On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 13:15:41 +0000, Matthew Toseland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hmmm. > > As far as loading goes, you have the problem of limits on simultaneous > fetches. There would potentially be several hundred alinks on the > page, and the browser might well block while loading them - or the > node might. The node is limited to 24-36 simultaneous fproxy requests. So then, how does TFE get away with it? :-) No, seriously, is this a hard-coded limit, or is it determined on-the-fly, based on the current level of activity? > And now, content: > TFE does not include alinks for every site. Partly this is because > DNFing alinks take longer to load. But partly it's because of concerns > about content. He links to everything, but doesn't alink to > everything. Personally I might prefer not to use an index which caused > the propagation of _all_ sites it linked to - all the pedophilia, all > the porn, all the hate speech, and so on. And even in a 95x32 alink > image, you _CAN_ produce some seriously disturbing images. Also I am > of the opinion that authors of index sites really ought to be > anonymous, or they are storing up all sorts of trouble for themselves, > but you've already blown that, so I'm not criticising... :) See my reply to Todd Walton's post in this thread for my thoughts on the above. > I rather like YoYo's approach, with alinks for everything but a > separate page for each category. Of course this isn't ideal, as you > always have to worry about New/Updated, if you use it. Yes, but, one of the things that I find annoying about YoYo, and about the new "Hopeless" and "Oscar" index sites, is the lag involved in loading a given category. You may bring up the main page just fine, only to find that you're suddenly faced with an interminable wait for a category's sub-page to load. > One other suggestion: Would it be hard to run it dual-format? Have the > whole set of pages both with and without alinks? That's a possibility, sure. Wouldn't be that hard to pull off. > Just my 2p. Feel free to completely ignore, I do not speak for the > project. Well, I'm just personally of the "free everything" school of thought. I really like the idea of just letting the information flow, regardless of content. I'd hate to get into making value judgements re: which sites merit more propagation than others and whatnot. If people didn't like the notion of helping to propagate certain sites, they would then have to decide what was more important to them: having full access to and use of this index site, or sacrificing some utility and convenience for the sake of maintaining their moral position as intact as possible. Actually, the idea of putting (some) people in the position of having to choose along such lines does have its charms, I must say. :-) But that's just me, of course. I do have something of the rebel/iconoclast in me, you might say. :-) We'll see. I'm in no hurry to make any radical changes just yet, and I do value the opinions of others on this. Thanks. > On Sun, Feb 13, 2005 at 04:38:42PM -0600, Conrad J. Sabatier wrote: > > I just added the following to the "News" section on DFI today, but > > thought I'd also go ahead and post it here, too, in the hope of > > generating more feedback: > > > > Feb 13, 2005: Calling all freeneters! Your feedback is needed! > > > > I'm currently in the process of doing some fairly extensive > > revisions to the spider used to generate both DFI's database of site > > links as well as the actual HTML code for the site itself. Perhaps > > the biggest and most important idea under consideration (which I'm > > leaning rather strongly in favor of, myself) is the addition of > > support for activelink images. I'd like to know how you would feel > > about such a change, and I'll explain my own views on the matter > > right here, right now. > > > > The payoff, it seems to me, would be quite substantial, and the > > drawbacks, if any, quite minimal in comparison. For a trivial > > amount of additional code in the spider itself, and in the HTML code > > for DFI, we would be reaping some fairly significant benefits. > > > > Not only would the images lend a great deal more visual appeal to > > DFI (something it is sorely lacking in at present), but more > > importantly, they would also assist in the propagation of each > > site's metadata (which is what activelinks were originally designed > > to do, by the way, in case you didn't already know), thus helping to > > improve "the freenet experience" for everyone. Your node would be > > fetching and saving sites' metadata in your local datastore for > > future reference, while also improving its routing capabilities in > > the process, a big win for everybody no matter how you look at it. > > > > The only real drawbacks, as far as I can see, would be a slight > > increase in the size of the HTML code (pretty much a moot issue, as > > DFI's index.html is compressed and stored in a zipped container file > > anyway) and longer time for the entire index page to render > > completely (due to the fact that your browser would actually be > > fetching the images in realtime each time you load DFI). > > > > Bear in mind that we're only talking about adding a line or two of > > HTML code that references an image, not embedding the actual image > > itself in the page, so it's not like we'd be adding a whole lot of > > additional data per site. Also, the presence or absence of a given > > site's image would serve as a pretty good realtime indicator of the > > likelihood of it being successfully retrieved (a concept you're no > > doubt already familiar with from using The Freedom Engine). > > > > In addition, you would still be able to browse through the index, > > reading sites' info, right-clicking on links to open them in a > > separate tab or window, etc., while any remaining images were still > > being fetched, so the overall usability of the index would not be > > impaired in any way by this. The main body of the index would still > > be rendered as quickly as possible by your browser, while the > > activelink images would be fetched and rendered asynchronously. > > > > Your thoughts on this idea would be greatly appreciated. Please use > > the feedback link on the DFI navigator to send me your opinion. > > > > Thank you! > > > > -- dolphin > > > > _______________________________________________ > > chat mailing list > > chat@freenetproject.org > > Archived: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.general > > Unsubscribe at > > http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/chat > > Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > Matthew J Toseland - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ > ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so. -- Conrad J. Sabatier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- "In Unix veritas" _______________________________________________ chat mailing list chat@freenetproject.org Archived: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.general Unsubscribe at http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/chat Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]