AFAIK what happened was repair info, pictures, etc were collected from various people.. websites, RGP posts probably, etc. They were combined into guides that grew over time and became a pretty strong resource for the community. Clay organized the info, added new content. So it was a mix of a lot of people's content, intertwined ideas and pictures. Ultimately organized into something coherent and helpful.

A donation link went up for the guides at some point.. to donate to a specific pinball museum for access and quite a few people who had their content used that were otherwise OK with it in a collective free guide, weren't so much any more and wanted it pulled from the guides. Too much effort to sort out, remove content, add new pictures, create new verbiage..and probably still would have had people irate that even ideas or concepts were used regardless. The shit-storm that happened lead to the guides being taken down. Then others to post mirrored links, bittorrent copies. So no new or updated guides, just copies floating about. And PINWIKI was born.

Just my own quick view of it, I'm sure there's a ton more back-story and drama.. but then there's a lot of things people aren't aware of unless they're actually behind-the-scenes or in the thick of it themselves.

Please just google it. That was a serious shit show that doesn't need to be brought up again.

I think whatever the story is, it probably deserves to be told. Is it just me or does this actually sound pretty interesting?

Google has the issue as it unfolded live still available of course. Here was when this issue was last discussed on Pinside:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/clays-guides-are-they-ever-coming-back

Thank you.

Shitshows are fine if you can't smell it

What's the google link? I've paid to have access to PINBALL ninja, and I like it, but the bigger story sounds interesting. Please share.

Several of the guides are still available at this old pinball. The rest can be found easily by searching for them. I've heard two different stories about why they were pulled but they both came down to someone charging for them and others that had pictures in them cried foul.Luckily I was using them before laptops were a norm so made "WORD" files of them to print out when they were freely posted on the net.

Typical lawyer BS going on in the world today. There are organized lawyers who buy small unprofitable companies knowing that there is a ton of money in suing other companies\people who are infringing on that small companies' intellectual property, patents mainly, that come with the company buyout by the lawyer outfit. Buy the patents, sue the unlawful users, who cares about the business itself.

In this particular case, the perp is taking unprotected public intellectual property and trying to profit from it. I hope there aren't any laywers here that would get offended, but even though legal, there's some human decency involved in not doing all of that, maybe some people don't understand that. A smart man always said to me, "Sometimes you need to beat consideration into certain people".

acebathound thanks for the info,all interesting stuff that went on long before my addiction.
-Mike

The few people who told you they were originally a community project are full of shit. They were started by Clay who wrote them. There were additional contributors who are all listed in the back of the guides with their contributions.

You're Confusing the "clear pinball machines" (that Scheiss sells for $30k apiece) with all those Predators that you claim Clay has.

The repair guys are 100% written by me. there are some contributors and help with some of the information, they are noted in the bibliography sections of each Guide. All the pictures of the published guides that are on my website are all taken by me. I spent years of research and work doing the repair guides. Any help was documented in the bibliography section.

A few years ago Michael from the PPM suggested that I let him sell the guides and they keep the money to help buy a place for them to have their museum. I agreed to it. Some people that contributed pictures to the guides were upset. So it forced me to take the guides down and Michael decided not to proceed. The guides with pictures that weren't mine never returned to my website. I felt it was best this way since I did not own all the pictures. I always owned all the text as I wrote every word and sentence.

At some point in time I would like to return the missing guides back to the website but it just involves a lot of work having to reformat and retake a lot of pictures. A lot of time involved and right now I just don't have the extra time to dedicate to that.

The guides were not a community effort. Some people helped yes but they are all my work in my words and my research. If you don't believe that then simply ask anybody who wrote what? You'll get no response. Any help with a particular guide is documented in the bibliography section of each guide.

This sounds like Kaneda Kourt.

The guides are great, easy to find and have been nothing but a boon for pinball even as bootlegs. When this drama was going down, I printed all of them up at work (hundreds of pages) in fear that they would be gone forever. Glad they're still around and would be delighted to see them back up for the world to find in their rightful place (pinrepair.com).

The poop stirring is strong on a Friday night. So much for the crickets...

Clay repair guides are all Clay's
with exception of some photos for some of the guides
and those guides with photos that were not owned by him
were removed from his site. (as he has stated)
Clay or the VFW does not have any see thru pins in his/its possession now or ever
and the PPM has never offered him such.
I offered Clay some help with his Game Plan guides
by sending him some misc parts for Game Plan pins
and was acknowledged in the guides bibliography.

thanks Clay
cheers tom

Steve Charlyne contributed zero to any of the repair guides. Nothing nada. Joel cook contributed nothing to any of the repair guides zero zilch. And I don't have a clear pin nor was I ever going to get one for any reason. I was thinking of making one but I never got off the ground with that

Pinside is getting tiring.
Thank you Clay for doing what you do, you taught me a lot.
Move on, people, or person...

I think the "SAD" part of all of this and pretty much everything in the pinball hobby is "a few people" feel the need to ruin it for the masses. Personally I think Clay has done more for the preservation of pinball and the hobby than anyone I can think of other than maybe Steve Young (Pinball Resource). Yet every time the repair guides or Steve owning the rights to Gottlieb Manuals is talked about a few people feel the need to start bitching about things.

Bottom line is Clay has spent countless hours trying to help people learn to repair machine and yet a few people had to start some shit about content in the guides and now they are not easy to access like they once were. Yes Clay started asking for a few dollars but that money wasn't going into his pocket but even if it was a few dollars for that vast amount if info would still be one hell of a bargain!

I don't blame Clay for being upset about finding that info on another web site. I am sure if any of us put the time & effort into getting all that info together we would be upset.

Whysnow [side comment removed] is just mad he is banned from the show around here. Last time I saw him he was flipping games in the parking lot of the vfw.

I havent been here for as long as this has been going on or at least aware of it. Anything someone did to help others out even for a small fee is nothing new. This has been going on for centuries. Its a small niche group who likes pinball. I got my machine without a goal or even idea of what went on with pinball. Without guides and people who posted on my posts helping me, my machine would be nowhere near the almost finished state it is in now. Maybe paying someone to complete it but i like the satisfaction of doing it myself even tho it may look like shit. I agree with too many pins, its sad when a few people ruin how others talk to eachother in a forum set up to comunicate about our hobby, but people troll on any social setting.

Everyone ive ever talked to thru pinside has been great, i hate hearing about anyone getting grief

Oh Whysnow already knows that, just stirring shit up as usual. Hey he even closed the thread

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Question asked and answered. No reason to rehash this or get into a blame game or cause drama. It's Friday night...go grab a cold one and play some pinball.