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17 Mar 00 - 03:18 PM (#196859) Subject: KILL DEAD AND REDUNDANT LINKS!!! From: Joe Offer There are all sorts of wonderful treasures to be found on our Links page. Unfortunately, some of those treasures are posted five or six times, and some of the links don't work any more. All this extra stuff makes the links page ungainly. I wonder if I could ask everyone to click on this edit your links (clicky) and do a little housecleaning. Here are the problems I've found:
There are probably a number of other redundant and dead links that I missed. It looks to me that we could cut our links page to half its current size, and not lose one bit of the information that's there. Redundant and dead links make the page harder to load - and harder to read. Please take a moment to review your links and fix what needs fixing. Remember - only you have the button that can edit the links you've posted. Thanks. -Joe Offer- Click here to edit links |
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17 Mar 00 - 03:34 PM (#196874) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: McGrath of Harlow I've checked mine, and they are ok, and they aren't duplicated, I think. (And the spelling is correct now.)
But is there an easy way of checking whether a site you want to put a link to is or isn't already up there already?
The other query is how to deal with links that could logically fit in two headings - for example if we came across a site about Gaelic folk, (both Irish and Scottish?) or about French Canadian songs (American and International?) I'd think the right way would be to have some kind of cross-reference, with a single full entry. |
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17 Mar 00 - 03:52 PM (#196886) Subject: From: Joe Offer Hi, McGrath - with Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), you can find a word or group of words on a Web page by using the CTRL-F keyboard shortcut. Type something distinctive from the URL you're linking to in the search box ("contemplator," for example), and off you go. Generally, I'd suggest linking to the home page of the resource you're recommending - other pages tend to disappear, but most people use their home pages as permanent indices to their sites. As for the question about categories, I can see your point - but I think our links page isn't really big enough to actually need categories. Since they're there, choose one category. If other categories would be helpful, put them in the (brief, please) narrative explanation of the site you're linking to. I may be a voice crying in the desert, but I continue to believe that brevity is wise and redundancy is foolish. End of sermon. -Joe Offer- |
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17 Mar 00 - 03:55 PM (#196889) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: McGrath of Harlow The soul of wit! |
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17 Mar 00 - 06:12 PM (#196941) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Lesley N. Joe - the child ballads is just temporarily dead (is there such a thing). I moved hosts and there was a hiccup. Should be fixed in a couple of days - hopefully sooner. I changed it so www.childballads.com would point directly to the child page... figures there would be a glitch... |
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17 Mar 00 - 06:39 PM (#196949) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Helen Joe, I'm sure that this is not what you want to hear, but maybe there is an easier way to enter and then manage the links. I was thinking of the screen which comes up after we want to start a new thread which searches the existing threads for the words contained in the thread title, and says these threads might already cover your topic. Also, even though I thought I had put in some links on the Links Page, it doesn't show up on the Edit Your Links page with my name on it. Maybe an indication of who posted the link could be put on the links page so we could see in one hit which ones are ours, whether there are duplicates, etc. It would be nice to be able to track the interests of like-minded people through the links they post, so if we like what they say in a thread we could see what other pages they are interested in. Sorry for creating more work - but short term pain may equal long term gain - Oh no, I'm talking like my alter-ego the management/organisational development bod. Helen |
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17 Mar 00 - 06:48 PM (#196952) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Joe Offer Well, Helen - the Links page is kind of an experiment. Max set it up as the only place where members can edit what they've posted. Looking at all the duplicate links (that I can't delete), I'd say the self-management policy has its shortcomings. That's why I decided to start this thread and nag a little.... -Joe Offer- |
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18 Mar 00 - 05:30 PM (#197370) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Helen Joe, You can nag anytime you like. We should contribute to the effective running of the place because we owe it to the Mudcat, to Max, to you and the others who maintain the operational side of things as well as the more intangible things like the atmosphere/ambience of the 'Cat. Helen |
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18 Mar 00 - 09:51 PM (#197461) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: wysiwyg I would just reiterate what Helen mentioned about signing the links you post-- let us know who has written the site description please! |
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18 Mar 00 - 10:17 PM (#197476) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Jon Freeman There is one glaring failure in the system to begin with. The membership is to some degree transitory and there will enevitably be links put up by people who know longer visit Mudcat. Jon |
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19 Mar 00 - 12:13 AM (#197515) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Helen Well, I just fixed mine. I had to delete Reelmusic. Does it still exist? Anyone know? I also put an H at the end of each one so I can look at the whole list of links and know which ones were mine. Helen |
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19 Mar 00 - 04:32 AM (#197590) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Joe Offer Great idea, Helen. I'll get around to signing mine sometime this week. -Joe- |
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23 Mar 00 - 09:25 AM (#199844) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Wolfgang Good idea, Joe, and I'll do my bit of work during the next weeks, but I believe more in software ergonomics than in humans when it comes to avoiding errors and there's an easy solution: Max could easily (with 'easily' I mean the idea for I know that the implementation could be a lot of work) let the program check whether a link already exists and warn the person about to enter the second link. Wolfgang |
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23 Mar 00 - 09:28 AM (#199845) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: alison I took my links to Jen's lyrics out earlier slainte alison |
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23 Mar 00 - 10:35 AM (#199872) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Wolfgang another idea coming from a little problem Alison and I had in the Isla Waters thread: a link should be categorisable by more than one category. Why? Example: There's a great Silly Wizard and Andy Stewart site with lyrics and more. I had entered it under 'silly', Alison entered it under 'Andy' and we both choose different categories. This double posting would have been very difficult to avoid (yes, you can scan down a list of all links, in principle). InOBU, who needed lyrics from that link may not have found them even if he had looked the links, for he may have looked under the heading 'lyrics' or 'scottsih' and I had entered them as 'general folk' (and Alison as 'singer/songwriter). If several categories were allowed this link would show under all these categories, but it still would be only one single link. Wolfgang |
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23 Mar 00 - 07:03 PM (#200227) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Lesley N. Helen,
Brian's site (that would be Brian Hicks, who was reelemusic) has not been online for some time, but he gave Kathy Barthen of Ireland Now, permission to mirror his site. She does not have his lyrics files, but she has the midis and pretty much the same set up otherwise. That mirror is at Ireland Now's Music of Ireland (http://www.irelandnow.com/heritage/music/irishmusic.html). Brian himself is online at The Feif of Brian (http://www.iswiz.com/). If you go there you'll notice that part of the reason he stopped is that BMI hit him with $500 a year for the rights to tunes...
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24 Mar 00 - 05:47 PM (#200933) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Terry Allan Hall Speaking as that "singer/songsmith"...LOL...link is now fixed (former provider is/was vandalized by a hacker, so I moved to a new provider...) Oh, and my credibility is not an issue, and never was. Have a nice day.
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08 Apr 00 - 04:35 AM (#208796) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Joe Offer Somebody asked me for advice on posting links, so I typed this up. This is my personal opinion, not policy, by the way. I'd suggest that we don't go overboard in posting links on our links page, since it's getting huge as it is. What I'd do is provide a link just to the main page of a site, and let people find their way from there. I think each link we post should be checked to make sure it isn't a duplicate. Use the "find" function on your browser [CTRL-F] to search our links page for just the first part of the URL you want to link to (it doesn't make sense to link to various pages in contemplator.com for example). The idea is to provide the information, but not to overload things. Make sense? Thanks. -Joe Offer- |
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17 May 00 - 05:19 PM (#229537) Subject: RE: Mudcatters - please fix your links From: Joe Offer Hi, again - along with the permalinks, Max added a function so that certain people (me, for instance) can edit the Links Page. Over the next few days, I'm going to be cleaning house there, paying special attention to duplicate and dead links. If you have posted multiple links to the same site, you may want to go and edit the links you've posted so you get them the way you want them and don't have to rely on my judgment. A few things you may want to be aware of - I'm going to edit down the thread descriptions so that they're no more than about four lines. Also, I'll probably delete a couple of links that are obviously commercial in nature - I'm thinking about deleting one that offers to buy used CD's, but haven't made a final decision. I'll probably combine the links to various performers that are all at the same site. Generally, be aware that there should be only one link per site, and we're not going to allow you to post the same link five times so it fits five categories. That makes the links page too cumbersome to load. I'll try my best to edit sparingly because Mudcat is a place that's supposed to be open to the contributions of all. I'm a fallible human being, so don't be too hard on me if I delete your favorite link. Just post a new link (just one link per site, please), and everything will be fine. If you know of links that need to be fixed, please let me know with a personal message or a message here in this thread. Thanks. -Joe Offer- |