Tech: Out of date websites and events

Subject: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Ian Hendrie
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 01:20 PM

This is a plea for the removal of out-of-date websites and full dates to be used when advertising events.

In creating my local folk web-hub for the area around Stockport in the NW of England
www.pyramidfolk.co.uk I have come across a number of websites for folk clubs which don't seem to have been updated for two years or more. I have to deduce that these clubs no longer exist but why can't someone remove the sites from the web?

To add to the confusion there are some events advertised on some sites where the date does not contain a year and which (I believe, though I can't be sure) may have taken place already (last year or even earlier).

The internet should improve communication not lead to confusion.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 01:55 PM

Hi, Ian -
Gee, that's a daunting task. I admit to also being frustrated by date confusion - but once something gets posted on the Internet, it's hard to control. I like to look at information of past events, especially events I've attended - so I'm not sure I'd like to see them removed.
For events posted here at Mudcat, we have limited space for titles, so the thread title often does not have the complete date. If I come across a thread for a past event, I'll often change the title to include the year.
This thread (click) is an example. With help from me, the thread originator was barely able to squeeze this in as the title:
Dave Webber/Anni Fentiman @ the Welly-Thurs 21 Nov

Now, I'm hoping that some who attend the concert will stop in tomorrow and tell us about it. Come January, I should change the thread title to Dave Webber/Anni Fentiman @ the Welly-Nov 2013 - but will I remember to do it? Sometimes I do.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 04:40 PM

I'm not sure that "the internet" in general accepts the belief that "The internet should improve communication not lead to confusion."

Since the appearance of the "smart phone" hysteria, many of the "newspaper" sites have ceased indicating a date of publication of articles, showing only "5 hours ago" or "94 days ago" in/adjacent to the posts (try to figure out when it happened, if you care?) and often omit any identification for linked articles to even tell you WHERE it happened.

In actuality, reports and sites within the music and folk community are significantly better at leaving sites up that may be obsolete but have information of possible lasting interest, and updating where it really matters, than the illiteracy rampant "in the news."

If you really need only the last and most current stuff there's always Twitter and the like, where nothing lasts more than a day or is worth more than 9 seconds attention. (Please note obvious SARCASM, not intended as a personal reference to the OP.)

I think the problem indicated is pretty well understood, but many sites, especially those maintained (or not) by individuals or volunteers, would have serious difficulties with making sure that everything stays "current."

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Ian Hendrie
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 05:46 PM

I don't disagree with much of the previous post and the folk community may indeed be better than other areas of the internet.

I'm not advocating removal of sites of historic interest I just want to be able to recognise that a site is out-of-date without recourse to detective work involving calenders.

If a site advertises a concert on 3rd December I might be interested but would furious if I made the trip to the venue to find it was on 3rd December 2010! Just adding the year to dates on sites shouldn't be too difficult.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 06:16 PM

It seems that the current crop of "reporters" has little regard for things like dates or places.

Yesterday, the obituary news supposedly published by my local pretense at a newspaper reported a "retired construction worker" with about 14 "survivors" born August 2013 and died November 2013. I was amazed that a 4 month old kid had reached retirement age, so I called the mortuary. They recognized there might have been an error.

Today, the same column had eliminated (corrected or removed?) that report but now had a woman born October xx, 2013 and died November yy, 2013 who had acquired 17 "surviving relatives" in less than her 6 week lifetime.

I have to wonder if I must cease being reassured that failure to see my own name there actually indicates that I'm still alive. Maybe I just missed my own funeral. (But I might not bother to go to that event even if I knew about it.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 08:36 PM

"Maybe I just missed my own funeral."

You didn't John. It was last year and you looked so lifelike.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 08:53 PM

Just joking, John. (It would be a sad and sorry day for this site if you decided to pack it in for any reason.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 09:17 PM

Actually I'm a little flattered. Some of my best friends (or at least closest associates) have said it's geting hard to tell if I'm still functioning. Just looking lifelike ain't all that bad.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 02:27 AM

The persistence of obsolete sites is undeniable, but has both its good and bad aspects. For historians the trait preserves history. For those needing current info, about the only recourse is to find a site that's being maintained, where people share a mutual interest in what you need to know, and bookmark it until it joins the static history. Then find another one.

The characteristic seems well expressed, long before most of us knew of the internet, by my old buddy "Omar"** who was fond of saying:

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

** That's "Omar the tentmaker" known locally as a provider of foundation garments for some of my "more endowed" female friends in my younger days. Rumor was that he was a.k.a. "Omar the plagiarist," but I never asked him about that.

Once it's written on the 'net, it's written forever it seems.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Ian Hendrie
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 04:25 PM

Interesting item of news which I came across :

Conservatives erase internet history

It appears that you can make things disappear from the internet if you have sufficient reason.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: treewind
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 05:11 PM

I remember doing that about 12 years ago when I took over a folk club web site that had a "Links" page. It was a long and tedious task testing all the links, checking to see if the sites looked current (if they even still existed) and especially trying to find someone to contact if the site had problems and you wanted to know if the club or organisation it represented was still there.

It would help if all web sites displayed a "webmaster" address somewhere, or if the site has a domain name of it's own, that the email address [e-mail] was valid and reached a real person. I currently host about 30 domains and (I hope) every one has a webmaster@... address that redirects to an appropriate email address, even if it's a customer's site that I don't maintain myself.

I had another problem with mine, which was that I gave it a proper domain name, which it didn't have before, but the old site had links from all over the place, so I had to find those and write to their webmaster's addresses (again if I could find them) and ask them to change their links. The old site had also been set up by a student on a college web server and remained after the student had left, so I had to find someone at the college to remove the old site (and they didn't comply with my request for a 301 "Permanently moved" redirect which would have been more useful)

It is an endless and thankless task, cleaning up the internet, mitigated only by the occasional encouraging responses from people who actually exist, do something you've asked them to and reply to say they've done it.

Keeping a site up to date is hard. I run several and the job is never done.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Ian Hendrie
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 05:28 AM

I'm nor sure how useful linker checkers such as the following are?

http://validator.w3.org/checklink

Anybody any comments?

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 08:26 AM

JohnInKansas - PM
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 02:27 AM
"..... the only recourse is to find a site that's being maintained..."

Have you got any tips on finding when a page was last updated?

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 09:18 AM

Being that he died in 2014, that might prove a little tricky...

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 09:44 AM

reading these 3 posts was a tad poignant


From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 08:36 PM

"Maybe I just missed my own funeral."

You didn't John. It was last year and you looked so lifelike.
==================
Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 08:53 PM

Just joking, John. (It would be a sad and sorry day for this site if you decided to pack it in for any reason.)
=============
Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: JohnInKansas - PM
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 09:17 PM

Actually I'm a little flattered. Some of my best friends (or at least closest associates) have said it's geting hard to tell if I'm still functioning. Just looking lifelike ain't all that bad.

John
==============

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 09:47 AM

Good thing there are other techies here at Mudcat.

Visit The Wayback Machine (the Internet Archive) and enter your last good URL into the search bar - if they captured images of the page over the years you'll see all of the versions. Each year they captured the information appears at the top of the page (with a black line on it) and if you click on a year then view the calendar - every blue dot shows a screen shot.

While you're at it, take a look at the evolution of Mudcat.org over the years.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 10:41 AM

Acme - thanks for the heads-up on the Wayback Machine - what a fantastic resource! I hadn't heard of it - and have just called up my original family tree website from 2003. Great stuff.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 12:00 PM

Thanks GUEST.
Thanks Acme.

Subject: RE: Tech: Out of date websites and events
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 16 - 12:34 PM

It's a site I use when I'm trying to remember the old links I posted on different pages, etc. And it has saved the bacon of more than a few academics who needed to cite events and couldn't remember the details, but knew where the conferences, etc, had originally been posted.