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Why is the Echostar Knowledge Base on DBSTalk?

Since the loss of the echostaruser.org site, (2001) I have been concerned with the reliability of the echostar.swiki.com site.  Lately the Swiki server has suffered outages ranging from just minutes to hours to days and at one point more than a week.  The editors of the EKB have absolutely no control over the maintenance or outages.

In order to have a more reliable place for this information, Chris Blount has graciously offered, and I have accepted, space on the DBSTalk server.  The EKB was the brain child of John Buffington (a.k.a. jbuff) from many years back.  However the combination of his "real life" and discontinuation of his Dish Network subscription (in no small part due to the original Dish Player (7100/7200) bugs that affected all DP owners) he has slowly drifted away from maintaining the EKB.  I do not intend to "highjack" his web site.  In 2001, John granted me admin access to the swiki site and asked me to look after it.  I will continue to do that. 

Why isn't the EKB on Satelliteguys.us instead?

The answer is simple:  The EKB came here a year before that site existed.  It is not a matter of editorial preference to one site or another.  It's inertia.  Anyone who reads the forums knows that I am a frequent poster at DBSTalk, a "Super Moderator" at Satelliteguys and have been a member of DBSForums since that site was created from the ashes of DBSDish!  I'll take my information where ever I can find it and (with the author's permission) will put it on the EKB.  Chris Blount offered the space on DBSTalk and the EKB needed a stable home (see paragraph above).  Scott G was instrumental in initially talking me into moving to DBSTalk from the failing Swiki site and helping me move here since, at the time, he was an administrator at DBSTalk.

Five years later, the EKB is listed on every search engine and the Dish Channel Chart  is always at or near the top of the lists with Google, Lycos, MSN and all the major search engines.  After a million hits on just the channel chart page, I do not want to mess  with success.

Just a reminder, the EKB has a home on the DBSTalk servers but it is an independent web site.  Neither DBSTalk, its owners nor its advertisers have editorial control of any kind.  In return, as a courtesy, "Hosted by DBSTalk.com" is placed on most of the EKB's pages.  I personally consider it a payment in kind and an ever-present "thank you" for allowing the EKB to exist here.  It is not an endorsement nor a preference.  I personally appreciate the work Chris does at DBSTalk, Dan does at DBSForums, and Scott does at Satelliteguys.  I personally enjoy all three web sites for their unique styles and visit them all daily.

TNGTony

What will happened to the EKB on Swiki?

Everything that is posted here, will also be posted on the Swiki site in the foreseeable future.  The news pages and "what's new on TV" pages are updated daily on the swiki site and backed up here as I have the opportunity to transfer the information.

UPDATE 3/3/04: The Swiki site is all but dead as of December 2003.  Swiki.net suffered a massive failure during December and has been sporadic at best ever since.  After quite some time waiting for the folks at Swiki to get their act together, Bobabird and I decided to make the EKB on DBSTalk the "main" location.  Some links to Swiki still remain, but I don't expect it to be resuscitated any time soon.  BobaBird and I will slowly start to "lose" the links to the old Swiki.  It served us well. If and when Swiki is restored, we will start using that site again.

UPDATE 12/4/05: The Swiki site is dead as of October 2005.  The domain name Swiki.net was bought out,  To my query about the old Swiki EKB I got the following response: "We have just recently bought the domain name as far as we know the old site is totally gone"  Since there are many historical pages on this site which BobaBird and I do not update any longer, we would appreciate any help we can get.  At last count there were a total of over 10,000 links on the near 400 pages that make up the Echostar Knowledge Base.

If you find a dead link or image/picture pointing to the old Swiki site (http://echostar.swiki.net) please let us know.  Use the mail link on the page if one is available or index@echostaruser.com if it is not.  Just include a link to the page where you found the dead link and the dead link itself.  This does NOT include the "news" pages since many of those stories are no longer available.  If the dead link is for something you really want to see and the link begins with http://echostar.swiki.net just replace that with http://ekb.dbstalk.com  Leave everything after that as it appears on the dead link.
For example:  http://echostar.swiki.net/17 is a dead link. Simply change it to http://ekb.dbstalk.com/17 and it should work.  In any case, please let us know if you find one of these.

Thank you!
TNGTony

Where am I and how did I get here?

There are several ways to get here.  The way many people get here is by going to www.dbstalk.com and clicking on the "EKB" link available on many of the DBSTalk pages.  But there are other ways to get here:

• The direct address is http://ekb.dbstalk.com
• The alias which may be easier to remember is http://www.echostaruser.com
• The Dish Channel Chart (http://ekb.dbstalk.com/dishlist.htm) has an alias which is definitely easier to remember: http://www.dishchannelchart.com.
• I had also used "www.dishchannellist.com" but that alias expired in June 2005.  If you currently use this URL in your favorites, please change it now.

How can I contribute information to the web site?

All contributions and constructive suggestions are always welcome.  If you have questions, constructive comments, corrections, or contributions dealing with any of the information on this web site, please feel free to e-mail us HERE.  Many web pages have a separate e-mail link.  If your e-mail deals with that page specifically, it may be a good idea to use that e-mail link instead so it can be routed to the person actually maintaining that page.  In any case I will be happy to help in any way I can even if it's only to forward your e-mail to the proper editor.

The EKB is currently a joint effort between Charles (BobaBird) and myself (TNGTony).  BobaBird deals mostly with technical issues while I take care of the Dish programming side of things.  None of it would be possible without the efforts of jbuff who founded the site.  He also maintained the "what's new on TV" page on Swiki.  He may eventually wish to do the same here.  And most of the information here ultimately came from  the countless e-mail contributions from people just like YOU!  Thanks!

Tony Suárez
EKB Admin/Editor/Contributor

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