Hi Fravia+!
You asked for our opinion about your plans on reshaping
your site, so here is mine.
1) I agree, that you have to stop adding simple (keygen,
patching etc.) essays and concentrate on papers. However,
there will always be newcomers (one day some of them
will be teachers) who need to learn the very first steps.
Therefore, keep even the simple essays up or if you want to
purge the database (not enough space etc.) pass those
to +Greythorne or somebody else who willing to host them.
The knowledge already collected should be available to the
beginners.
2) What kind of essays to accept in the future. I think
you should not categorically reject assays dealing with
protections if they have a teaching value. Look at the very
fine essay of bb's on simulating user input. It practically
deals with nag screen elimination (pure cracking task), yet
from a unique stand point teaching much more about how the
program works than just finding the nag jump. Besides, if
someone just want to have winzip surely will use oscar, so
this assay has little value for the greedy ones. Therefore,
I suggest to evaluate each essay by comparing the teaching
value to the damage it might cause to the programmer. On
this base I support the idea of accepting papers without
mentioning the specific target. It is also obvious that
the more generally applicable the approach the more value
it has.
3) I think one good criterion might be that the new essays
should contain some serious coding (more than just a
a patch or a key generator) like rewriting some part of
the program or adding some new function to it.
This should help us to move on a new level where not just
a superficial understanding of the code required, but a
deeper understanding how the program, the compiler,
and the operation system works together.
Finally, I wish you good luck and keep up the nice work,
your site means a lot to me.
Regards,
Zer0+