Dennis,
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More than ten years ago, there were a small number of members who thought that they could modify anything on the layout without consulting with anyone as to the possible ramifications.? Some of them had been members since the founding.??
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Some days we would find multiple copies of essentially the same panel with minor variations that would at least be easily recognized.? Some times very subtle changes had been made to a panel and only after a member complained about how it was now working, or not working, could a repair be made.??
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Making the XML file and the backupPanels folder as read-only and keeping a complete backup set of files on a memory stick did provide some measure of prevention.? However, when any member could be there at almost any time of the week, some problems still occurred.? With the more recent versions of JMRI, we also keep an alternative Config Profile for backup data.? If faceless JMRI ability had been available at the time, maybe we would have tried that too.??
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Only after the same topic for several repeated business meetings made it clear to all members that the Zeroth Rule of Bureaucracy was to be strictly enforced, "You touch it, or you complain about it, it is henceforth YOUR problem," along with a designated person to request needed changes for observed problems, did we get any real relief.??
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Cliff in Baja SoCal
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