Basejumper.com - archive

Hey everybody,

I'm not sure if this is appropriate or not, but I'll just let the moderator remove this post if it's not.

Anyway, I'm trying to kick some people's butts into gear so we can grow BASE WIKI a little more. I figured one way to do it would be to write poor man's versions of what I'd like to see, and then perhaps somebody will get pissed off enough and fix it; either by leaving comments, or by asking for the editor's password.

So here goes, my thoughts on canopies and some early stuff on sliders. Heck, I even mumbo-jumboed something on tailpockets and gear bags.

Admittedly, I'm mostly looking for people to write about different types of jumps, malfunctions and other problems and possibly some site analysis. So if you feel like you can contribute something about multi-ways or winds on antenna jumps, or perhaps the line-over, please step forward.

Thanks. Apologies for the spam...

Jaap

Hey guys, this is a great project. If you're an editor, sit down and hammer something out for a section that's not yet written. It'll take you a half an hour. If you're not an editor, take a peak and see if there's anything you could write about. Then become an editor. You don't have to be an expert -- just a regular jumper.

Thanks Jason! I really appreciate your call for help.

Projects like this, and wikis in particular, go through three phases:

1. Initial, where a group of people gets stuff up and running and gather a large amount of content in a short amount of time.
2. Growing Pains, where the early adopters lose interest because they are experienced jumpers and don't necessarily need the instruction the wiki can offer. If the wiki doesn't have enough content at this stage, it'll die at an early age.
3. Mature, where the wiki has reached a critical mass that allows it to become the de-facto encyclopedia on a particular topic. In our case; BASE. It's still evolving at this stage, but at a much slower rate.

We are still in the initial phase, and it is important to gather momentum now to quickly get content up there. If the momentum isn't there, the wiki dies before it has become useful.

I realize we all have busy lives outside our BASE career. But if you have time to post here, you can probably spare twenty minutes to jot down your thoughts on some random topic you see on BASE WIKI.

Future BASE generations will thank you for it; the same way I owe being alive to Blinc Magazine, Dropzone.com, a whole bunch of people, and an incredible amount of luck.

Hi Jaap,

Growing pains to me has another meaning: pains experienced due to uncontrolled and 2 fast growth and/or mistakes during a process.

Wiki will not die but it will get a lot of flak from interested and concerned third parties.

BTW, I did a post
Ronald Overdijk

Photos would be a real plus for the wiki. (like what does a tail pocket look like, or a tailgate, etc etc)
I have a camera if someone wants to lend me some gear ;p

/Captain

very good idea!

Woops. You are absolutely right of course.

I meant a slow-down I guess. Oh well, I'll blame it on English not being my first language...


Jup, saw that. Thanks! I'll rework it back into the full history story soon.

I agree. Editors can upload photos if they want to, so there is nothing stopping BASE WIKI from doing so.

That is; I have the gear if someone wants to lend me a camera.

What about proofing and such? If we're reading someone else's article and find a typo or grammatical error is there an issue with logging in as an editor and fixing it or have you found specific people who are willing to do that on an ongoing basis?

If you have the editor's password, you can go in and fix it, yes. Or even rewrite the whole bunch. Such is the nature of wikis.

To get the editor's password, all you gotta do is ask.

If you're not an editor, just leave a comment at the bottom of the page. The administrator will be notified, and the page will be updated. Or an editor will notice it and fix the error, or take your comments and suggestions into account.

This is not my website. It's yours...

On a WIKI, there are no owners of articles.

This is worth stressing in case somebody isn't familiar with the WIKI concept.

You lose the copyright on whatever you submit and it becomes public domain. This allows other people to fix, comment and elaborate on your contributions. Over time, this allows a WIKI to grow into something that a copyright-holding entity could never attain. Case in point; WikiPedia, an incredible online encyclopedia entirely made up from voluntary contributions.

BASE WIKI hosts a few articles that still have copyrights on them. These are marked as such, and editors generally leave those untouched. An example is Tom Begic on BASE ethics, but there are a few more copyrighted articles on BASE WIKI.

The WIKI prefers public domain contributions though.