[seqfan] Re: Correcting Broken Links - Some Choices

[Neil Sloane]

That's fine - thank you!

Best regards
Neil

Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation.
11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA.
Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ.
Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com
Email: njasloane at gmail.com


On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 2:39 PM, P. Michael Hutchins <pmh232 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thnkk you, Neil.
>
> one more complication:
>
> The nice big graphic of stage 50 is present in the remaining page at Boise,
> but not in the archived one.
>
> We can't fix the archived page, whose URL I replaced the (one) bad one
> with.
>
> The obvious solution is to replace the newly-replaced link with the one to
> the active Boise page.
>
> Ironically, the two pages are - strictly speaking - *not* the same (which
> is the requirement for replacing a bad link):  The current (although moved)
> one is the better.
>
> I should replace the link that I replaced "yesterday" with the current
> Boise one.
>
> OK?
>
> (sorry for all the OEIS-principals' time this has taken)
>
>
>   -- M.
>
> On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 10:38 AM, Neil Sloane <njasloane at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Let me reply to PMH's message. He said: *[My answers in bold]*
> >
> > I'm working on fixing some links in A139250.  .
> >
> > Neil was good enough to lay out for me the basics of how to do this in
> the
> > OEIS, but I've run across a couple of questions that I don't have answers
> > for, not knowing the "personality" of OEIS well enough.
> >
> >
> >    - Old links can be accessed via the WayBack Machine, web.archive.org.
> >    But should we assume that OEIS users can use that for themselves, or
> > should
> >    we do that for them? * [Please do it for them, if you can! It is
> better
> > if we have the retrieved link there in the sequence, rather than leaving
> it
> > to the user to do the work.  And this way it only has to be done once ]*
> >
> >
> >
> >    - I would guess that we shouldn't use any of the URL-shortening
> > services. [*Correct, that just adds*
> >
> > *one more level of complexity, one more thing that will break sooner or
> > later]*
> >
> >
> >    - Culling - or just failing to update - links that seem to be of only
> >    marginal utility. *[Please don't do any culling]*
> >
> > Obviously people can't be going around will'e nil'e judging referenced
> > items to be not good enough - but there's a cost to fixing broken links
> > (including whether people are inclined in general to fix them)
> >
> > Here's the example at hand:
> >
> > Thr set of references that I've been considering includes 4 pictures of a
> > classroom working on the toothpick problem.
> >
> > eg:
> > http://web.archive.org/web/20171110234732/http://i2.wp.
> > com/boisemathcircles.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0003.jpg
> > :
> >
> >
> >
> > They're darling and all, but are they worth updating?  should they even
> > have been in there in the first place? *[ YES   I put those links there.
> > This was in connection with a project we were (and are) involved in to
> get
> > school teachers aware of the usefulness of the OEIS for teaching math in
> > schools. Those links are important.  You probably did not know about this
> > initiative, but there was a conference at Bamf in Canada a couple of
> years
> > ago involving teachers and OEIS folks. ]*
> >
> >
> > Best regards
> > Neil
> >
> > Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation.
> > 11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA.
> > Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ.
> > Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com
> > Email: njasloane at gmail.com
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 6:43 AM, P. Michael Hutchins <pmh232 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I'm working on fixing some links in A139250.  .
> > >
> > > Neil was good enough to lay out for me the basics of how to do this in
> > the
> > > OEIS, but I've run across a couple of questions that I don't have
> answers
> > > for, not knowing the "personality" of OEIS well enough.
> > >
> > >
> > >    - Old links can be accessed via the WayBack Machine,
> web.archive.org.
> > >    But should we assume that OEIS users can use that for themselves, or
> > > should
> > >    we do that for them?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >    - I would guess that we shouldn't use any of the URL-shortening
> > > services.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >    - Culling - or just failing to update - links that seem to be of
> only
> > >    marginal utility.
> > >
> > > Obviously people can't be going around will'e nil'e judging referenced
> > > items to be not good enough - but there's a cost to fixing broken links
> > > (including whether people are inclined in general to fix them)
> > >
> > > Here's the example at hand:
> > >
> > > Thr set of references that I've been considering includes 4 pictures
> of a
> > > classroom working on the toothpick problem.
> > >
> > > eg:
> > > http://web.archive.org/web/20171110234732/http://i2.wp.
> > > com/boisemathcircles.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0003.jpg
> > > :
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > They're darling and all, but are they worth updating?  should they even
> > > have been in there in the first place?
> > >
> > > I don't know.
> > >
> > > Sorry if I was too blunt.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Seqfan Mailing list - http://list.seqfan.eu/
> > >
> >
> > --
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> >
>
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