Re: Remanufacturing FAQ

When I did the Cap Kit FAQ, I started with an outline/ partially written
document and gave it to different people to comment on and make changes to it.
Where I was unsure about something, I would ask for advice from people and write
what I found out. I made a decision about when there was enough content and
sent the document to everyone to review for clarity and accuarcy. Made the
changes that came back and finalized the document. Never had any complaints. I
think it will work if you are concise in what you want and how well you outline
your content. I'd be glad to help. Who's in charge?

-Al-

"Ozdemir, Steven S, GOVMK" wrote:

> G'day folks,
>
> I agree with Mark that a FAQ is quite static. That's why only the most
> common and typical techniques are documented in it. The idea is that no
> matter what happens, this information will always be useful. Also as Dave
> said, a FAQ does serve a central permanent repository.
>
> When Doug and I attempted the Conversion FAQ, we had the same concern that
> Mark voiced. Each game's hardware was too unique. Remember back then,
> JAMMA wasn't as prevalent as today. The Conversion FAQ ended up showing
> people how to identify games that were similar enough to be a candidate for
> conversion. Then using the top 10 games in VAPS at the time, we showed that
> _MOST_ of these popular games were similar enough to other games in the top
> 10 so that you'd only need three cabinets!
>
> I'd suggest a similar format for any Remanufacturing/Restoration FAQ. Use a
> single game (like Robotron?) to show the techniques that could be applied to
> _MOST_ cabinets with commonly available materials. The WWW sites will
> document the more unique cases.
>
> Focussing a group for a FAQ starts with your experts...finding one willing
> to write 10 or 20 pages for a first draft of a FAQ is difficult. Most
> people are too busy going on to new projects to spend the horrendous amount
> of time necessary to write/review a good FAQ. Another rule of thumb for
> groups is limiting the size...any more than 4 or 5 people will slow down the
> project. When it comes to writing FAQs, you may be limited to only 3 people
> or you may need a dictator who closes off issues/discussions. Alot of it
> depends on the personalities involved.
>
> Steve Ozdemir
> sozdemir@att.com
>
> ps - Whenever you do anything with a group of volunteers, make sure to weed
> out the folks who are enthusiastic but probably won't have the staying power
> to stick with the project for 6 months. Many times you'll take alot of time
> away from the project to bring one of these enthusiastic people on board,
> only to have them back out a month later. If this happens enough times, it
> can bring a group project to a halt.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Commander Dave [mailto:david@hiwaay.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 1999 11:58 AM
> To: vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu
> Subject: Re: Remanufacturing FAQ
>
> My final thoughts for today (at least until I get home at least <grin>) is
> that I
> agree with Mark that we have a lot of energy here, but no focus. Looks like
> everyone has an individual view of what should be done. I don't have any
> ideas on
> how to fix that problem... How do you get a crowd of users to decide and
> focus on
> a specific project, not to mention assign tasks?
>
> I always look to Steve to provide these "voice from the cave" answers,
> knowing how
> little he has to do and how bored he has been lately <grins to Steve>.
>
> More of my random thoughts,
> -Commander Dave
>
> Mark Jenison wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've just been skimming through this thread, and it isn't clear to me what
> the
> > scope of the FAQ that you are discussing is. Is it a Remanufacturing FAQ
> as
> > the title suggests (re-creating existing cabinets), how to make an arcade
> > cabinet, or how to restore existing cabinets?
> >
> > As far as restoring existing cabinets, there's plenty of pages for that,
> > obviously. If someone wants to do a restoration FAQ, I think it would be
> best
> > to specify how to deal with generic parts (controls, coin doors, monitors,
> > marquees, flourescent lights, woodworking, etc), and maybe have an index
> for
> > special cases at the end (for unique cabinet stuff like sitdown spyhunter,
> > discs of tron, etc).
> >
> > On www.enteract.com/~jenison/mars in the Feature Articles section I have
> some
> > restoration tips for most all the generic parts above which the document
> can
> > reference.
> >
> > However, since restoration is such a big topic, I would think a "living"
> > document might be better. Maybe a web page which acted like a bulletin
> board
> > where people could post restoration ideas, pages, etc. The web owner
> would be
> > in charge of organizing topics, questions and answer into the most usable
> form.
> >
> > If you're talking about a Re-manufacturing FAQ (how to make an existing
> > cabinet), I think that's too specialized and would need a doc per game.
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Mark Jenison E-mail address: jenison@cig.mot.com
> > Cellular Infrastructure Group Motorola--Arlington Heights, IL
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Tue Sep 7 15:25:44 1999