History and research

Hello all,

I noticed that this part of the Forum promised a link to the history and research section of the erstwhile Pointing Forum, but didn't include one.

Perhaps that was because it was expecting any of us still adding to that site to post a link, or else because it was only discovered afterwards that you can only post a link directly to the Archive bit once you've added your old login credentials.

Either way, the bottom line is that to access the ongoing stuff on there, you need to navigate there either by copy-pasting the old URL of https://j4f.activeboard.com , or else by clicking on this Pointing Archive direct link. Then enter in your old login and password in the previously familiar manner.

The threads that have still been actively added to on there since the broader Forum's closure (so, since mid-June 2024) are:

• Point-to-point course plans

• Point-to-point courses index

• Point-to-point courses

• Historic videos of hunter chases and races restricted to amateur riders

• Historic videos from point-to-points

• Strongholds of Satan [reviews/comments as each volume of this gargantuan survey is acquired]

• Point-to-point meetings from 1905 onwards

• The point-to-point commentator research project

• Scottish flapping

All comments on/additions to any of those topics, or to the near dozen or so others that are also archived but not added to as recently, are very welcome.

I need hardly add - PLEASE DO NOT INTERPRET THIS POST AS AN ATTEMPT TO DIVERT TRAFFIC FROM THE POINTING POINTERS FORUM.

The main motivation of the small gang of us who lobbied for these threads to be retained under the guise of the Pointing Archive was to ensure that (in some cases) years' worth of work wasn't lost. Not all of the material would be easily (or at all) portable to or reproducible in another forum, and at the time the Pointing Forum's cessation was announced, the technical capabilities of any future replacement fora such as Pointing Pointers were of course unknown.

All that said, my own personal pet project of point-to-point commentators is probably more portable than most; so if time permits and I can guarantee adequate version control, I may try to place updated findings on here in tandem with the Pointing Archive in the near future. I'm mindful that not everyone on here will still have active Pointing Forum login credentials, if they had any at all.

I hope all of the above is okay, or at the least not so controversial as to warrant taking down!

Kind regards,

gc