[web-team] Catching up (site maintenance)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Mark Weisler (mark at weisler-saratoga-ca.us):

> Some of our other pages, like the link farm, http://www.svlug.org/farm.php, 
> could use some grooming I think. 

If you had to ask me, any day of the year, which of our pages is most
likely to have obsolete content, my answer would always be "the Link
Farm page, of course".  ;->  (Such a page suffers link rot more than
most because, of course, it's link-heavy.)

A few years back, I did update the page absolutely from top to bottom,
and have re-checked everything at irregular intervals since then.

> For example, CompUSA is listed there with a rather dated blurb about
> obtaining Linux off the shelf. It's pretty hard to buy Linux off the
> shelf anymore and CompUSA has fled the area. BTW, it appears that
> CompUSA is affiliated with TigerDirect.

Thanks, I hadn't known that.  I very seldom go into computer/software
stores, and wasn't aware of CompUSA's demise as a local retailer.

A few years back, I actually made the rounds of big-box software
retailers, specifically checking data for SVLUG's Link Farm page, even
though I had no personal need to do that sort of shopping.  Anyway, if
you happen to notice which retailers do and do not carry particular
Linux distros, please do dive right in!

Some bad links are judgement calls.  E.g., the link within "Other (Linux,
Unix, Software, etc.) Local Groups" to "CSUEB Linux User Group (Hayward)"
resolves to a 403 (Forbidden) error, as the user account (linuxug) under
which that HTML tree was stored doesn't exist, any more.

On the other hand, it's too soon to conclude (from that data alone) that
the group has folded, because it's a student group, and school has just
recessed for the summer.  Sometimes, student LUGs fold completely over
the summer; sometimes, they get revived again in the fall.  "CalLUG
(Berkeley)" has gone through several cycles of such summer collapses and
surprise revivals:  Currently, it's dead again (Web server wiped), and
I think it more likely than not that it's not coming back.

"SJSU LUG (San Jose)" is now almost certainly completely dead:  I've
checked it occasionally for some months, and it seems to have
evaporated.

"SlugLUG (UC Santa Cruz)" has come and gone, and come back:  Right now,
it's spent the past year being half-alive, with the Web site rebuilt by
the sole student looking after the group, but then being stagnant, and
the Mailman mailing list continuing to be semi-active.


Anyhow, my broader point is two-fold:  (1) Student groups are particular
problems, and summer hibernation is difficult to distinguish from
collapse.  (2) It's desirable to not merely expunge items associated
with dead links, if possible:  Sometimes, you can find a replacement
location or an equivalent resource.  This of course requires time and
trouble.

(There are actually some additional, specific reasons why student LUGs
have continuity problems, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.)


> Anyway, time permitting, we might groom some of those pages.

Which other pages?

The only needed changes that stand out to me are a couple of updates
needed to http://www.svlug.org/sponsors.php : 

1.  The link to the former OpenCountry Web site now goes to another of
those accursed pay-per-click sites, and thus should be replaced with an
Internet Archive / Wayback Machine link.  (We might furnish such links 
for VA Research / VA Linux Systems, Linuxcare, and Accent
Technology[1], too.)

2.  The Linuxcare entry should be revised to note the fact that Levanta,
too, folded as of March 31, 2008.


(Changing subjects from the Sponsors page, per se:)  The "sponsor
spinner" CGI still has Open Country's logo in the rotation, I see.



[1] The Web site for Accent Technology still lends the defunct firm a
zombie-like appearance of life:  http://www.accent-technology.com/ 
However, the firm's very definitely dead, and its Web site will
undoubtedly evaporate at some point.