Ok, I didn't want to write my thoughts about the registry, but it seems that so far I haven't seen any good ideas about it. This will be a long post.
I will try collect the "unasked questions". I am very suprised that I haven't seen these unanswered questions, just only "let's do it!" sentences.
Question zero: correct me if i am wrong, but did i read that Dan WILL NOT responsible for the data or the register ? If not him, who will responsible ? Who will make this register anyway ?
Lets continue with the most important question: Why do we want make / see a bmw e9 register ? Are there any reason behind it ? Do we want to make a help for the next owners where they can check the history of their future cars - that might be a good reason ? Or do we want to let the proud owners to display their car - if we say yes, that can be done with member list tweek, no need for registry.
Or some people WANT this registry because they want it, and they can say "into the air" that "i want a register, let's do it", without any responsibility ? Ok, then I want a new house, all the alpina e9 cars, etc. Anyone can say these things.
So first of all anyone who want a register or want to cordinate the whole project should make it clear why do we want a register.
Before any register specification there is another problem. I have wrote about it but it seems most poster have ignore it. In the past I have seen or involved in several bmw histroy / club / website related projects. In these projects I have learned the tipical reactions from the people (only a few persons were expections): people want a "stupid" person who will make anything they want. And typically most people usually say "we need this project", but DON'T put any material / help into the project. And if you screw up something, or something will not work immediately (or after 5 minutes) what some people want they will attack you, and will say khm... very bad things about you. I have talked other people who were in same situation (helped/started a few project for the community) and they had same experinces.
I see that in this thread most people are in happy "let's do it!" mood, but if anyone accept this challenge (making or cordinating the project or accept the admin job), should consider these thing i have wrote. You can find yourself in a situation after a few month that the supporters will attack you, and will say that it can be done better, and everything you have made sucks. So think about it.
Who is in the register thing. There is no problem with the users who want to share information about their cars. But I see serious problems. with adding the offline registers (like art's one, or the dutch e9 register, yannick's register, etc):
- who said (anyone said that ? ) that these offline register admins will give us their 10-20-30 years of hard collecting work happyly and free ?
- if they (or some of them decide to give us the date), it some cases the data can be 10-20 years old, and the owner information lost long time about. Then who and how will ask permission from these "no contact" owners to post information about their cars ?
- if you see a car on a road, talks with the owner, makes a photo about the vin : is that means that you have permission to post these data to an online registry ?
- as long a registry is an offline registry, pictures are not a problem, but when it is online, then it's a different story. In the world there about 150-200 country. Is there anyone who knows all the local laws in every country about publishing pictures online ? who can be seen on the photos ? (in some eu countries it is not allowed to take and publish a picture single person - even there is a car on the photo). And anyway what laws says about publishing personal information to a online website ?
And what is the situation posting pictures with visible licence plates ? (good connection at the local police + known licence plate -> anyone can steal your car from your garage, for example).
The admin / reponsible things:
- who will be responsible for the uploaded content ? Means:
1, What if i edit the history of a well known 3.0 csl for sale ? Who will validate that my information ?
2, What if some people will upload child porn pictures to the registry (under the data of the cars) ?
I think there is no good solution for the first problem - khm.. then how trusty our register will be ? The second problem can be fixed if at least 3 administrators joins to the project and before any changes will be displayed one of these administrators must validate it.
Technical stuff:
- I have seen no guide about what is the MINIMUM level of information must be uploaded about any car
- an easy + fast, 10 field max register is good for most people (registering a car in 5 minutes -> so it is okay). But then it is hard to search for specific information. And not very detailed. An example:
http://www.bmwmregistry.com/models.php?id=14
But a detailed register is might be better:
http://www.e12e28.de/BMW_e12e28/E12_Register/Fahrz_Daten/M1999/m1999.htm
In this case it will take more time to fill the data. Most people hate filling lots of data on a page. But this is a proper, detailed registry.
And the third case is the ultra registry, where can fill exactly what equipments are in the car, in every year you can document all the data, you can fill bmw mobile traditon info as well as the data from the papers of the car, etc. But these information should be separated to 3-4 pages, and filling these information takes minimum 20 minutes. But this version is the most detailed register ?
I haven't seen any guide from the non-exist e9 registry project cordinator about which is more important: less data = more car in registry = bad registry, or detailed data = very low number of cars in the registry = excellent registy
The project vs person problem. Who has declared that he will help ? Will those persons really help, or they just joined the hype because it is sooooo cool to have a registry ? (I have seen such a behaviour about 100x times in the past 15 years i am online.)
How the offline registry owners will send their data to the registry ? In what file format ? And what we will do if the swedish and the french csl register has different data about a specific car ? What will happen if a registry owner want money for the registry data ? Or the registry owner has correct information and proves with correct documents that our database information about several cars are incorrect, but he will not correct those information ?
Oh, by the way is there anyone asked bmw mobile tradition what they think about this registry ? Do they allow us to make a registry or not ?
The login problem. Is it needed to register an username/password for the register ? What information do we need to log about the users (ip address, what pages he has changed, etc, etc) ? What catpcha do we need to use ? Who can have access to the register ? Who can modify it ?
These are a few dozens (yes, minumum 50 more !) open question about this project, which noone asked before, but very important. I am waiting for if i will see it from other users on this board.
Before that one interesting question. As you might know, BMW don't release data from the last 57 csl bat, because in some cases these data can used to make fake 3 1/2 serie csl cars. Ok, then someone upload data about one of the last csl car. He uploads fake information, because he want to sell the car. Then someone, who knows the correct information, fixes it, and says it is a fake csl car.
What is this situation ? There is website / database operated with 1-2-3 admins. And the website of this register says such information which will refuse the business of the fake csl seller. And lets assume that csl is owned by nice criminal with maffia connection. And he will not like what he see.
May I ask who will be responsible for this, and who will happily invite a hitman into his house sent by this criminal ? Some might think this is nonsense, but don't forget we are talking about 150.000 - 200.000 usd cars which is a serious invesment. Noone can expect any support in this case from the users, because users want to push the responsibilty to the admins. Am I the only one seen this behaviour about 1000x times ?
See ? Do you understand now why i said that the technical stuff is only 2%, and the rest of the 98% is important ?
