DQ, my 2 cents!

[mklotz70]

Most guys know I wouldn't typically start a thread like this and I will probably ask a mod to close this as soon as I'm done. But, with regards to the recent DQ thread, I feel that of the 3 people involved, Atom, Julian and myself, I should get my day in court. I was unaware of any of the grief going on. I don't get general forum notifications anymore because of all the completely useless BS that seems so prevalent on Ratsun these days.

 

I was talking to Scott on the phone the other day and he asked me about my "take" on the Tach thread. Hadn't heard about it, but we discussed the good and bad of posting copyrighted material. He never mentioned that I was to blame. I just received a pm from Atom a short while ago, apologizing for "dropping my name". I didn't understand what he was talking about, so I started digging through his past posts. I came across the thread. At the end of that thread, I saw Julian's post.....so I dug through his statistics and that led me to the Dime Quarterly thread. After spending nearly an hour getting caught up on all the hoopla...I found that I couldn't even make a comment. So....here we go.

 

 

First and foremost.....Julian....you have my sincerest apologies. Both for scanning DQ's article and for all the BS that's transpired in the last few days. I only wish that I had been aware of these threads earlier.

 

Please know....that was the one and only time(as best my feeble mind can remember) that I have ever scanned a DQ article for anyone. I tried to find a copy of the email that I sent to Atom with the scan. It was over a year and a half ago and if I hadn't seen my name in the thread, I wouldn't have remembered it at all. Most likely, I told him that I had my reservations. I most certainly did not tell him to go onto Ratsun and offer to send it to anyone that asked!!!! WTF!! I've had a lot of people ask me to scan magazine articles that I've mentioned. With maybe one or two exceptions, I've always said no. I did scan a piece of a page in Street Trucks in a Datsun article that mentioned Ratsun as the place to go :) I must have had a lapse in judgement and took the easy way out by scanning the article rather than trying to completely explain the wiring to Atom. For the generation that grew up with the internet, information has always been free and easy to come by. They don't think twice about who owns it. I'm sure he was just excited about trying to help someone. I'm sure he was not looking to short change you guys. I'm the one at fault for doing that. I'm old enough, I typically think about that kind of thing.

 

I assure you that it will not happen again! I am a subscriber to DQ and I bought all the back issues when I started the subscription. They are all still in the Tyvek envelope they came in. I haven't even read some of them :( I'm much more into the trucks, but I've glanced through them for the tech articles. I haven't seen too many tech(how-to) articles in the last couple, but I'm holding out in case there's more coming. :) I promise you that I have not scanned them. I went to a month long school after I got them....I took them with me even though I could have saved some luggage room by scanning them. :)

 

For anyone else that read those threads.......I completely side with Juliann. I get what he's saying about having a hardcopy archiving this information. When NWDE's forum (man do I miss that one!) was heading south, Paula copied and saved all of my how-to's that I had posted. I came close to losing all that time and effort that went into those threads! When I was creating my first disc brake setup for the 521, I would chat with Steve Epperly of ZTherapy at the DatsunNW club meetings. I'd say I was going to do this and that......he'd start telling me how they did it back in the day.......I was like what the heck?!!! Why isn't this information available somewhere?!!! The internet is hard to beat for sharing the info, but I think it would be cool to have some of my stuff in hard copy :) The real issue is that the DQ guys bust their humps to put that mag out. They take pride in it and want it to grow and spread. If people are passing out copies of their stuff for free....they won't generate the new subscribers that make it grow.

 

Bre620 and I had a similar issue with our website. When ODPL(olddatsunpickuplovers) merged with the NICO forum, they wanted to place all the factory manuals that we have on there and put them on their site. We have them available for free download, so some would think, "What's the harm?"....it's just another access point. I kinda thought that at first until Bre explained it to me. He put a ton of time, effort and pride into making that site what it is. He wants it to be the best Datsun site out there. To do that, it has to have traffic. If guys are going to NICO to download manuals, our site doesn't get anything out of it. I spent hundreds on acquiring those manuals and having them copied so Dave could scan them. We did it to help other Datsun owners, but it's nice to get the credit for it :) Some guys brought up that it's just a manual that they could easily buy and scan themselves...and they're right. We did the work and spent the money for our site. They could do the same for their site. They were simply excited about helping out Datsun guys from their end of things. When we said we had a problem with it, they took them down. So, ya, I understand why Julian and DQ would have a prob with my scanning that article.

 

As far as the factory manuals go. I've only done it with manuals that are long out of print. I'd like to think that we are actually helping to generate monies for the dealerships and aftermarket by providing the info to help guys keep their rigs on the road. A lot of guys find the factory part numbers there and then go to the dealer for the parts. I'm pretty sure that Chilton, Clymer and Haynes no longer print any of their Datsun manuals either, but they are much easier to come by. Most likely, they still have new ones running around somewhere. I don't scan any of those manuals. But....if they were still in print, they could have issues with my giving away a competitor's manual which keeps someone from buying theirs. I've seen several other CD's available on ebay that cover all the 510 manuals.....heck..I own one of them. I have no clue if they got permission or not. If the manuals on our site ever become an issue....they will be gone. I doubt anyone is out there to contend with it anyway.......as opposed to DQ which is still very much active and alive!!!

 

Oh....and in case anyone is wondering.....no...Julian has not contacted me in any way prior to this post. I'm actually kinda surprised that I didn't hear from him and get a stern scolding. I think that goes to show that he's pretty lenient as he mentioned, but felt he had to speak up so the line wouldn't start to get blatantly crossed all the time.

 

Anyway....I think that about covers my piece of this whole debacle.

[datto510]

I don't think I've ever met you mike but you seem like a real stand up fella.

 

I was following that thread, Jullian was right, Atom did break the rules by posting that, but after a while Jullian was just stirring shit. I love visiting the 510realm but I mostly read and rarley post because of the way I have seen Jullian verbally beat people down. Its wierd too, the guy seems to have a good head on his shoulders but he is totally bipolar.

 

I have not subscribed to DQ but I have bought several back issues.

[AtomChurch]

Agreed. Thankyou.