>-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matthew Cashmore >Sent: 21 August 2007 10:17 >To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk >Subject: Re: [backstage] Inside the BBC News site > >Good question - let me speak to the news guys - it may be worth doing a >podcast about it's history and how it works. > >I do know however that it's a bespoke system build >specifically for BBC News >- which has a very unique set of requirements - it's grown over several >versions over the last five years or so and it's a BIG beast that has >journalists using it cursing and praising it in equal amounts!
No Matthew, you've made an elementary error there. They only praise it. What were you thinking? I wrote this article two years ago http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4606719.stm which was in response to some questions asked on the predecessor to the "editors' blog", but it's far too high level to be of much interest I think? (I didn't choose the stupid title. It's extra unfortunate because for Americans, a 'bonnet' is always a kind of hat, never a protective covering for a car's engine. So it creates a mental image of the BBC News website personified as the flighty younger sister from a Jane Austen novel.) Happy to answer any questions on this list. The URL structure is like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/{edition}/{flavour}/{section_path}{story_id}.stm (e.g http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4606719.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6970021.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6295138.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6295138.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bolton_wanderers/697031 8.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/6970110.stm ) edition: (sport)?(1|2) BBC News website is available in two editions, international and domestic. All the stories are available on both the editions, but there is a different navigational structure, different promotions in the banner and footer, and a different editorial focus on the index pages. flavour: (hi|low) There's a low bandwidth version of each story page with the HTML tables and non-editorial images stripped out. section_path: ([a-z_]+/)+ Each story has a "home section" which indicates its major category. Most home sections have an associated index page. NB that stories often appear on indexes other than their home sections. For example, a story about a football team's share price could have home section "business" and also appear on the "football/teams/m/manchester_united" index. storry_id: (\d+|default) For story pages, it's the database ID of the story For index pages, it's always 'default', and you can just refer to the index pages as '/' of course. That's the main URL structure. There are quite a few variants. I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend making too many inferences based the structure I've described above. Kevin -- Kevin Hinde Technical Design Authority, Journalism BBC Future Media & Technology BC3 C1, Broadcast Centre t: 020 800 84725 m: 0771 501 2424 aim:kwdhinde - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
