On 9/3/08 5:43 PM, "Neal Campbell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> Just a few observations:
> 1. Tim, who manages this, isn't an employee of Flex and I can testify
> that the boy works many hours a day at his paying job in addition to
> the time that he donates to us in operating our radios better
>
No complaints there. He¹s doing a herculean job. And for free, no less.
>
> 2. The new Knowledge Center was a project that has been on-going for
> quite a while and is really nice. The positives of the new site far
> exceed any of the discontinuities mentioned.
>
I suspect that opinions differ there. The primary thing about the web is
the concept of the hyperlink. If the link breaks, then the value is lost.
The basic web site rule of ³thou shalt not break links² is a pretty good
one. At least, one should put referral links or META REFRESH tags. (and
not referrals to the top page or some search page..). A personal site
without much traffic, you can play fast and loose with. A site that is the
primary support mechanism for a business? Probably better to follow the
conventions and rules. (opinions differ.. Some companies are notorious for
capriciously changing links dynamically, and it makes sending a link to
their data sheets, etc., a royal pain)
>
> 3. The search mechanism of the old system and the new system both get
> me the information I need very quickly. Its instinct for me to just go
> and search. If the first search doesn't find it, try a different
> phrase. Its really fast and easy.
>
Fast and easy, for that one usage model.
Having to repeat the search each time is a very different usage model.
Taken to an extreme, I guess you wouldn¹t bother ever using bookmarks in
your browser (or filenames or directory structure), and just re-google each
time? Or keep old emails? (with a sufficiently facile and powerful indexing
engine, this IS actually a plausible way of working, however, I suspect that
Flex isn¹t about to go out and fully implement something like DocuShare, nor
are they going to spend the time to fully index things).
>
Again, this is no reflection on Tim¹s toil. And I think it¹s reasonable to
come up with a fix. Either we can update the archives or automatically
generate referral pages to be hosted appropriately. Automated archive
editing is something I¹ve done before, and I¹m willing to do here. A better
system solution is automatic referral pages at the old links (since then
people¹s bookmarks and non-list emails will still work), but I¹m not sure
how that fits into the overall server scheme of things.
Jim, W6RMK
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