J Charter wrote:
> 
> I would be interested, for professional reasons, in an estimate of how much time
> maintaining such a list consumes.   -Jim

My next update (of approx. 30-40 new links) will probably be a
minimum of 6 hrs of personal time. Add in an additional couple
of hours spent changing the information on links in the database
because people keep changing ISP's, web page providers, or
restructure their web sites.

It really depends on how you approach it and how much integrity you
want to maintain in the database. If I limited my activity to only
those links submitted by visitors to povray.org and removed the
occasional link from the broken links reporting mechanism, I wouldn't
have to dedicate too much time to it. However I also add links I
find posted to messages here in the groups (which means reading
every message in every group posted here) and I also actively go
searching for new links from hundreds of different sources. Each
one of these new links I add means I have to visit the site to
verify the contents, write a suitable description, verify the
link I added is working properly, update the database, and then
upload it to povray.org. All of this can add and does up to
hundreds of hours a year.

 Then there is also going through the database occasionally and
verifying that all the links are valid (this part is a pain in
the ass and takes for ever). I use special software that aids
in the task of verifying links but it does not update my database
when broken links are found nor does it have anyway of trying
to find alternate sources for the resource that were at the
missing site. I spend a lot of time trying to relocate people/
sites/resources so I don't have to remove them from the database.
I also spend a lot of time corresponding with various people
who have links on my site but have changed their URL. This
is happening more and more as the popularity of the site and
the collection has grown.

I guess it really depends on how much effort you are willing
to personally devote to it. I have been reasonably diligent
in my duties and I think the collection reflects it. If I just
let it be self supporting (using only user submitted links)
it would take a lot less time to maintain but it would not
be nearly as comprehensive as it is now.

-- 
Ken Tyler - 1400+ POV-Ray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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