idea for defender wiki

hi, as things go, i'm fairly high up the computer geek scale, a programmer by trade. but i have just bought my first defender so that is giving me all sorts of mechanical tendencies also. i've found various bits and pieces on the net detailing the different jobs people have done on their vehicles, but i haven't yet found a really great community-driven web site with articles, step by step guides etc on all the weird and wonderful things that people do to their land rovers.

my idea today while i was fitting side runners (and running into a problem) was that it would be great if there was a wiki, that might have (among many other things) an in-depth guide to the task i was doing. the instructions that came with the pack had about 5 sentences that took plenty of head-scratching to figure out, and they were very poorly illustrated. i know it's a really basic job, but i'm only learning... for instance, the holes didn't match up between the small side support bracket and the chassis, because that part of my chassis has a small dent, and i think the bracket is too long anyway. so i tried drilling a new hole in the bracket, but i never drilled metal before and didn't have the right drill bits... there could be another article on how to drill holes in your defender, sealing the treads, etc. you get the idea!

it's probably just me being a total beginner, but it could become a really valuable knowledge base, with expertise that even the experts would draw on, because nobody knows everything, right?. the best place online i've found is this newsgroup, but newsgroups only show threads of conversations, and they are obviously very limited compared to a wiki where everyone can contribute and improve the quality of articles, and add new ones as they please.

as an example, with this job i'm working on with the side runners, i could write an article on fitting side-runners, and take pictures along the way, documenting the pitfalls i ran into, and it might save the next guy who encounters the same problems.

any thoughts? is there such a wiki already? i have a fast web server with plenty of bandwidth and all that jazz, so i could easily set the whole thing up to run MediaWiki (the same software that runs WikiPedia). appreciate any comments.

tim.

Reply to
Tim_Mac
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Sounds like a great idea. There is a lot of info out there, but it can take time to find what you want. A central site would be very helpful.

Maybe not including basics on how to drill holes in metal, but keep it LR specific.

There are various websites of folks describing what jobs they have done (some in detail with pics, etc), so if you happen to want to do what they did, and can find the site you are OK, a central one stop site would be so much better. You could even ask these people who have useful stuff on their site to put it on the Wiki to start it off.

Pieter

Reply to
Pieter Vroom

Tim, I'd be willing to help.

Reply to
Jeffrey S Austin

hi peter, thanks for the comments. and jeffrey for the offer of assistance also. Peter you're absolutely right about not going into such basic detail as drilling holes, we have to draw the line somewhere!

having said that, my own experience with wiki's is that if people have stuff they want to add to it, if it is at all relevant then they should be encouraged to do so. they might start out as newbie's like me but in a year or two, they could have learned a whole lot and have a lot more valuable info to contribute.

as far as i'm concerned, there's no point trying to compete with other sites for popularity, the aim would be just to provide an online place for sharing information that isn't there at present. i'd say there would need to be several people willing to put forward an article or two to get it off the ground. might be good to wait a while and see if there is more interest from other users? tim

Reply to
Tim_Mac

I suggest starting with a Land Rover entry and then the different models as sub-entries.

--Jeff

Reply to
Jeffrey S Austin

hi jeff good idea. wikis are very free-form in terms of their structure, and the best way to keep things relatively organised is to make good use of categories. here are some other categories i thought of:

- customisations / fittings, by type of land rover.

- routes / locations / trips / green lanes etc, by country.

- photo gallery

- how about a place where people can have a page for their own vehicle? i guess some people would have reservations about advertising their land rover on the internet, but it might turn out to be a popular feature. from what i've seen on line so far, many people are happy to display their handywork in detail online.

tim

Reply to
Tim_Mac

it was suggested to me that i post some info on what a wiki actually is, since it is a reasonably newfangled bit of internet gadgetry.

it is best explained on the wikipedia site itself, the original 'wiki'

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Reply to
Tim_Mac

It seems that there's a Land Rover entry already. Done exactly how we would have done it. Cool!

Reply to
Jeffrey S Austin

I dunno about this. Not really a fan of Wikis, problem with what you suggest is that it really needs to have content from the start or you will have problems gettings visitors to return. Difficult to break out of the circle. There are LOADS of LR sites - forums, mainly, out there that already to this, most are admittedly aimed for slightly more technical challenging tasks but there is nothing stopping you adding your content to them if you wish. I think for things like fitting steps you will find it difficult to get visitors who want that kind of info - people googling for any terms like that are going to be absolutely swamped by paid for ads and a million and one resellers selling things they will never find your site.

Find a LR forum you like and post there, or simply put up your pics on your webspace!

Reply to
willie

...and Jeffrey S Austin spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

And I contributed some bits in an idle moment at work, and they are still there! Power!

Reply to
Richard Brookman

...and Tim_Mac spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

Tim

May I suggest that you *don't* put green lane routes on there? If masses of people find it and use it as a source of routes for quick trips on rainy afternoons, the routes you list may well become overused, with fallout for all of us: damage, inappropriate use, friction with landowners & ramblers, ignoring TROs, the usual stuff that gets us all a bad name.

I like the policy until recently followed by the mags - let people research and find their own routes, and go through the local RoW officer of a club for the detail. Sad that LRO now publish routes with grid refs and pictures. I bet some of those routes are now like the M1, with all the hooligans and dangers for greenlaning that implies.

Reply to
Richard Brookman

ISTR that it was a member of LRO's writing team that has been accused of leading 50-strong convoys of trucks across the Brecon Beacons, however the chap who was doing the accusing was leading a 20-strong convoy..

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

hi richard, yes that's a good idea. i can totally understand that from a surfing background also, you don't want to broadcast your best spots.

Reply to
Tim_Mac

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 19:53:33 +0100, Ian Rawlings scribbled the following nonsense:

and had to apologise in a magazine article for damage they caused in the Lake District......

Reply to
Simon Isaacs

hi willie, thanks for your comments. i agree with you in some ways, why bother to add 'another' LR site. but i would argue that all the forums and newsgroups in the world are for the most part just random collections of chats and conversations. certainly people share great information through forums and newsgroups, but threads die off quickly so you are very limited in terms of building a valuable resource. a wiki on the other hand is constantly being improved and added to, so the quality and value goes up and up. wiki's are easy to navigate and browse, whereas newsgroups and forums are almost totally limited to search (for any reasonable size).

if you take the official landrover workshop or haynes manual, you'll probably agree with me in saying that the instructions are grossly understated and they tell you the bare minimum to get the job done, ignoring any of the pitfalls or complications that can occur in a real life situation. my point here is that the value of this information is very limited because it was written 10 years ago by the engineer in the lab working in perfect conditions with everything else in the car perfect. an equivalent article in a wiki is added to by a wide range of users with real life experience, and they can augment the information with photos. the goal i have for the wiki is to eventually have something like an online reference / manual / workshop guide for land rovers, which would contain all the information you don't find in the manuals, illustrated with photos where possible. realisitically nobody is going to sit down for weeks and just compile an online manual, but over time i think it is very possible that such a wiki could become a first reference point for anyone tackling a new job on their land rover.

Reply to
Tim_Mac

Did they? I don't buy the rags these days, who was it and which rag?

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Note sure the two are comparable really! I have quite a lot of LR workshop manuals and parts books and I could not really agree that they tell you the bare minimum to get the job done. Genuine workshop manuals are comprehensive! The 90/110 set here is bound 5 I think seperate books. The parts book for the 90/110 alone is incredibly usefull and it takes up two huge folders (albeit every page is in plastic sheet). Haynes for the same vehicle is, well, haynes sized. I have the Haynes restoration manuals and they are relatively interesting reading. My series and RR manuals are also big and full of useful stuff, I wouldn't argue from a point of view that LR don't supply the info. That may well be true of newer (P38 onwards) vehicles (again, there are sites out there dedicated to these so more info is available all the time), but not true of older ones.

I would like nicely coloured pictures of jobs, yes, and hints/tricks are always welcome. Maybe it would work, I'd want it to. I liked difflock.com series on their 110:

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If you could get articles of that quality with the kind of pics you'd be laughing. But a wiki - there are issues with spam and the like. It could work, but I think the trick would be to get as much content on as possible before advertising it to the masses, otherwise it will probably die before it lives.

Regards

William MacLeod

(who always has dirty hands when working and therefore can't use a shiny digital camera ;-)

Reply to
willie

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 21:24:18 +0100, Ian Rawlings scribbled the following nonsense:

LRO

Reply to
Simon Isaacs

Tim,

I think you have a great idea here, there is definately room for this type of idea. Wiki is a good site and I visit it constantly for information on any number of topics. Six years ago I was a Land Rover Newbie like yourself and the amount of collecting I have done of information and links is endless. It is so disheartening to go back to your bookmarks (my Land Rover ones are meticulously organized) two years after a web find to refer to a personal page of someone's and to find it has "disapeared." A compilation would be excelent. I know lots of sites which have great content for the LR Wiki, the enthusiasts who make these sites are so keen on Land Rovers I'm sure securing most individuals permission to add to the LR Wiki would just require a little emailing time. When de we start!?

boatmancharlie

Reply to
boatmancharlie

There is a Range Rover wiki at

formatting link

Adding a general landrover one would be a trivial exercise. Adding the content is the hard part.

Andy

Reply to
Andy Cunningham

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