Manual grabbers

[YNOT]

OK, been reading the posts for a coupla days and I'll have to fess up to still not getting it...

The EMA 4WD manual for example is freely available to anyone on planet Earth with a PC and an Internet connection. EMA have no restrictions whatever to access their documents, no "must have x posts", no "must register", no "must contribute", no "we have found a very helpful document but you can either stumble over it yourself with Google or jump thru the hoops and we'll tell you". You just go to the EMA site and there it is. The only proviso is noone can use it for commercial gain

Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely no issue with accessibility levels imposed on stuff that has been collated and published by OR is of some level of intellectual property of the Forum/Members but I just cannot see why there is so much feeling for restricting 3rd party documents or info where perhaps a sticky of a "Handy Documents" Link would suffice?

Anyway, one thing is for sure, it is certainly a strangely emotive subject eh...

The main reason for imposing the 25 post rule is to stop hordes of people downloading it. The manuals are big documents and everytime someone downloads a manual it uses up AB's bandwidth allocation. AB already has the forum on the highest bandwidth plan and if that bandwidth is used up the forum will either slow right down or stop, something that none of us want to see happen.

Tony