Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 240.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
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[1] From: Robert Kraft <kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> (17)
Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
[2] From: Patrick Rourke <ptrourke@methymna.com> (67)
Subject: Re: critical reflections on publishing
[3] From: mk235@umail.umd.edu (12)
Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
[4] From: Gary Shawver <gary.shawver@nyu.edu> (34)
Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
[5] From: lachance@origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois (42)
Lachance)
Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:09:02 +0100
From: Robert Kraft <kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
A footnote to this discussion of electronic materials "lost" through various
electronic indiscretions, etc., by various parties.
I've been distressed to find that the more recent web browsers (Internet
Explorer first, but now even Netscape) have eliminated access to the older
"gopher" file/format technology so that people looking for the plethora of
materials that we originally made available on our gopher site can no longer
access them. They are still there, I'm happy to say, but we have had to
create a
"mirror site" to renew their general accessibility. Try
gopher://ccat.sas.upenn.edu (mirrored now as http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher)
-- if you have an older browser, you might still be able to get there.
Bob
-- Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania 227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827 kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:09:43 +0100 From: Patrick Rourke <ptrourke@methymna.com> Subject: Re: critical reflections on publishing
>I don't meant to extend this, but I resent being misquoted. I never called >anyone "dopes", and I hope everyone knows that.
You should probably clarify the meaning of this sentence, then:
> I realize the WEb dopes not use floppies but I am not >willing to assume its benevolence or that of those who oversee its local >manifestations.
From 17.229. I do not misquote. I may misconstrue, of course, and would be happy to be corrected on this matter, but my understanding was that you were referring to those who in your words "trust naively in the Web and the Net", and that this referred to those who "[put their] publications entirely on the WEB." The context of your quoted statement about "web dopes" is that of changes in media standards, and you seem to be anticipating a counter to that argument (that data is lost during changes in media) of "why would anyone use floppies anymore", and preempting with "I realize the web dopes [do] not use floppies". I suspect (from the changes in casing etc.) that your message was written in haste and without any revision.
>As to the distinction between text and work disappearing and between the >Web and computer storage -- have none of you ever used a search engine and >then gotten a 404 message ? I find it happens more and more frequently, and >not just to ephemera like blogs. As I have already said, this is usually due to poor planning and site maintenance. The sites I maintain are either marked "draft" or their URIs are maintained indefinitely (usually with a redirect or an explanation why the page was removed). Yes, I get 404 messages from other people's sites, but I consideer 404 messages to be the enemy of the web publisher, and track them down whenever possible on my own site.
>I'm a bit surprised at the emotional intensity of some of the notes I have >received off-line about this: has the Net become the new Church ? My own posting at least was quite unemotional. I described your critique as presenting the symptoms of a poorly considered argument. Such poorly considered arguments are themselves usually the product of emotion. The reason for the vehemence of the response to your critiques is that your critiques are about the results of *poor practice*, and are not characteristic of the field itself. Yes, best practices are not yet widespread, but the solutions to the problems you've raised are known, and it is in part the task of a forum like this one, or of a web publisher like Ross Scaife and Anne Mahoney's Stoa Consortium, to make those practices widespread.
At any rate, here is a bibliography of articles I've used on the subject at hand. They were all written by non-humanists - mostly web standards experts - but are all relevant to any kind of non-ephemeral web publishing (the last accessed date is the composition date of an unfinished paper I was writing on the subject):
Berners-Lee, Tim, "Cool URIs Don't Change," /Style Guide for Online Hypertext./ *World Wide Web Consortium*, 1998. http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI, last accessed 6 February 2001 12:15 EST
Nielsen, Jakob, "URL as UI," /Alertbox./ *Useit.com: Jacob Nielsen's Website,* 21 March 1999. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html, last accessed 6 February 2001 12:16 EST
Nielsen, Jakob, ed., "Reader's Comments on URL as UI," Alertbox. *Useit.com: Jacob Nielsen's Website,* no date. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321_comments.html, last accessed 6 February 2001 12:16 EST
Connolly, Dan, "Web Naming and Addressing Overview (URIs, URLs, ...)," W3C Architecture Domain, The World Wide Web Consortium, 2000/03/08 15:40:17, http://www.w3.org/Addressing/, last accessed 6 February 2001 12:17 EST .
Lassila, Ora, and Swick, Ralph R., edd., "Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification" (W3C Recommendation REC-rdf-syntax-19990222), *The World Wide Web Consortium,* 22 February 1999. http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-rdf-syntax-19990222, last accessed 6 February 2001 12:18 EST [archival; current version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax].
I just now checked all of those documents for the first time in 2 years, and they are all still there. This is because they were published by web publishers who understand and followed best practices.
Patrick Rourke
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:10:05 +0100 From: mk235@umail.umd.edu Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
> Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 06:24:31 +0100 > From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com> > >As to the distinction between text and work disappearing and between the >Web and computer storage -- have none of you ever used a search engine and >then gotten a 404 message ? I find it happens more and more frequently, and >not just to ephemera like blogs.
This is just to correct what I suspect is a common mis-perception: blogs are not ephemera. In fact, a blog is essentially a database. A server-side package like Movable Type affords the user a great deal of control over how content is indexed and archived. Blogged entries are therefore at least as stable as a plain vanilla Web page. Matt
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:10:32 +0100 From: Gary Shawver <gary.shawver@nyu.edu> Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
On Tuesday, September 9, 2003, at 04:31 AM, Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>) wrote:
> Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 06:24:31 +0100 > From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com> > > >I don't meant to extend this, but I resent being misquoted. I never called >anyone "dopes", and I hope everyone knows that.
A careless misreading of a typo for 'does' started that one, see below:
>floppies, etc. I realize the WEb dopes not use floppies but I am not >willing to assume its benevolence or that of those who oversee its local >manifestations.
>As to the distinction between text and work disappearing and between the >Web and computer storage -- have none of you ever used a search engine and >then gotten a 404 message ? I find it happens more and more frequently, and >not just to ephemera like blogs.
Keeping a Web site alive and healthy is more work and expense than most people and institutions anticipate. Nevertheless, scholars should expect that their sysadmins will maintain the integrity of the data entrusted to them. Libraries do not generally burn books to make room for new ones. You have my commiserations on a terrible experience everyone of us has had at some time or other.
>I'm a bit surprised at the emotional intensity of some of the notes I have >received off-line about this: has the Net become the new Church ?
And have we been reduced to either theorizing the Kool-Aid or handing it out?
Some replies to Norman's plaint have sought to place the blame solely on human decisions, as if these could be in some way separated from the (implicitly) infallible Net, but the medium is the mess. (Sorry couldn't resist). We cannot separate the Internet from human policies and decisions, especially since it both invites and requires human action in ways that other, physical media (print books for example) do not. The ease with which digital objects can be altered and even made to disappear invites human action. The complex infrastructure needed to maintain them requires it. Norman's experience is monstrous in more than one way.
gary
--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:11:04 +0100 From: lachance@origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) Subject: Re: 17.237 critical reflections on publishing
Willard and Norman
> I don't meant to extend this, but I resent being misquoted. I never called > anyone "dopes", and I hope everyone knows that.
Extensions and clarifications have their merit. They invite some readers to review the thread.
> As to the distinction between text and work disappearing and between the > Web and computer storage -- have none of you ever used a search engine and > then gotten a 404 message ? I find it happens more and more frequently, and > not just to ephemera like blogs.
Perhaps more frustrating than broken links via a search engine are broken links via an HTML document, especially a resource that one has authored and not revisited in a while. There is of course software that helps authors check the integrity of the links on their sites.
Another element in the ethos of linking. Few, if any, persons linking to material I have uploaded advise me that they have linked. Also fewer requests for link exchange have come through of late (last three years or so). I wouldn't want to generalize from this experience. However, some subscribers to Humanist may be able to link us to some discussions about the etiquette of linking and the human dimension of link rot.
> I'm a bit surprised at the emotional intensity of some of the notes I have > received off-line about this: has the Net become the new Church ?
I have a theory. Speed induced by what the French call "la rentree" gets inflected through national concerns (and some nations have very theocratic discourses and ideologies that celebrate individualsim). Back to school time for some is back to highly personalized political debate.
See for example comments that hypothesize a recourse to ad hominem turns as a failure to imagine scenarios: http://www.vitia.org/weblog/archives/000114.html
And this on the perils of projecting experience: http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/116
However, I would tend to read these bubbling conversations, including the thread spinning from Norman's remarks, as all in some way concerned with production versus work. And symptomatic of a service economy shift in the governance of the academic and educational sectors.
The great question: the place and value scholarship in the lives of the people (the academic, the para-academic, the non-academic). The second great question: the struggle for social formations that truly realize the value placed on scholarship in the lives fo the people.
Old questions. New answers?
-- Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
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