FAQ

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What is this central news database?

The system consists of a database, an administration interface (HTML), a translation interface (HTML), and a RSS feed generator.
The system itself will not make news directly available to users. The system will only make news available to web sites that want to participate. The system does not want to compete for users, we do want to provide an infrastructure to web site admins.

Category: eComStationNews.com

Where does eComStationNews get its news from?

The central news system is fed with news that is submitted by the form on this site or sent to the old submission address of the VOICE News mailing list. Also, web sites that participate in this system by drawing news have to redirect all news submitted at their service to eComStationNews.com.

Category: eComStationNews.com

Which sites participate in this system?

Currently, the following sites participate in sharing news via this system:

• VOICE: Retrieves news for its VOICE News mailing list and web site. Offers the eComStationNews.com submission form. The old submission address for the mailing list is redirected to eComStationNews.com.
• eComStation.com: Retrieves news in English for the web site. Offers the eComStationNews.com submission form.
• OS/2 Bay Area User Group: Retrieves news in English, links to submission form at eComStationNews.com.
• OS2.org: Retrieves news in German and English, does not redirect submission yet.

Category: eComStationNews.com

How can I contribute to eComStationNews.com?

Translating news

We need translators to translate the news items into other languages than the currently supported English and German.

If you want to help translate the news to your own language, that is certainly possible. You can become member of the eComStationnews.com News Team and join us! Please use the contact form and specify your language skills. If we get the same news article translated to different languages, we can reach more people with more news!

Show our news on your web site

If you want to join our news system, you will be given access to retrieve news from the central database via either an RSS or Atom feed or a HTML page which can be directly included on your pages.

You can retrieve news in multiple languages. Currently, English and German are supported, but we can expand that, provided we find translators.

Please use the contact form and specify your web site. We will then provide you with a login and instructions on customizing the news for your web site.

Add the news submission form to your site

If you have a web site, you can link to our submission form or add such a form to your own pages.

Category: eComStationNews.com

Wouldn't more diversity of news sources be better?

Not any more and for the following reasons:

The eComStation and OS/2 community is small. That means we need to join forces to avoid a waste of resources and free resources for other tasks.

Over the last years, not every news has made it to every news service. This resulted in information getting lost. The reasons for loss of information are twofold:

• Time constraints: Those reporting news don't have the time to report them several times, and those running news services don't have the time to hunt for news on at other news services. Finally, not all users feel inclined to visit all news services to stay informed.
• Language barrier: News happen to be reported to news services that only provide them in one language. Exchange between services that serve different languages is difficult.

We simply cannot afford to lose community members because of that.

Category: eComStationNews.com

Monopolization of information is dangerous. What about censorship and conflict of interest?

This issue has been brought up several times, and distrust in this matter has been the reason why some news services have refused to join so far.

In the past, this service was run on a server of Mensys B.V ., and part of the code was written by a Mensys employee. Since Mensys B.V. is the driving force behind eComStation, some people were suspicious. However, the volunteers who contributed to this project would testify that Mensys B.V. did never interfere with news distribution.
In fact, Mensys B.V. has always seen the service as vital for the future of eComStation, and not meddling with it in their best interest. As a result, the systems architecture was created in a way that would allow manipulation to be easily detected. Unfortunately, that was not enough to convince everybody.

Anyway, there are several reasons why there is nothing to worry about now:

• Mensys B.V. has completely handed over this services to an independent group of people. It is hosted on the same server as the warpevents.eu web sites, and uses open source TYPO3 technology. Technical maintenance is handled by warpevents.eu. Mensys B.V. does sponsor the hosting but has no access to the administration whatsoever.
• TYPO3 provides features for access restriction, logging, and versioning. Any meddling with news could be detected rather easily.
• The team is a rather diverse one. Its members come from different parts of the globe, and they have different backgrounds and opinions.
• Anyone with a clean reputation is welcome to join the news team.

Category: eComStationNews.com

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Why is this site not running on an OS/2 server?

Our focus is getting the job done—with a minimum of money and effort, and a maximum of reliability and sustainability.

Almost no provider offers hosting on OS/2. As a result, we would have to hire a dedicated server, which is expensive, or find someone who allows us to connect our machine to their server park. Running an own server requires that somebody is constantly available as administrator.

In addition, a number of required tools are not available for OS/2.

So instead, we have chosen to host the site at a professional hosting provider that is specialized on the CMS that we use. This has the following advantages:

• Server hardware and software maintenance is handled by the provider.
• First setup and maintenance of the CMS software and required tools is handled by the provider.
• The server setup is optimized for the chosen CMS.
• The hosting package includes support for the CMS.

Category: Web Site

Why are you using TYPO3? It is overly complicated, slow, technologically outdated...

There is a number of reasons:

• This web site is going to be a huge project. What you see as the current warpstock.eu site is only a part.
• We need all kinds of features.
• Administration and the different content areas and languages will be handled by a larger number of persons.
• A kind of quality assurance for the content has to be possible.
• The CMS must be capable of handling this while keeping a tidy interface for the content editors.
• Professional hosting must be available.

We can assure you that we are aware of the fact that TYPO3 does have a learning curve. But the results make the effort worthwhile.

Category: Web Site