CSC Program - Printable Version

CSC Program - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: CSC Program (/showthread.php?tid=424)

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CSC Program - JRSCline - 05-09-2001

Avete, RAT Members! 
 
I've decided to enroll RAT in the CSC (Community Supported Communities) Program and I hope you'll consider doing so as well. My thanks goes to Jasper for leading the way as our first CSC member. 
 
RAT could very easily disappear forever unless our host Ezboard Inc. stays financially solvent, and with the economic downturn, it's hard to say that can't happen. However, if community members support Ezboard, it won't go under. 
 
The cost to enroll is a minimal amount -- only $7 for 6 months, and the benefit is that members NEVER see advertising! Just pure RAT content. What could be better? Give it some thought and join up! 
 
Thanks for your support, 
 
Jenny Cline 
Admin

Re: CSC Program - JRSCline - 05-11-2001

Incidentally, since we enrolled RAT in the CSC Program, has anyone seen popups? 
 
Cheers, 
Jenny

backup the board? - richsc - 05-12-2001

Jenny, the thought crossed my mind of archiving the board?? 
I think we need an XML variant for discussion boards so they can be portable..hmmmm..something to propose to W3C.

Re: CSC Program - JRSCline - 05-12-2001

Hmmmm... well, I'm always open to suggestions. What did you have in mind? Can we archive? I wouldn't know how at this point. 
 
Cheers, 
 
Jenny

archiving - richsc - 05-12-2001

I should think that archiving would be something the ezboard folks could address, or should. The idea of using XML would be to have a portable board, one where you could pick the message threads and logic up and move them to another provider. This would take a bit of planning, and would be a future thing, but it might keep a board from dying off if the provider goes belly up.

Re: CSC Program - JRSCline - 05-13-2001

You're the second person who's mentioned XML to me (on unrelated matters) in two days. I take it that XML is the wave of the future for web publishing. Are you familiar with it? 
 
 
J.

Re: archiving - Praefectusclassis - 05-13-2001

WouldnÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t it be a wise thing to check if itÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´s worth expending time to archive RAT? I mean, if Ezboard goes belly-up, what are the odds that other (free) providers go the same way? Perhaps if youÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´re really technically inclined, you could build your own message server, incoporated in romanarmy.com 
 
Just my two cents though, which is about half the cost/day of becoming a CSC user, which keeps Ezboard from going broke. 
 
Greets 
 
Jasper

XML and boards etc - richsc - 05-13-2001

XML, or extensible markup language, is one of my pet projects at my agency. Basically, it allow you to model any type of data, information, business process, logic, etc, in text. Music, astronomy, DB2, SQL, OLE objects, instant messaging, are all being done or expressed in XML. This makes the data very portable, with no conversions between applications; you just need the ability to render it to the appropriate format, using another XML technology XSL (stylesheets). A message board might look like 
 
Roman Army 
References 
Cornu 
Richsc 
What did they sound like? 
 
Note it looks a lot like HTML, which is true since they are both subsets of SGML. XML however is extensible, since in HTML the stylesheets and meanings of the tags, eg , are hardwired to the browser. 
 
I think even historians are getting into XML. Maybe a HistoryXML is out there somewhere.

XML - richsc - 05-13-2001

I see that my posting had the tags deleted by the ezboard program! I guess they have to be enclosed in quotes? 
"hi there" 
 
ANyway, if you want to read a lot about XML, try 
 
www.oasis-open.org/cover/xml.html

XML publishing - JRSCline - 05-13-2001

Well! How fortunate this may be for us that you're one of the XML illuminati, Rich! 
 
You might have noticed on the RomanArmy.com Sitemap there's a hidden section for the Roman Army Digest (aka RAD) that's still in concept form at this stage. However, since I have received some inquiries regarding when RAD will be ready for launch, I've been contemplating how best to format and present the journal. 
 
There's definitely a need for a specialist journal on the Roman army. We are blessed to have ARMA and JRMES thanks to the singular efforts of Mike Bishop, but all previous efforts at developing academic journals dedicated to classical military history have met with little success. If you were subscribing to RES MILITARES (the SAMH newsletter I now edit) you might have read that several European academics attempted a couple years ago to find a publisher for a neophyte journal they pitched as the Journal of Ancient War Studies (JAWS!). When that idea was judged by various presses to be too limited, they reformulated it as an ancient-and-medieval warfare journal. Neither incarnation ever found a publisher, unfortunately. 
 
However, the beauty of e-journals is their lack of the emcumbrances and cost typically associated with print journals. I think, given some dedicated volunteers who either know something about print publishing and editing (I might be so bold as to put myself in that category), or are willing and able to learn (you? Sander? Jasper? others to come?) we could make a go of it. 
 
XML, based on my preliminary contacts with Ross Scaife at the Stoa Consortium (which advocates XML as a medium for classics journals online) at www.stoa.org, is the way to go. But how to make a start? 
 
I don't know XML. I know only a little HTML -- the bits and pieces necessary to fine-tune what my WYSIWYG editor (FrontPage) produces. The result is RomanArmy.com, of which I'm proud, but I realize its HTML structure will be obsolete within two years, certainly. 
 
Are there any XML WSIWYG editors yet? How would a team (say you and me, as a start, assuming you're willing) go about putting an XML e-journal together? I'm asking Ross the same question, and with his and Stoa's support, and yours, I think it might be possible. 
 
Cheers, 
 
Jenny

Re: XML publishing - Praefectusclassis - 05-13-2001

Of course IÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´d be willing to lend a hand in the publishing of a journal. DonÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t know any XML, but editing magazines is my job in real life, remember? Jenny, do you have any idea of the potential interest in the magazine, subscription-wise? 
 
Greets 
 
Jasper

xml journal - richsc - 05-13-2001

There are quite a few tools out there Jenny; XML Spy, XMetal, even Wordperfect 9 and WinWord XP are all XML capable. We'd have to design a schema/DTD first; that is, define the tags. 
The nice thing about XML is that when you do it once, you can transform it to any format; print, web, cell phone, pda, you name it. Right now the print version is the weakest link, but since you're not talking print, it's a lot easier to deal with. 
 
Let me pull some ideas together.

XML/RAD - JRSCline - 05-13-2001

Oh! Jasper, how could I forget? Excuse me for the faux pas. You are eminently qualified to edit, I know. Wonderful for us! A publishing professional, a part-time academic editor (small-time? hee-hee!), and an expert at the Next Big Thing -- XML. Can't wait to see what happens next! Kick it around a bit, Rich, and let's brainstorm. 
 
But let's move it out of this thread, to one of its own. I'll create it as XML/Roman Army Digest in the RomanArmy.com Round Table forum. Please post replies on the matter there. 
 
See you there shortly! 
 
Cheers-- 
Jenny

Re: CSC Program - JRSCline - 05-15-2001

As an afterword, I have inquired with Ezboard. There is no way to archive/backup data, restore elsewhere, or license/purchase the executable board program itself. This is it -- if Ezboard goes, so goes RAT (at least in this incarnation). 
 
However, Ezboard is not saying they're going anywhere, so I see no need in the short term to panic. I would like to start looking for a new migratable, privately-hostable, archivable message board that offers a structure and feature list similar to this one. Ideas on this would be welcome. 
 
Cheers, 
Jenny

Re: CSC Program - Anonymous - 05-18-2001

Hmm. . .I did a little search and came up with this at yabb.xnull.com. 
 
At the site they say: 
 
"Yet Another Bulletin Board 
 
YaBB (Yet Another Bulletin Board) is a free bulletin board and instant messaging system written in Perl. It can be used on any type of site: personal, non-profit, commercial.... Web-based bulletin board systems are one of the best ways for visitors to communicate with each other and with members of the company or website developers. With the continuous development of YaBB, we try to provide as many features as we can, so that we can compete with all the major competitors - even those that charge for their system. We take suggestions FROM the YaBB Community and fix bugs reported by the YaBB Community. Therefore, this is a system by the users for the users. 
 
Currently, YaBB has one final release (YaBB 1 Final). A second release is being worked on (YaBB 1 Gold). Y1G is currently in beta stages and will soon have a final release. When that release is out, all attention will be turned to YaBB 2, which is a COMPLETE rewrite of the popular bulletin board system. At the same time, we will have a team coding a PHP port of YaBB 2, also using MySQL." 
 
 
I dunno what it all means, but I thought it could be useful. 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=shiro>Shiro</A> at: 5/18/01 2:22:12 am