----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 12:42
PM
Subject: RE: [backstage] Test [ing
stuff]
Slightly OT, but given that the
subject of tests came up, excuse me twisting it a bit further and beg some
help ...
We've been working on some stuff
that maps ip addresses to country locations. One use is the edition
selector for news.bbc.co.uk homepage [1]
Sadly, it isn't likely
to be anything that we can open up via backstage, although for those
interested in such stuff, you might want to look at [2] . Cpan has interfaces to that
also...
However, being the international
audience that you are, I was wondering if you might spare a couple of minutes
to help us do some user-testing?
ignore the "confidence" lines :
simply there for our benefit
If you think the answers are
*wrong*, it'd be useful to know which ISP you are using (or how you get your
internet connection). Anyone who's flying on a plane with internet
access : I'd be mighty curious to know what this reports ;) Regarding
privacy stuff, see [3]
Ta,
Murray.
[1] there is a uk edition that uk
people get, and an international edition the rest get. You are free to
switch editions, and there is no hidden agenda here that I am aware of about
doing anything evil : it's simply about shifting the focus of the articles
that appear to make them more appropriate to the relevent
audience.
That said, there are
also cases (for example, the olympics) where we are allowed to stream content
but only to a uk audience. None of
this is particularly new, we are just trying to make the logic/functionality a
bit better...
[2] this isn't an endorsement,
simply a link to an open source resource I've used in my own work, outside of
the bbc. There are other companies that offer similar services, although
no open source alternatives I know of...
http://www.maxmind.com/app/opensource
[3] We're only after data for
testing purposes, it'll only be used for testing this functionality and it'll
be destroyed once done and not used for anything else. Obviously we're capturing your ip address, but
this is only to help us fix cases which appear to be wrong. If
you are at all woried about this, please don't submit the
form...
