Don't know really where to post it...

How can I submit a link in the povray.org link list ? How can I report
broken links ?

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Mr Seb wrote:
> Don't know really where to post it...
> 
> How can I submit a link in the povray.org link list ? How can I report
> broken links ?

at the moment, neither really ... the links DB isn't really being maintained
at the moment (and nor has it for some time).

if I could get together a number of volunteers willing to audit it then I'd
set up a front-end that would allow them to do so, once I had time.

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On Tue, 02 May 2006 01:11:48 +1000, Chris Cason wrote:

> if I could get together a number of volunteers willing to audit it then
> I'd set up a front-end that would allow them to do so, once I had time.

It'd be fairly easy to set up ht://check to do the audit work - I'd
probably have some time this week to set it up and run a report on the
links and make it available if that would be useful.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> It'd be fairly easy to set up ht://check to do the audit work - I'd
> probably have some time this week to set it up and run a report on the
> links and make it available if that would be useful.

An automatic audit does not get you anywhere. In fact, we do that already, 
and always have. It is trivial to automate.

The *work* is fixing the links, meaning to track down the new location. Not 
to mention add new resources that have since appeared. This absolutely 
requires a human.

	Thorsten

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On Mon, 01 May 2006 13:20:34 -0500, Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> It'd be fairly easy to set up ht://check to do the audit work - I'd
>> probably have some time this week to set it up and run a report on the
>> links and make it available if that would be useful.
> 
> An automatic audit does not get you anywhere. In fact, we do that already,
> and always have. It is trivial to automate.
> 
> The *work* is fixing the links, meaning to track down the new location.
> Not to mention add new resources that have since appeared. This absolutely
> requires a human.

Well, sure - Chris had indicated audit was a needed part, so that's what I
was suggesting.  You're right that it's trivial to automate - that's why
when I saw Chris' message, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn't already
audited.

Jim

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"Chris Cason" <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote in 
message news:445624bb@news.povray.org...
> Mr Seb wrote:
>> Don't know really where to post it...
>>
>> How can I submit a link in the povray.org link list ? How can I report
>> broken links ?
>
> at the moment, neither really ... the links DB isn't really being 
> maintained
> at the moment (and nor has it for some time).
>
> if I could get together a number of volunteers willing to audit it then 
> I'd
> set up a front-end that would allow them to do so, once I had time.

Hi Guys,

Would it be practical to dump the list to a flat file that could be updated 
and subsequently loaded back into the database (e.g. XML or CSV or something 
akin).

Then, if Jim is able to run the links from that list through a tool and flag 
the ones that need tracking down, we could divide up the work and collate 
the results into a format that would not immediately require a front-end (I 
know you guys are very busy right now). New links could be gathered through 
the newsgroup and added in before sending you a consolidated file, all as a 
single one-time operation.

If there's a unique ID from the database that we can keep associated with 
the individual records, then I would think it should also be possible to 
preserve associated and generated information such as the 'popularity' data 
(depending of course on the format of the database).

If this is practical we'd obviously need to thrash out some details, but 
it's just a thought of a way we could do it without absorbing too much of 
your time.

Best Regards,
Chris B.

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Chris B wrote:
> Then, if Jim is able to run the links from that list through a tool and flag 
> the ones that need tracking down,

As said, we can already provide this information. Format-wise, if a text 
file is preferred, I would go for tab-separated table or one line per field. 
List of fields could be provided (likely four: link, title, description and 
category-id for link records, slightly different format for categories of 
course).

> If there's a unique ID from the database that we can keep associated with 
> the individual records, 

Of course there is :-)  In fact, try to follow any one of the links and you 
can see it.

	Thorsten

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"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message 
news:44574f7f$1@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> Then, if Jim is able to run the links from that list through a tool and 
>> flag the ones that need tracking down,
>
> As said, we can already provide this information. Format-wise, if a text 
> file is preferred, I would go for tab-separated table or one line per 
> field. List of fields could be provided (likely four: link, title, 
> description and category-id for link records, slightly different format 
> for categories of course).
>
>> If there's a unique ID from the database that we can keep associated with 
>> the individual records,
>
> Of course there is :-)  In fact, try to follow any one of the links and 
> you can see it.
>
> Thorsten

OK. That sounds like it'll work. So long as we've got a format that we know 
will load back into the database without too much effort.
Of the two formats I'd prefer tab-separated as I hate counting lines :-).

I would suggest using email for exchanging bits of the file because we 
obviously want to avoid ending up with divergent copies flying around.

Thorsten, I'll email you my private email address (the one I use for 
postings tends to predominantly just get junk mail). If you could send me a 
file I'll look at how to split it amongst anyone wanting to help. Sounds 
like the file will need 6 fields, the ones you mentioned plus the unique ID 
and a flag indicating which ones are known to be dead links. Is there a need 
to look at updating the categories, or will you just send a copy of the 
current ones for reference purposes?

Jim, are you in?
Anyone else like to help?

Once we've got started we'll set a closing date and invite people to give us 
new links through this newsgroup.
After that we'll send back the new file for loading into the database.

Regards,
Chris B.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Well, sure - Chris had indicated audit was a needed part, so that's what I
> was suggesting.  You're right that it's trivial to automate - that's why
> when I saw Chris' message, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn't already

My phrasing was perhaps too fuzzy; by 'audit' I meant that the entire DB
needs to be checked for relevency; not only broken links to be fixed, but
also for links to working sites to be checked to ensure the link description
is still relevant and correct with respect to the target site's content.
(Some of those links are in excess of seven years old).

-- Chris

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I should point out that we already have a DB-driven PHP-based interface for
editing the links ... the only issue with it is that it's not designed for
multiple people to use at once (e.g. it won't cleanly handle the situation
where two people happen to edit the same link at more or less the same time -
the newest content will nuke the other one). We also need to add user
authentication for it. As it stands it's really an internal tool for our own use.

Basically if we can solve those (it's really just a time issue) I could open
it for editing to authenticated users. (Actually the problem with dual edits
could be solved by a division of labor amongst the editors, so it's really
just authentication).

-- Chris

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"Chris Cason" <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote in 
message news:44576d10@news.povray.org...
>I should point out that we already have a DB-driven PHP-based interface for
> editing the links ... the only issue with it is that it's not designed for
> multiple people to use at once (e.g. it won't cleanly handle the situation
> where two people happen to edit the same link at more or less the same 
> time -
> the newest content will nuke the other one). We also need to add user
> authentication for it. As it stands it's really an internal tool for our 
> own use.
>
> Basically if we can solve those (it's really just a time issue) I could 
> open
> it for editing to authenticated users. (Actually the problem with dual 
> edits
> could be solved by a division of labor amongst the editors, so it's really
> just authentication).
>
> -- Chris

Hi Chris,

That sound just the job for maintaining it.

I would think that for methodically dividing up the task and for initially 
updating the database it would be easiest to work with a big 
machine-readable text file (and would sidestep the other issues for the time 
being), though maybe that's just my ludite tendencies emerging :-). Anyway, 
let me know if you'd like me to undertake that.

Best Regards,
Chris. B.

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On Tue, 02 May 2006 14:21:02 +0100, Chris B wrote:

> Jim, are you in?

Sure, I'm willing to help out.  One thing we might do because of the
database issue that Chris mentioned is post the updates here and have one
person take on the job of entering the changed data, that'd avoid the
issue of multiple people attempting to edit links simultaneously.

Jim

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On Wed, 03 May 2006 00:28:12 +1000, Chris Cason wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Well, sure - Chris had indicated audit was a needed part, so that's what
>> I was suggesting.  You're right that it's trivial to automate - that's
>> why when I saw Chris' message, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn't
>> already
> 
> My phrasing was perhaps too fuzzy; by 'audit' I meant that the entire DB
> needs to be checked for relevency; not only broken links to be fixed, but
> also for links to working sites to be checked to ensure the link
> description is still relevant and correct with respect to the target
> site's content. (Some of those links are in excess of seven years old).

OK, that makes sense - thanks for the clarification, Chris.

Jim

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Chris B wrote:

> Jim, are you in?
> Anyone else like to help?

Sure, I'll chase down a few.


> 
> Once we've got started we'll set a closing date and invite people to give us 
> new links through this newsgroup.
> After that we'll send back the new file for loading into the database.
> 
> Regards,
> Chris B.
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
>

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Chris B wrote:
> it would be easiest to work with a big machine-readable text file

Fastest way to get this into your hands would be to dump it from the DB
usingg phpMyAdmin. I can export as SQL, CSV or XML. Are any of these useful
to you ?

-- Chris

NB note that there are two tables; one for categories and one for the links
themselves. The links refer to the category by ID. I would be open to
modifying the DB to allow a link to be in multiple categories if this was useful.

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> Chris B wrote:
> > it would be easiest to work with a big machine-readable text file
>
> Fastest way to get this into your hands would be to dump it from the DB
> usingg phpMyAdmin. I can export as SQL, CSV or XML. Are any of these useful
> to you ?

I guess it depends how many people are going to help check the links.
Everyone can read CSV, and XML is pretty easy to parse. I don't know SQL
(yet :).

> NB note that there are two tables; one for categories and one for the links
> themselves. The links refer to the category by ID. I would be open to
> modifying the DB to allow a link to be in multiple categories if this was useful.

I think multiple categories would be very useful. You could split things up
into beginner, general and advanced; still and anim; pure POV and scenes
that require external programs. Etc.

PS. I'm prepared to donate time manually checking out links. I'm also not
averse to writing file conversion utilities in awk, if that's any use in
this task. I know nothing about SQL or php, but I'm ok with HTML &
Javascript.

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PM 2Ring wrote:
> I think multiple categories would be very useful. You could split things up
> into beginner, general and advanced; still and anim; pure POV and scenes
> that require external programs. Etc.

I would strongly recommend to first update the links, rather than start two 
things at once (update and reorganization). As it stands, updating itself is 
a lot of work.

	Thorsten

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PM 2Ring wrote:
> I think multiple categories would be very useful. You could split things up
> into beginner, general and advanced; still and anim; pure POV and scenes
> that require external programs. Etc.

I would strongly recommend to first update the links, rather than start two 
things at once (update and reorganization). As it stands, updating itself is 
a lot of work.

	Thorsten

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Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
> PM 2Ring wrote:
> > I think multiple categories would be very useful. You could split things up
> > into beginner, general and advanced; still and anim; pure POV and scenes
> > that require external programs. Etc.
>
> I would strongly recommend to first update the links, rather than start two
> things at once (update and reorganization). As it stands, updating itself is
> a lot of work.

Certainly we should update the links first, that is the priority. But I
think Chris Cason was just talking about setting things up at the outset to
allow for multiple categories. I agree there is no need to worry about the
organization of the links until they've all been checked and we know what
we've actually got.

Still, during the process of manually checking links, we could take some
notes about the link, even if this is just a short list of keywords.

FWIW, I haven't looked at the links page for a while, but the last time I
did it was so frustrating. Maybe the links page should have a big "Warning:
Under Reconstruction: most links out of date" notice on it?

I bet a lot of new users go to the links page before they discover these
newsgroups, and get the idea that they won't be getting very much that's
useful from the POV site, apart from the program itself. I was using POV
for years before I bothered checking in here (to my pleasant surprise).

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"Chris Cason" <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote in 
message news:4458afcf@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> it would be easiest to work with a big machine-readable text file
>
> Fastest way to get this into your hands would be to dump it from the DB
> usingg phpMyAdmin. I can export as SQL, CSV or XML. Are any of these 
> useful
> to you ?
>

I can read any of those and freely translate between them. CSV is my 
preferred starting point. It's easiest to chop up and allocate out chunks.

>
> -- Chris
>
> NB note that there are two tables; one for categories and one for the 
> links
> themselves. The links refer to the category by ID. I would be open to
> modifying the DB to allow a link to be in multiple categories if this was 
> useful.

OK. I'll give this some thought, taking on board the observations by 
Thorsten and PM.
I'll send you a copy of the private email address I sent to Thorsten.

Regards,
Chris B.

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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message 
news:pan### [at] nospamcom...
> On Tue, 02 May 2006 14:21:02 +0100, Chris B wrote:
>
>> Jim, are you in?
>
> Sure, I'm willing to help out.  One thing we might do because of the
> database issue that Chris mentioned is post the updates here and have one
> person take on the job of entering the changed data, that'd avoid the
> issue of multiple people attempting to edit links simultaneously.
>
> Jim

Hi Jim,

I think it's probably best that I get the complete list by email, split up 
the list and email out sections that can be updated and subsequently emailed 
back to me for collation.

If you're ok with this then can you send an email address to 
c_b### [at] btconnectcom
and we'll start an email dialogue on file formats and how best to divvy up 
the list, how many each person wants to do and so on.

PM 2Ring could you do the same.

Jim Charter I picked up an email address for you out of the posting.

Regards,
Chris B.

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Can do - e-mail on its way. :-)

Jim

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CSV is probably easiest to consume, and can be imported into a database
with relative ease.

Jim

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