Hi, There's an issue that bothers me from time to time: the longevity of HPR shows.
Many shows have notes that refer to external websites. Sometimes the references are to supplementary material such as Amazon links, the site with details of the thing being talked about, pictures or scripts made by the host, links to Git (or other) repositories, etc. The issue is that HPR shows have a long life, and we want them to continue to live on as long as possible -- with their notes. Currently all shows are on the HPR website and 2000+ are on archive.org. The oldest show is dated December 2007. In that sort of time scale external references can disappear. If a referenced item is unavailable, and I spot it, I try and find it on "The Wayback Machine" and make a copy on the HPR server. I then edit the notes, comment out the original link and point to the copy, usually with an "Editor's Note". This is quite a lot of work. Also, in order to make the archive.org copies of HPR shows as self-contained as possible I have been copying all of the components and adjusting notes to refer to these copies. The original method of uploading just left the original links to the HPR site in the notes. Here are a few anecdotes that I remember that might clarify things: - A show on compilers by sigflup (1128) contained figures in the form of JPEG images which had vanished. The images were on the Wayback Machine, and were copied as described. - Jon Kulp's show 1282 contained a reference to an album of pictures on his server. The server died but Jon was able to recover the pictures. I placed them on the HPR server and referenced them from the episode. - My own show 1204 contained links to a repository on Gitorious, which has since disappeared. I edited my notes to refer to the the copy of the repo which I had made on GitLab. So, here's my request: can we make efforts to reduce the "vulnerability" of shows to unavailable links in the future? Discuss please :-) Dave _______________________________________________ Hpr mailing list Hpr@hackerpublicradio.org http://hackerpublicradio.org/mailman/listinfo/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org
