Welcome to the new discussion and development area for the HyperWar Project. HyperWar: World War II on the World Wide Web HyperWarTeam@gmail.com Curator: Otto Snail: HyperWar Foundation 709 B W. Rusk St Unit 884 Rockwall, TX 75087 I've made an initial pass through the HyperWar website and updated the primary pages to reflect my new role as curator. I'll have more updates on this section and HyperWar itself as they develop. A huge thank you to the two co-founders of this amazing resource, Patrick Clancey and Larry W. Jewell (aka OpanaPointer).
Your organizational skills are impressive. I had a quick look at the site and it's well put together. Contact me if you need anything. I did some work for Larry at the old site.
This is more of me stepping into the engineer's seat of a train that's already going full speed ahead. It's taken me a very long time to get a grip on this monster, and I've still a good way to go in that regard. I appreciate the offer, I'll certainly use all the help I can get.
Hi Otto, As a suggestion, a priority might be going through and updating the web addresses for the "Additional Resources" links for anything that is a USGOV or DOD website. In their eternal effort to protect America from foreign heathens trying to hack or institutions - but not our elections, heavens no! - the powers that be periodically and randomly change all web addresses. So, for example, all those to USAMHI/AHEC/Carlisle are now dead links leading only to an "access denied" screen, which is not really helpful for those unaware of these sad realities. A second might be updating the "What's New" tab on the home page? I know a lot was added between 2013 and now that is not recorded there? Cheers!
Indeed Rich. There are a huge amount of dead links on the site. There are automated methods for detecting these on a site, but correcting them is manual, so incredibly cumbersome. I'll get to correcting links as I am able. The entire site is written in HTML code, which is very complex to maintain as the site expands. With the size of the archive currently, keeping the site current will be a chore. I'm considering implementing an automated Content Management System on the site, which would help a tonne, but aim not yet certain what scripts are enabled on ibiblio.org. I'm not certain what was updated since 2013, and it might not be possible to determine what occurred between than and now. I'll do what I can to update the past, but an HTML site of this size is a cumbersome thing. As mentioned above, a CMS would do this automatically which is why I'm looking in that direction.
The "dead links" are actually references. Patrick collected every reference to WW2 that he could find and added them to the site. Then, as he obtained copies we digitized them and linked them. Remember, this started with the 'net was still rather novel. The What's New page wasn't updated after Patrick died because I suck at HTML.
Further, now that I've had a wee bit of coffee... The lists were created and then the available files were linked. A "dead link" would have the code but wouldn't work. The, let's say, "uncoded links" were informational and place holders. Yeah, I've addressed this more than once. Clear? If not I'm here. Or in the VA hospital. Mostly in the hospital, but I have new netbook.
It wasn't a criticism of HyperWar Larry, it was a criticism of the insane USGOV/DOD practice of forever changing website addresses for no good reason. I periodically have to go through my own bookmarks of sites just to make sure they're still active. I'm at the point where I think it would be better to give a set of search terms rather than links for a lot of them...
Yeah, I got that. I just put that info out when appropriate. Or when not appropriate. Or when Otto forgets to pay the blackmail. Most Otto.
All I'd say is; go carefully! My old man once came up to me with an open laptop saying "Have you seen this f-ing astonishing site some loons have built? The front page gives no bloody idea just how much stuff's on there." "Yes, father, I have." Actually, he made a good point. While meandering can be really worthwhile, leading to some fascinating time sinks, a really solid search engine on page one would be very good. Google has it thoroughly indexed it seems, but site search with their engine can get a bit distracted by the entire Ibiblio thing. More likely to find stuff on a standard search with 'Hyperwar' included.
There were, last I checked, eleven people adding material. After Patrick died they just kept going. Some genius may get it indexed, someday.
I am just starting to help with transcribing Canadian Regimental Histories of the Second World War for a 75 Year Anniversary project to have them all online. Once I am done that I will let you know, and please let me know if I can be of assistance Otto. My HTML coding is fairly insignificant aside from adding bolding or spaces ,but I could verify links and proof read.
