 years, and silver for 100 years. I used external drives (HDD and SSD) via serial port, parallel port, Firewire, and USB. HDDs used to have an average lifespan of 5 years. USB is the only one that has survived because the technology came along in the mid-ninties and destroyed the competition. Will my external USB devices last forever? No. Good luck getting the data off a RLL hard drive today. That was replaced by IDE which was replaced by EIDE which was replaced by SATA.

The cloud? I have lost web sites because they went out of business twenty some years ago. One hosting site corrupted my data and I asked them to restore it. Instead they told me to use my backup and re-post. I did re-upload without asking why. About ten years ago a very popular cloud hosting company got hit by a virus. Maybe three years ago a famous cloud hosting had my data as a backup and it stopped functioning, for me and my several terabytes of data, not over the limit. I could not search, add, nor delete files. So, I deleted the entire account and now use a separate computer locally for a backup. The cloud is still used.

A book, ironically, will outlast any computer technology.

[Dan B]

With all due respect to the other posters, the discussion is getting off topic from the original question which is a very good one and one that the BOD should consider.

The question is how to preserve all of the electronic information from the early days of the MTFCA forum until present. I was a participant at that time and many of the posters are no longer with us or involved in the hobby. This includes well known contributors like Bruce McCalley. Often times a question posted would result in dissertation type posts from these individuals of information not available anywhere else or perhaps not stated in the same way elsewhere.

Today, if one is proficient with online searches, you can find answers to your question from current day back to the early 2000s. A simple question or keyword can prompt dozens of search results on the topic, from many different users, from different years all with different perspectives. Often times I will read dozens of these posts before formulating my own opinion on how to proceed.

This information must be preserved or it will be a huge detriment to the hobby. Is the information prior to the forum move still being hosted on the servers of the old platform? If so, would it be possible to preserve this information in a manner in which the MTFCA has total control? It would be great to maintain it in a way that it retains its current structure and is searchable just as it is today so that each user to can mine their own information from the database.

I applaud the original poster for raising this topic. Too often it is taken completely for granted that it will always be there which leads to devastating disappointment when it disappears. In many ways, forum posts remain the most tangible contributions from many in this hobby for future generations.

[Dan B]

With all due respect to the other posters, the discussion is getting off topic from the original question which is a very good one and one that the BOD should consider.

The question is how to preserve all of the electronic information from the early days of the MTFCA forum until present. I was a participant at that time and many of the posters are no longer with us or involved in the hobby. This includes well known contributors like Bruce McCalley. Often times a question posted would result in dissertation type posts from these individuals of information not available anywhere else or perhaps not stated in the same way elsewhere.

Today, if one is proficient with online searches, you can find answers to your question from current day back to the early 2000s. A simple question or keyword can prompt dozens of search results on the topic, from many different users, from different years all with different perspectives. Often times I will read dozens of these posts before formulating my own opinion on how to proceed.

This information must be preserved or it will be a huge detriment to the hobby. Is the information prior to the forum move still being hosted on the servers of the old platform? If so, would it be possible to preserve this information in a manner in which the MTFCA has total control? It would be great to maintain it in a way that it retains its current structure and is searchable just as it is today so that each user to can mine their own information from the database.

I applaud the original poster for raising this topic. Too often it is taken completely for granted that it will always be there which leads to devastating disappointment when it disappears. In many ways, forum posts remain the most tangible contributions from many in this hobby for future generations.

One more thing to consider. If all of the historical posts do disappear someday, it will dissuade anyone from actively contributing anything of value on this forum ever again. I doubt that thought was ever a consideration for many that wrote long informational posts in the past but it would certainly change in the future.

Like making a masterful drawing on an etch-a-sketch. Who wants to do that?

[StevenS]

These two guys know just what I am talking about. I have lived the nightmare the last 40 years of computers and software upgrades.

With all due respect to the other posters, the discussion is getting off topic from the original question which is a very good one and one that the BOD should consider.

The question is how to preserve all of the electronic information from the early days of the MTFCA forum until present. I was a participant at that time and many of the posters are no longer with us or involved in the hobby. This includes well known contributors like Bruce McCalley. Often times a question posted would result in dissertation type posts from these individuals of information not available anywhere else or perhaps not stated in the same way elsewhere.

Today, if one is proficient with online searches, you can find answers to your question from current day back to the early 2000s. A simple question or keyword can prompt dozens of search results on the topic, from many different users, from different years all with different perspectives. Often times I will read dozens of these posts before formulating my own opinion on how to proceed.

This information must be preserved or it will be a huge detriment to the hobby. Is the information prior to the forum move still being hosted on the servers of the old platform? If so, would it be possible to preserve this information in a manner in which the MTFCA has total control? It would be great to maintain it in a way that it retains its current structure and is searchable just as it is today so that each user to can mine their own information from the database.

I applaud the original poster for raising this topic. Too often it is taken completely for granted that it will always be there which leads to devastating disappointment when it disappears. In many ways, forum posts remain the most tangible contributions from many in this hobby for future generations.

In 1981 (yes, 40 years ago) I entered a program on a TRS-80 Radio Shack computer. In 1982 I got a Sinclair computer and had to start from scratch as not only could I not transfer the program over but it had to be coded differently. In 1985 I had to type in the code again and re-program for the same two reasons on a Compaq computer, which has since been bought out by HP. I was finally now on the IBM compatible realm but in five years everything was switching over from 8-bit to 16-bit and old programs did not necessarily in the new format. I remember one instance when old files were destroyed just by reading the 8-bit data. Since then the world has moved to 32-bit and 64-bit.

Media: I have stored info on reel-to-reel tape, disk pack, cassette, 8", 5-1/4", 3-1/2" floppy, zip disk, 120LS disk, CDROM, DVD, dual layer DVD. Cobalt blue DVD discs are good for 10 years, and silver for 100 years. I used external drives (HDD and SSD) via serial port, parallel port, Firewire, and USB. HDDs used to have an average lifespan of 5 years. USB is the only one that has survived because the technology came along in the mid-ninties and destroyed the competition. Will my external USB devices last forever? No. Good luck getting the data off a RLL hard drive today. That was replaced by IDE which was replaced by EIDE which was replaced by SATA.

The cloud? I have lost web sites because they went out of business twenty some years ago. One hosting site corrupted my data and I asked them to restore it. Instead they told me to use my backup and re-post. I did re-upload without asking why. About ten years ago a very popular cloud hosting company got hit by a virus. Maybe three years ago a famous cloud hosting had my data as a backup and it stopped functioning, for me and my several terabytes of data, not over the limit. I could not search, add, nor delete files. So, I deleted the entire account and now use a separate computer locally for a backup. The cloud is still used.

[StevenS]

I do applaud the MTFCA on the books they have produced, and for anybody in the Model T hobby, they should be required reading. Among some other books that are out there too. However, the conversation and knowledge on this website’s forums need to be preserved and accessible forever. I have learned so much from those forums. All I need to do is GOOGLE search the question I am looking for and the answer is in a long list of conversations. Just start the search by the letters of: MTFCA (then your question)
example: MTFCA what clearance for a cast iron piston
behold the answer (and opinions too)

[Colin Mavins]

It would be nice but the way things are going I dont think it can all be saved . I print all of the information which I find applies to My car I also print anything I find interesting and put it in a binder. When I'm gone if it gets trashed I guess its not my worry. Our local club is dismantling the Library my parents spent 30 years building . Cheers from Winnipeg

[ChrisB]

We have not lost any of our data from the old forums and it ALL still lives on this server with the new forums.

Copies are backed up in several places and none of it will disappear under my watch.

The search function of the old software stopped working when we have to upgrade some of the underlying software that was required by the new forum. All the old posts are find-able with Google.

The phpBB forum software has been around for years and I don't see it going anywhere for a long time.

[TRDxB2]

We have not lost any of our data from the old forums and it ALL still lives on this server with the new forums.
Copies are backed up in several places and none of it will disappear under my watch.
The search function of the old software stopped working when we have to upgrade some of the underlying software that was required by the new forum. All the old posts are find-able with Google.
The phpBB forum software has been around for years and I don't see it going anywhere for a long time.

In support of your response. Hope it helps
Many legacy computer systems were never upgraded to keep up with technology changes. These legacy systems often incorporated proprietary code or databases that were no longer supported. Much like versions of Windows (version 7 support ended 14 January 2021).

This description may sound complex but in fact it is very modularized approach and the most common application design and has been around since 1983 and it is doubtful if it will be changed - the World is dependent upon this architecture.
-An application...phpBB software is used as the presentation and user interface for forum conversations. It allows the MTFCA Administrator to add text appropriate to the user base for navigation and entering content.
-DBMS, or "Database Management System", is a system or software designed to manage the content, who entered it, dates, responses etc. This what is being backuped for both old & new forums.
-The INTERNET environment has standards, W3, for computer applications to communicate to users in a consistent way. Sounds crazy but just about everything you access to the lowest level as an address here is an example (ask yourself - where is this located physically?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mode ... ouring.jpg

You communicate with the INTERNET via a "Browser" one of these (Google Chrome,Apple Safari. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge. Mozilla Firefox. Opera.) It is another layer of software that is Application Independent (and one can replace another). The reason for that again, is the W3 standards and the structure by which page content is marked up to be displayed within the browser. Called HTML (this is provided by phpBB)

Browser -> INTERNET ->application->data or Browser -> INTERNET ->address of object> object
Search engines like GOOGLE, BING etc continually access web sites to gather keywords from individual content and because of HTML and the address of that content. That's how they work. If the content is deleted the search engine may not be updated and a 404 error message is displayed

Relational Database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database
HTML https://www.w3schools.com/html/

[varmint]

It is interesting to read about members talking about making copies of the forum onto burnable disc even back in the 2005-2008 era.
Here is a list of the past forum links:

Forum 2017
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/708324/708324.html

Forum 2016
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/599638/599638.html

Forum 2015
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/506218/506218.html

Forum 2014
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/411944/411944.html

Forum 2013
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/331880/331880.html

Forum 2012
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/257047.html

Forum 2011
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/179374.html

Forum 2010
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/118802/118802.html

Forum 2009
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/80257.html

Forum 2008
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/50893.html

Forum 2005-2008
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/29.html

[Dan B]

We have not lost any of our data from the old forums and it ALL still lives on this server with the new forums.

Copies are backed up in several places and none of it will disappear under my watch.

The search function of the old software stopped working when we have to upgrade some of the underlying software that was required by the new forum. All the old posts are find-able with Google.

The phpBB forum software has been around for years and I don't see it going anywhere for a long time.

This is great news! Glad that you and others obviously recognize the importance of this information.

Thank you!