FAQ companion pages.

[Jim Ley]

Hi,

There was some discussion of pages that expanded on ideas (I can't
find the thread right now) that went beyond what could be said in the
FAQ's limited space. If people create these on domains, could they
please ensure that they can guarantee a long lifetime for them,
resources disappearing are a real pain in the neck, I also believe it
would be good if a number of people are able access to edit the page
(in case the person decides, JS isn't for them and we discover the
techniques are dangerous and need changing.)

My site is certainly available to host anything you want, I'm
undertaking to keep it at least for the next 5 years, and will only
stop then if something awful happens to me. There's also lots of
people with logins to the boxes and this will remain the case, again
barring unforseen accidents!

So if you're willing to write a good resource, but don't have a
reliable long term domain to host it on, just let me know!

Jim.

 

[Richard Cornford]

There was some discussion of pages that expanded on
ideas ( ... ) that went beyond what could be said in the
FAQ's limited space.

I am glad that you noticed that and don’t appear to have any objections
to the idea.

My site is certainly available to host anything you want,
I'm undertaking to keep it at least for the next 5 years, ...

So if you're willing to write a good resource, but don't have a
reliable long term domain to host it on, just let me know!

I was going to ask you if it was OK to put the notes on the FAQ on the
jibbering server as they don’t really make sense unless they are
available to anyone who is going to work on the FAQ in future. And they
certainly stand a chance of going out of date over time.

The notes I have written so far are (temporarily) at (or linked to
from):-

<URL: http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/js_info/cljFAQ_Notes.html >

(I have taken the liberty of applying faq.css to them to see what they
would look like)

As you have offered, may I also move the page of mine referenced by 4.39
(square brackets) as it probably isn't guaranteed where it is in the
long term.

Richard.

 

[Dr John Stockton]

JRS: In article <[email protected]>, seen in

I also believe it
would be good if a number of people are able access to edit the page
(in case the person decides, JS isn't for them and we discover the
techniques are dangerous and need changing.)

IMHO, that could be dangerous.

Either a (technical) page should have a known, identified author fully
responsible for it (even if contributions are solicited and edited in),
or it should *obviously* have the property of a free-for-all with no one
person being responsible for the contents (other than the legal
obligations of a publisher).

We see here how frequently those who have been using and studying
javascript for several days, maybe even a week or two, and who have read
parts of a book too, will rush in and repeat well-known errors; we don't
want *them* editing FAQ-linked material.

Neither do we want it filled with Prussian netiquette pontifications.

Even with a limited number having access, there are risks.

Unless properly controlled, there must be a risk of two or more people
editing the same item at the same time; or having a page confusingly
representing multiple points of view.

So I suggest sticking fairly near to the standard model of individual
personal responsibility for pages, and the FAQ and (if any) aux-FAQ
maintainers being responsible, within reason, for the suitability of
their links.

So if you're willing to write a good resource, but don't have a
reliable long term domain to host it on, just let me know!

Excellent.

Such pages ought to remain accessible if the author's machine or account
dies, or if the author loses interest; but not against the author's
will.

Since, Jim, you seem to have control of your Net servers, ISTM that one
way of working would be for authors to grant you explicit permission to
mirror named URLs, while otherwise retaining copyright; I guess you
could arrange software to fetch changes each weekend, and perhaps to
notify you if the page size has changed much (since that justifies
looking at it again).

The uk.tech.y2k mini-FAQ, a *.txt file, was robo-fetched weekly,
by a volunteer, from www.merlyn; in this case, it was posted to
News for me.

The mirror would retain the page if the original vanished or could not
be fetched.

An author wishing to withdraw permission could notify you, and also
could change the contents of the URL to say "Withdrawn" or "Moved".

Presumably you know how to real with relative URLs; you *might* in
principle want to mirror my moredate.htm but not to mirror my
quotes.htm, but moredate has a relative link to quotes.


Another possibility is for such material to be fully donated to the new
custodian-on-behalf-of-the-newsgroup, copyright and all; this is
effectively what happens with material that gets incorporated in the
FAQ. Such pages could be noted as originated by XXXX (2004), edited by
YYYY (2004..9), maintained by ZZZZ from 2007-08-09.

 

[Jim Ley]

We see here how frequently those who have been using and studying
javascript for several days, maybe even a week or two, and who have read
parts of a book too, will rush in and repeat well-known errors; we don't
want *them* editing FAQ-linked material.

Of course not, the entries are still hosted on my server, that's
hardly a free for all, you stilll need to beg me for a login, and I
only do that with reason. It this the fact though that very
knowledgeable people have extremely useful content which they aren't
making available long-term (they simply don't have the host to do it)
jibbering.com is a long-term domain, I've undertaken to keep it so,
complete with "if I drop dead" clauses.

So offering to host resources (not necessarily provide them with the
ability to log in, or change directly anything but their own.) but
it's a lot better than losing a valuable resource - the FAQ is already
mirroring an old post on obfuscation that was lost to the world, I
don't want to lose others.

Since, Jim, you seem to have control of your Net servers, ISTM that one
way of working would be for authors to grant you explicit permission to
mirror named URLs, while otherwise retaining copyright; I guess you
could arrange software to fetch changes each weekend, and perhaps to
notify you if the page size has changed much (since that justifies
looking at it again).

That is certainly possibly with the current hosting arrangements, and
I would hope it would in future ones certainly. This is a good
compromise situation, but I would be keen for the FAQ to link to the
version that has a similar undertaking of longevity as the FAQ itself.
Mainly it's up to the authors of those resources though. People have
been known to disappear though.

Jim.