Dear Piya and friends,

thanks. Democracy aside, the ATI sutta collection on Tipitaka Network
is a dated one (around two years back). I "mirrored" the sutta
collection back then when ATI hadn't yet has its own domain at
www.accesstoinsight.org.

These are the reasons why I take down the old collection:

1. ATI is a dynamic site which expands and updates its sutta
collection consistently. Many of the suttas have undergo some degree
of modifications since then. It is thus time consuming to monitor
such changes.

2. ATI now has its own domain for some years, and I believe it will
stay for good. On top of that, there are many other sites that mirror
ATI Tipitaka collection. And it is best to direct "sutta surfers" to
the most updated copy of the sutta rather than an archived one.

3. Sutta Surf is a project at the back of my mind for some time.
Although I didn't want to start anything new until next year, so as
to focus on what we already have now as well as my studies, I somehow
just can't resist the urge to give the Tipitaka Section a new look
since Vesak is coming.

4. You are right that space may be an issue. The bulk of ATI suttas
does take up considerable space. However, it isn't an issue now as I
have upgraded the server space recently. If there is any
recommendation, I would like to put up copies of Tipitaka that are in
the public domain which are still of academic and spiritual values to
the Buddhist community. In fact, I was considering putting up SLTP. I
have now put away that idea for two reasons: 1) metta net already has
put it up there, 2) there are reports that the online version has
many typos.

As ATI and metta net keep coming out with new sutta translations and
I anticipate more sites in the future, it becomes harder for "sutta
surfers" to find relevant information. This is where Sutta Surf comes
in, directing surfers to the right source, saving them valuable time.
Sutta Surf will eventually be database driven, incorporating a search
engine, to provide quality information on-demand. In this way, I hope
Tipitaka Network will better serve the community.

metta,
Yong Peng

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Piya Tan wrote:
Having multiple copies of the same sutta translation is excellent,
since one translator or re-translator can only present so many good
translations. You have to decide whether or not to include really bad
translations, since this is such a democratic website. I was thinking
more in terms of space (and energy) and conveniences of search.