John Woodson passes on

John Woodson of Bethel Island, California recently passed on. Today, October 30th was his birthday. John gave a lot to the steam world including his famous website www.stanleysteamers.com John set up his website about 20 years ago and he has maintained it at level that is unmatched by most others. His website forum has a wealth of steam information that will be lost forever if his website is not carried on. His passing is a reminder to all of us that nothing in this world is permanent. We are here only temporarily. To explore his website before it is dismantled, please go to: [stanleysteamers.com]

Thanks for sharing this sad news. I never met John but chatted with him several times. I had a standing invitation to go steam boating with him, but never got up to his neck of the woods.

You're 100% correct about John's web site. It is a wealth of information. I suspect John had archival materials as well.

Please keep us up to date.

Don Hoke

I have just been told that the stanleysteamers.com website will expire in February.

I'm sorry to hear about Mr. Woodson as well. Does anyone know if anyone else has administrator rights to the website, whether anything is copyrighted and so on? Since SACA is building a new website, we might be able to host many of those resources so that the totality of the website won't be lost. I'd need to talk with the site coordinator and the new webmaster, but usually one of the bigger problems developing a new website is sufficiency of materials; it would be a pity to see all his efforts disappear if they could survive in a new home.

Ken

Creating a legacy for John by continuing the web site would be a wonderful thing. There are probably lots of issues with which to contend.

Who owns the site now?

Did John say anything about it in his estate plans?

Who is John's executor/executrix?

From what little I know about web sites, keeping the site live and moving the contant to another owner is technically easy. For example, the entire Virtual Steam Car Museum fits easily on a two terabyte external drive.

More importantly, there is the issue of timing. When I had Watch & Clock Diesase back in the 1970s and 1980s, I had a very good watch collector friend who did not set up his table at a major show as he always did. When his wife came by my table, I teased her and asked "Where is that lazy, no good husband of yours? I cannot find his table anywhere!" She smiled, knowing of our relationship, then she told me that he had passed away. [EXTRACT FOOT FROM MOUTH!] Then she told me an amazing story that went as follows:

"I had hardly gotten my husband's body to the funeral home before I got a phone call from a watch collector who told me (he did not ask, HE TOLD ME!) that my husband had promised him certain watched at certain prices and that he was coming over to get them!" She gave the watches to the NAWCC Museum.

Which is my clumbsy way of saying, let's remember and honor John now. I am sending a check in his memory to the Stanley Museum. We can worry about the web site later.

John was a tremendous talent in so many ways, his website took so much of his energy over all these years. I had
corresponded with him since its beginnings and his energies and creativities were immense. That a few months ago
he mentioned he was selling his boat "Mojo" put a question in my mind that things were changing for him. Getting
older is quite an experience. His website was such a huge collection of steam information and pictures, all of his
determination and perseverence.
Also to be greatly missed is the founder of SACA/NE Walter Winship. A tremendous talent of infinite abilities
that could make something from what he had collected. Many great days were spent there working on all sorts
of steam projects, his study of many engineering fields and his indominable energies and way of life was such
a great inspiriation. He brought so many of us together.
Miss them both greatly, two great human spirits that inspired many of us in so many ways; there honesty, integrity,
work ethic, and abilities should be celebrated by us all.

GeorgeN

John's obituary can be found at: [www.legacy.com]

A close friend of John Woodson's, Christopher Roberts, he told me that the cause of the passing of John Woodson was from the complications of diabetes. Apparently John had a fatal diabetes attack and before anyone had found him, a couple of days had passed. John lived alone so no one was there with him to give him either his insulin or the sugar that he needed during his attack. John's stanleysteamers.com website has just a little over two months left before it goes off line permanently. It will be missed.

Good Morning, Pat!

Thanks for the update on John Woodson.

Have you chatted with his son or wife about the website?

What would it cost to keep it where it is?

If nothing else, someone could copy the website files and preserve the site for future upload to a new location.

Don Hoke
The Virtual Steam Car Museum, Inc.

i have already archived the entire stanleysteamers.com website .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2014 07:48PM by Doug-Ji.

Dear Don, I do not personally know John Woodson's family. The family members can be contacted through Facebook by entering a search for John Woodson, Bethel Island, CA. Reloading John's website information to a new web site (with the John Woodson descendant's blessings) would be the easiest way to salvage the website information. We have worked about fifteen years compiling both the photos, and the steam car forum information. The steam car photos are very important for their historical information, for their steam car ownership information, and for proper configuration of how the steam cars were built and trimmed out. The stanleysteamers.com forum has loads of practical steam car information that can not be found anywhere else. To lose either one or both, would be a big blow to the steam car hobby. Presently, most people that want a quick colored photo of a certain model of a Stanley, they can find it quicker on stanleysteamers.com than on Google. If all of the information on the stanleysteamers.com website were properly sorted and edited, it could be made into the most important book to the steam car hobby. I have been the biggest contributor of photos to the website and I still have most of all of the originals of my contributed photos in my photo albums or on my computer discs. The photos that I have taken go back as far as a little over thirty years ago. I have been a moderator for only the steam car forum, but not for the other forums that John had on his site. With John now gone, the spammers have filled the other stanleysteamers.com forums up with garbage. I do not have the website talents to keep stanleysteamers.com alive. It would be nice if someone with good life span left could take over this wealth of information and put it to good use in some form or another. SACA, Inc. is presently getting ready for a large change in our SACA, Inc. website and we could very easily recycle all of stanleysteamers.com website information into our new website format.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2014 12:21PM by SSsssteamer.

Doug-Ji,

What tool did you use to archive the website?

time

all 4,221 files

I do not know about copy and permission issues , so someone will need to let me know about if it will be ok to release the archive



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2014 09:28PM by Doug-Ji.

I also archived the website using a piece of software that does the job automatically. It took about 12 hours, consisted of 26,655 files in 429 folders and a total of 1.22 GB on the disk. The download included all the forum materials. Looks like about 37 items did not download due to file corruption of various types.

Regards,

Ken

Doug,
This is a subject that only a really good trademarks and contracts lawyer can advise on.
I contacted mine when copying all the Bancroft Library Doble photos. As he said: "Just because someone hands you a picture or you take one and publish it on a public forum does not automatically confer any copyright. You must actually go through the process of applying for the copyright. Also, since you own the corporation, if anyone has a copyright it would be you as they first were owned by the Doble corporation; but they never copyrighted them. You do have a moral obligation to credit the source; but that is all. "
In the Doble photo case, Ailene donated all of Abner's personal collection to the Bancroft. The pictures were never copyrighted in the first place and the Bancroft has no copyright no matter what they say, it is only a money grubbing try.
Considering how copyright or not, everything gets smeared all over the internet and U-tube, unless you wanted to prosecute, forget it.
Jim

HI, what tool or method did you use to copy the site?
I hate to think to do it manually

When they put the factory photos on their site, each one had two places to check. Lo Res and Hi Res.
Yes, I individually down loaded each Hi Res photo and put them in a special file. I haven't looked lately; but am told they have removed them.
All will be in the Doble Book, if we ever find a publisher.

Jim

Hi, Ken!

What software did you use to Download John Woodson's web site?

Best wishes!

Don Hoke
The Virtual Steam Car Museum, Inc.

Hi Done:


I used HTTrack:

[www.httrack.com]

I had no idea there were such programs until I googled for them. I tried another one that did the job in 1/4 the time but it lost all the phorum connections. Might be something much better but it would probably take research and/or experimentation.

Regards,

Ken