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View Full Version : Ron Paul Downloads?




Mahkato
01-04-2008, 09:48 AM
I think there's a strong need for a centralized file server of some sort where supporters can post and download PDFs, etc. of interest to other supporters. Currently, there are files posted in about a million different places so there's a lot of duplication of effort and a lot of very good and useful files that go unnoticed by nearly everyone.

There are thousands of excellent files posted at ronpaul.meetup.com, but they're all in individual groups so they're not easy to find. Many more files posted on Yahoo groups, and thousands of private servers everywhere.

Points to discuss:

Does everyone agree that this is needed? Is there already something like this somewhere?
What domain name should we use? The domain ronpaulfiles.com is already taken and says nothing but "It works!" on its home page. There are numerous other domains that would work for this.
Technical suggestions: What document management system, etc., should we use? FTP? BitTorrent? Do we want a way for users to rate files? How do we keep people from uploading junk?
Does anyone have lots of hosting space and bandwidth available for this? I have some but I don't know how popular this would be.


Would it work better just to have a wiki page like this (http://www.ronpaulgateway.com/Files) so that people could create links to important files already on other servers? I can write a script, for example, to automatically pull links to files stored in the Meetup groups, but then I'd have to go through them and pick only the good, general use ones and weed out duplicates.

Mahkato
01-04-2008, 12:28 PM
Bump

Mahkato
01-04-2008, 04:27 PM
Bump?

Mark
01-05-2008, 03:09 AM
I think it's a good idea - but what a task to go to every meetup ect and gather/upload/catagorize the files - sounds like a more than full-time job

It would probably be more than a wiki page could handle

I don't know if anyone would be willing to chipin to help someone do this? The person would need to eat, pay rent ect.

crink
01-05-2008, 03:12 AM
I think it would be great to see all the Paul files in one location.

But on the other hand there are alot of other important things going on.

I'm nuetral

Mark
01-05-2008, 03:20 AM
I think it would be great to see all the Paul files in one location.

But on the other hand there are alot of other important things going on.

I'm nuetral

I guess that would be a reason to assign it to one person - let them handle it - while others do other things

smartguy911
01-05-2008, 03:47 AM
it's not fancy but it's nicely organized - http://ronpaul.profusehost.net/

OptionsTrader
01-05-2008, 03:55 AM
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/get-involved/downloads/

Abobo
01-05-2008, 04:01 AM
I think there's a strong need for a centralized file server of some sort where supporters can post and download PDFs, etc. of interest to other supporters. Currently, there are files posted in about a million different places so there's a lot of duplication of effort and a lot of very good and useful files that go unnoticed by nearly everyone.

There are thousands of excellent files posted at ronpaul.meetup.com, but they're all in individual groups so they're not easy to find. Many more files posted on Yahoo groups, and thousands of private servers everywhere.

Points to discuss:

Does everyone agree that this is needed? Is there already something like this somewhere?
What domain name should we use? The domain ronpaulfiles.com is already taken and says nothing but "It works!" on its home page. There are numerous other domains that would work for this.
Technical suggestions: What document management system, etc., should we use? FTP? BitTorrent? Do we want a way for users to rate files? How do we keep people from uploading junk?
Does anyone have lots of hosting space and bandwidth available for this? I have some but I don't know how popular this would be.


Would it work better just to have a wiki page like this (http://www.ronpaulgateway.com/Files) so that people could create links to important files already on other servers? I can write a script, for example, to automatically pull links to files stored in the Meetup groups, but then I'd have to go through them and pick only the good, general use ones and weed out duplicates.

I own the domain RonPaulFiles.com

I was planning on making something like what you're talking about but I've been too busy with my work. If someone creates the site I would gladly donate both the domain name but also a dedicated server.

terryhamel
01-05-2008, 07:12 AM
Centralization is antithetical to liberty and computer networks. It is what brought down peer to peer file sharing networks and was the reason the decentralized bittorrent was created and proliferated. The solution is decentralization.

Still, how to get these files to people? As already mentioned, someone or some people need to comb through the various sites and grab all the files. When that is done, create a package which can then be distributed through a decentralization network. One example is creating a torrent file for a specific website (or multiple websites) of the folder containing the files or archive containing those files. Once the torrent is created, make it available on volunteer, official and torrent related websites.

The great thing about torrents is that even if one person goes down, there are many more to keep it alive and the more there are, the faster the transfer.

Mahkato
01-05-2008, 10:20 AM
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/get-involved/downloads/

Yes, the files on this page would be linked to.


I own the domain RonPaulFiles.com

I was planning on making something like what you're talking about but I've been too busy with my work. If someone creates the site I would gladly donate both the domain name but also a dedicated server.

Sweet!

For ronpaulfiles.com-hosted files:
First, is it worth it? Do you think we should bother with creating a place to upload files, or should we just have people upload stuff everywhere else (meetup, yahoo groups, etc.) and link to them instead.

Maybe it would be worth it to set it up as an FTP server? I think that would be very helpful, but I'm guessing that if we allowed anonymous uploads it would get really messy really fast. Otherwise, maybe you could install an open-source document/file management system.

For externally-hosted files:
I work with wikis a lot so my personal preference is to use a wiki to quickly organize and annotate links to externally-hosted files. Another option would be to create a Google Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/coop/cse/) and put all the links to the files in there. I'm not sure how GCSE would work with PDFs, though, and it obviously wouldn't work very well with non-text files.


Still, how to get these files to people? As already mentioned, someone or some people need to comb through the various sites and grab all the files. When that is done, create a package which can then be distributed through a decentralization network. One example is creating a torrent file for a specific website (or multiple websites) of the folder containing the files or archive containing those files. Once the torrent is created, make it available on volunteer, official and torrent related websites.

The great thing about torrents is that even if one person goes down, there are many more to keep it alive and the more there are, the faster the transfer.

Torrents are excellent for large, in-demand files. Do we have any files like this, other than the Ron Paul DVD project .iso files? I can't imagine that there would be, say a collection of 50 PDFs that would be worth downloading.

terryhamel
01-05-2008, 10:55 AM
Yes, torrents work well for large files, but a torrent's strength is file redundancy - there's always somebody that has it. Contrast that with an FTP server that can be taken down - decentralization vs. centralization. Many vs. one. It's about accessibility, not quantity, although I've a dozen worthwhile RP PDF's in my meetup section and can think of many more.

Mahkato
01-05-2008, 12:04 PM
Any other thoughts, anyone?

slamhead
01-05-2008, 12:06 PM
Waiting for this site to go live.

http://ads4paul.com

In support of sticky
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=75102

Mahkato
01-05-2008, 02:12 PM
Bump

Oliver
01-05-2008, 02:15 PM
I think there's a strong need for a centralized file server of some sort where supporters can post and download PDFs, etc.


For GFX-Files, go here:

http://revmark.org/pmf/index.php

And I'm sure the Admin might consider PDF's and
other things as well. Sign up and ask him. :)

FunkBuddha
01-05-2008, 02:16 PM
All that would really be necessary is a decent virtual server running a bittorrent tracker like XBNBT. Thats what they use here.

http://www.conspiracycentral.net:6969

Mahkato
01-05-2008, 03:47 PM
DUH. All we really need is a dedicated subforum on ronpaulforums.com, where people can post links to useful files and upload locations. Files can be categorized by setting up sub-subforums for each kind of document.