brought to you by: Dave Williams
This page: www.bacomatic.org/~dw/foxbody/foxbody.htm
Main page: http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/index.htm
Last Updated: 16 Jul 2003
Author: Dave Williams; dlwilliams=aristotle=net
This is another chunk of the infamous Database From Hell. For several years I've been a participant in various discussion groups (mailing lists, newsgroups, SIGs, fora, and whatnot) dealing with Mustangs either specifically or incidentally. My mailer setup is radically different from the usual Unix or Windows stuff, dating back to the days when an hour on a commercial conferencing system cost more than a month's ISP service does now. Basically, it's a two-pass setup; all incoming data is read, obvious dross is deleted, and the rest kept. Once every month or so I load the collected messages into my editor and go through it all again. More messages get the ax, threads are trimmed, and the remaining messages are kicked out into smaller files, or datasets, by subject. I've found it's simpler to handle text with an editor and its search function than by any of the outlining, indexing, or textbase programs I've played with so far. This set of files is my 'mustang' dataset, split up by year when I was removing e-mail and personal stuff that didn't need to be publicly visible on a web site.
Viewing a dataset of this size is a sizeable task. The size of the dataset is the equivalent of three jumbo bestseller novels. Many mail or news readers depend on subject lines for "threading" message topics. Threading never did work in the real world, and since I don't keep subject lines anyway it was a nonissue. I have sorted everything into chrono order, the way I received them. Think of it as the 'cocktail party' paradigm vs. the 'threaded messages' paradigm. Chuck says something. Scott replies. Ted makes a comment. Chuck speaks again. This preserves *continuity* - threading tends to isolate messages from their context, which isn't necessarily related to the subject line.
There's a metric shitload of data on Fox body Fords here, and much of it - particularly the trackie stuff - is applicable to other cars as well. I recommend just starting at the beginning and reading along.
For you GUI types, I recommend a monospace font like Courier. Yes, printed books use proportional fonts, kerning, and all the usual typesetting tricks. But computer fonts typically exaggerate these characteristics until it becomes hard to read at high speed. Besides the exaggerated proportioning, even a high resolution display comes in a poor second to ordinary printed text as far as resolution.
Finally, these are *edited* messages. Not only have some of them been taken out of context, on occasion irrelevant (to me) text has been deleted. If you take exception to something in one of these messages, don't automatically email the author and take them to task for it. What you see here isn't necessarily what they meant to say in context; I didn't build this dataset for you, I built it for *me*. I figured I knew what the author was talking about each time from the context of the message.
On the flip side, if you find something here that helps you out, it'd be nice
if you kicked off a message to the author and let them know you appreciate
their time for sharing some bit of information with the world. Not only did
they have to learn the stuff in the first place, they took the time to sit
down and type it in for everyone to share. That's a lot of work, and an
occasional pat on the back is little enough to ask for, right?
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