Clue-point-zero

[j4]

So Department X wants a complete list of all the people who link to their site because, and I quote:

We are currently looking at updating the information on our website and we want to know who and where other departments link into our website to ensure the correct information is given.

I can't wait to find out who'd have to link to them in order for them to consider it worthwhile to provide correct information. I also wonder what they're going to do about it if the wrong people are linking to them... no, wait, I know the answer to that, and it involves the words "whinging" and "in my general direction".

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

They can get this information themselves, via google. Egotistical example (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenend.org.uk%2Frjk%2F). I don't know of any way of causing them not to see things they don't like in the results, though...

[aldabra]

You do it for them, and only tell them about the bits that aren't going to upset them?

[j4.livejournal.com]

I've pointed them at google, and they sound a bit sceptical about this weird new technology 8-) but they say they'll give it a go.

In addition to this, though, they want a list of internal links (some of which presumably won't come up on google as they're access-restricted). Of course, ve have vays, but I still think they're asking the wrong question and either won't know what to do with the answer or will do the wrong thing with the answer.

We could always prevent them seeing things they don't like by POKING THEIR EYES OUT. In fact, they could then be extremely useful to us as visually-impaired web accessibility testers.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

We just had a Google Mini (http://www.google.co.uk/enterprise/mini/index.html) arrive here, though it's not ready to go yet, talking of vays. Drew quite a little crowd l-)

[erikarn.livejournal.com]

Ah, you're stuck in university website hell too? Eww.

The weboffice here has had that question pop up time and time again. They ended up making some referrer stuff plug into the CMS+weblogging they're using so website admins could check whats referencing each of their pages. It gets quite complicated too; some websites are "pulling" parts of their content from other websites on campus; so how do you know what you're actually updating when you update a page?

The weboffice answer: give the users all the tools they need; if they decide to do something stupid then there's a logfile with who did the stupid thing and when. Its then not their problem (and subsequent whinging can't be done to them. Although it still happens.)

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

The weboffice answer: give the users all the tools they need;

Ah, but then you need to sort out the difference between the tools they need and the tools they say they want.

[erikarn.livejournal.com]

The answer there is "whatever they're willing to pony up and pay for." Which is unfortunate; but such seems to be the way univerisites are heading over 'ere.

[j4.livejournal.com]

We do have some power to stop the divisions we work with just buying whatever tools they fancy (see e.g. Department Y [nameless to protect the guilty], who demanded some shiny new CMS on the grounds that it would solve all their problems, were audited, and as a result were told that they were absolutely not allowed to buy any more shiny software until they'd sorted out the damn workflow that it was supposed to be supporting. Ha!)

The problem is, there are whole swathes of the university that we simply have no control over, and no one person (except possibly the V-C, who doesn't really get involved at that kind of level) has the power to impose any kind of consistent rules/guidelines across the board. Which is what the currently-in-progress Web Review is supposed to be addressing, but, well, yeah.

[erikarn.livejournal.com]

It sounds eerily familiar. I'd hug you but you're too far away.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Aw. Thought-of-a-hug appreciated nonetheless.

The way everybody in this area seems to encounter the same problems again and again is both comforting and depressing...

[j4.livejournal.com]

Hello, you. :-)

I'm all for giving people this information (it's the only way they'll find out how useless it really is) and building it into the CMS seems to be a good way of doing this, but we're using a fiendish home-rolled CMS system so it may not be practical at the moment. (What CMS etc are your web people using, OOI?)

The question of them doing something stupid doesn't really arise as we're still quality-controlling everything that gets published (for trusted content providers this is basically just a push-the-button formality; for others, it's a gate we can keep closed no matter how hard they headbutt it). It's all a tradeoff between getting your time wasted preventing teh stupid, and letting teh stupid happen (but saving time -- though I'd argue that then half my time would be spent retrospectively fixing stupidity).

On a bad day, though, I just think "Why don't we just turn the whole goddamned thing into a wiki, and then tell them 'when you shoot yourself in the foot, don't come running to us'."

[erikarn.livejournal.com]

Hah! The current CMS (mysource classic) doesn't even have change history; thats done by backing the thing up once and hour and hoping for the best.

At least modern wikis give that. :)

(And hi you. :)

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

"Why don't we just turn the whole goddamned thing into a wiki, and then tell them 'when you shoot yourself in the foot, don't come running to us'."

Because they will come running to you ANYWAY, and you won't be able to stop them. And then your bad day will be an even worse day, because they'll whine and whine until you've fixed their mess, or whine even more if you tell them you can't fix it.

[j4.livejournal.com]

So then we... RELEASE THE MAN-EATING BEARS!