LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
I originally wrote the below to be posted on a thread at B3D, and before I hit the send button realized I was, of course, putting it in the wrong place --so I've transferred it over here instead.
The thread was a 2005 retrospective, and Rys' excellent power supplies article came up. Which was painful to find. Our application of the tender ministrations of the salmon of correction to Hexus noggin begins here: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpo...6&postcount=69 And what was going to be my next, moved here instead, is below.
[Sermon begins]
Y'know, it's a damn shame when that kind of thing happens. When a good site as it grows lets that happen. It's a loss to the larger community, and its a loss to their own reputation and revenue.
I can see how folks who are intimately familiar with the site on a day to day basis as it grows might not quite get just how difficult it has become to find older stuff, particulary for the non-natives. But it is loss to the community's ability to use it as a reference in various discussions. And it is a loss to their own reputation (and revenue from hits) that the best of what they've done --that they have every right to be proud of-- is harder to get ahold of and thus does not get the love and use going forward that it ought.
I can go to Tom's and lay my hands on anything I can remember going back to 1996 in mere moments. They have enuf links to their archives, and those archives organized, that I can do so. Search works sometimes, but your average webbie in looking for what we already knows exists is usually better off with "browse to" by year or somesuch.
But, y'know, maybe Baron, Elroy, and myself are just thumb-fingered. I tend to think not, but then I would, wouldn't I? But there are more objective measurements they could use to find out if they wanted. Say, run a test, find five or so webbies from your travels that seem reasonably competent but are not Hexites; give them a list of five of their articles they are proud of over the last few years. Don't use the Search function to figure out which ones will be easy for them to find in advance (that would be cheating --naughty naughty). For instance, Rys article did not come up on a search of "power supplies". Search is a nice adjunct, but it just doesn't always work out. See if they can find them at all, and if so how long it took for each.
The historian in me mourns for this situation, really.
[Sermon ends]
Reply With Quote
