Oops, time passed (anyone else finding that's happening these days?)
On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 01:43:47PM +0100, Kake wrote:
> On Wed 29 Apr 2020, Dominic Hargreaves <dom(a)earth.li> wrote:
> > Neither cambridge, london or oxford are being actively used or
> > maintained by anyone, as far as I know, for many years, so it's
> > probably time I (not-so?)-gracefully turn them all off.
>
> I have a feeling I’ve made this plea here before, but speaking as a
> local historian, I don’t think these websites should just be deleted.
>
> I agree that it needs to be made very clear that the information isn’t
> current (didn’t london once have a banner at the top of every page
> saying this?), but all three of the above are useful sources for local
> historians, and surely london is also of some interest to historians
> of technology.
London has a message on the front page, but I think that is not as useful.
True, it wouldn't be hard to update the templates, so I'll do that
soonish, and try and tidy up Oxford and Cambridge (spoiler alert, when
I started to do this the other week, I ended up breaking the database,
so it's currently offline awaiting time to resurrect it).
> bob is happy to host the sites if Dom doesn’t want to do it any more,
> and if bob is hosting them then I’m happy to admin them.
If they are truly read-only, and can be cleaned up, there overhead
in running them is small. But on the other hand, running the software
is probably not the most effective way to set up an long-lived
archive. A static HTML export, either hosted locally, or being hosted
by one of the options discussed below, would make more sense.
Something to think about, anyway.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 05:14:18PM +0100, David Cantrell wrote:
> On 29/04/2020 13:43, Kake wrote:
> > On Wed 29 Apr 2020, Dominic Hargreaves <dom(a)earth.li> wrote:
> > > Neither cambridge, london or oxford are being actively used or
> > > maintained by anyone, as far as I know, for many years, so it's
> > > probably time I (not-so?)-gracefully turn them all off.
> > I have a feeling I’ve made this plea here before, but speaking as a
> > local historian, I don’t think these websites should just be deleted.
>
> Did you know that the British Library has a programme for archiving
> websites? Provided that they are primarily original-content-driven then they
> want to archive even personal sites (they're archiving my cricket blog
> <https://larvalstageumpire.sport.blog/>, for example), so Openguides sites
> would certainly qualify. They may already be aware of the OG sites, but if
> not they're happy to take nominations from the public for sites to archive.
> See here:
> https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/uk-web-archive
This is very interesting, although it didn't strike me as being the
most accessible set of sites (quite a lot of clicking around to find
content that was actually available to the public). I was going to
suggest the archive.org as being good enough.
Cheers
Dominic
I just noticed through random chance that there was a new release
back in January: https://metacpan.org/release/OpenGuides
I mention in case anyone is interested.
It's been a very long time since I even thought about OpenGuides,
I'm afraid. But since for the first time since I can remember
I got emailed by london.openguides.org (with a user who was
mainly trying ot leave a message about how out of date everything
is). And according to my email archives it's being in "wind down"
state for about a decade... I think it accidentally regained editability
after a sever migration a few years ago.
Neither cambridge, london or oxford are being actively used or
maintained by anyone, as far as I know, for many years, so it's
probably time I (not-so?)-gracefully turn them all off.
After various discussion on openguides-dev, and a silence on this list
when I suggested it recently, I've now disabled edits on
london.openguides.org and put up a warning that content may be out of
date. I've also put in a robots.txt to tell search engines not to
spider the site.
Readers may be interested in another London guide running on OpenGuides,
http://london.randomness.org.uk/
Regards,
Dominic.
--
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
PGP key 5178E2A5 from the.earth.li (keyserver,web,email)
Hi there,
Today I was trying to update a page on the London Open Guide
(http://london.openguides.org/wiki/?Liverpool_Street_Station), but keep
running into the error message "Not saved - Sorry; that looks like spam. If
it isn't spam, please contact the guide administrator."
I was hoping to change a paragraph from this:
The lower concourse extends westwards into a shopping centre, underneath a
bus terminus. Railtrack have a
[http://www.networkrail.co.uk/Stations/stations/liverpoolstreet/Documents/Li
verpoolStreet.pdf map of the shops] in the station. Notable shops include
two WH Smiths, the usual [[Fast Food|junk food]] suspects ([[Burger King]]
and [[McDonalds]]), two Costa Coffees and on the upper level a record shop
(Helter Skelter).
To this:
The lower concourse extends westwards into a shopping centre, underneath a
bus terminus. Network Rail have a
[http://www.networkrail.co.uk/documents/For%20Passengers/Station%20Maps/4512
_Liverpool%20Street%20Station%20Map.pdf map of the shops] in the station.
Notable shops include two WH Smiths, the usual [[Fast Food|junk food]]
suspects ([[Burger King]] and [[McDonalds]]), two Costa Coffees and on the
upper level a record shop (Helter Skelter).
Although I appreciate that it's probably hard to keep spam to a manageable
level, it's slightly irksome to be prevented from contributing a genuine
edit in this way. More irritating is the request to contact the guide
administrator without providing any contact details to allow one to do so!
Although I'm bloody-minded enough to have sought out this address to let you
know of this problem I suspect that many others won't be and will simply
give up, which is a shame and might prevent the guide becoming even better
than it already is.
Regards,
Leigh Simpson
Hello again,
Now I find that I can't save modifications to the page for King's Cross
(http://london.openguides.org/wiki/?King's_Cross_St._Pancras_Station) as the
Latitude and Longitude are improperly formatted (try clicking "Edit" then
"Save" directly). Sadly, since I didn't touch these I've no idea what they
should be.
Regards,
Leigh Simpson
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leigh Simpson [mailto:lists@simpleigh.com]
> Sent: 20 January 2010 10:09
> To: 'openguides-london(a)lists.openguides.org'
> Subject: London Open Guides
>
> Hi there,
>
> Today I was trying to update a page on the London Open Guide
> (http://london.openguides.org/wiki/?Liverpool_Street_Station), but keep
> running into the error message "Not saved - Sorry; that looks like
> spam. If it isn't spam, please contact the guide administrator."
>
> I was hoping to change a paragraph from this:
>
> The lower concourse extends westwards into a shopping centre,
> underneath a bus terminus. Railtrack have a
> [http://www.networkrail.co.uk/Stations/stations/liverpoolstreet/Documen
> ts/LiverpoolStreet.pdf map of the shops] in the station. Notable shops
> include two WH Smiths, the usual [[Fast Food|junk food]] suspects
> ([[Burger King]] and [[McDonalds]]), two Costa Coffees and on the upper
> level a record shop (Helter Skelter).
>
> To this:
>
> The lower concourse extends westwards into a shopping centre,
> underneath a bus terminus. Network Rail have a
> [http://www.networkrail.co.uk/documents/For%20Passengers/Station%20Maps
> /4512_Liverpool%20Street%20Station%20Map.pdf map of the shops] in the
> station. Notable shops include two WH Smiths, the usual [[Fast
> Food|junk food]] suspects ([[Burger King]] and [[McDonalds]]), two
> Costa Coffees and on the upper level a record shop (Helter Skelter).
>
> Although I appreciate that it's probably hard to keep spam to a
> manageable level, it's slightly irksome to be prevented from
> contributing a genuine edit in this way. More irritating is the request
> to contact the guide administrator without providing any contact
> details to allow one to do so! Although I'm bloody-minded enough to
> have sought out this address to let you know of this problem I suspect
> that many others won't be and will simply give up, which is a shame and
> might prevent the guide becoming even better than it already is.
>
> Regards,
>
> Leigh Simpson
>
>
Hello,
For those of you who may not know me, I'm part of the team of people who
look after the overall openguides project and software.
I have this evening brought london.openguides.org back online on a new
host, using the database dump from last year that Earle gave me.
This is catalysed both by Earle leaving the project and a discussion
that arose at the pub the other weekend - essentially the point was made
that there is still a nasty fork between RGL and london.openguides.org,
and that there was also much content that had been put on the latter
that was temporarily lost. I therefore decided it was best to get the
latter back up as soon as possible, if nothing else so the content could
be taken from there and put on RGL.
I'm not able to decide for people which guide to use, and I'm also not a
Londoner, so I'm only getting involved as as custodian, but I do think
that it would be good to look at the situation and decide whether making
two London guides is still the best thing, or whether they should be
merged again somehow.
Please discuss!
Cheers,
Dominic.
P.S. Please also note that the lists have moved to a new host today as
well. This means that http://lists.openguides.org/ URLs may not work for
you for a day or so until the DNS TTL expires. I apologies that I wasn't
able to avoid this, due to the coordination issues of migrating the
list quickly.
--
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
PGP key 5178E2A5 from the.earth.li (keyserver,web,email)
Hello. I know Earle is working on getting OGL back up, and I do
understand that this is not an easy task, but in the meantime I'm a
bit concerned that people are following old links to OGL, seeing the
"we're having a problem" thing, and thinking that OpenGuides is dead.
I've been asked about this by two people in the last month.
I know there have been a lot of Open Guides that have come and gone,
and are now no more, but I do think OGL is kind of special in that
we've always promoted it as our "flagship".
I was wondering if the "we're having a problem" page could maybe have
a link to RGL, perhaps along the lines of "in the meantime, you may
want to check out the Randomness Guide to London, another London wiki
running on the same software as OGL".
I can see that there's no direct benefit to OGL from this, but I
do think it would benefit the OpenGuides project as a whole.
Kake
Following upgrade to the latest Debian package (0.59-1) my Openguide is
failing. Running it directly, I get the not terribly helpful:
simon@stout:/etc/openguides/default$ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/openguides/wiki.cgi
Floating point exception
I've tried fiddling with the epsilloid setting, without success.
Ideas?
Here's my wiki.conf (passwords edited out):
# what type of database do you want the site to run on? postgres/mysql/sqlite
dbtype = sqlite
# What name does the database have? (If SQLite, enter the full filename)
dbname = /var/lib/openguides/sqlite/default.db
# ...the database user that can access that database?
dbuser = not-used
# ...the password that they use to access the database?
dbpass = not-used
# ...the machine that the database is hosted on? (blank if local)
dbhost = not-used
# What do you want the script to be called?
script_name =
# what directory contains the standard templates?
template_path = /usr/share/openguides/templates
# where should I look for custom templates?
custom_template_path = /etc/openguides/default/templates
# What URL does the install directory map to?
script_url = http://engineer.openguides.org/
# Do you want to use Plucene for searching?
use_plucene = 1
# What directory can I use to store indexes in for searching? ***NOTE*** This directory must exist and be writeable by the user that your script will run as. See README for more on this.
indexing_directory = /var/lib/openguides/indexes/default/
# Do you want to enable page deletion?
enable_page_deletion = 1
# Please specify a password for the site admin:
admin_pass = yeahlikeidleavethathere
# What's the URL of the site's stylesheet?
# This is not provided by this Debian package!
stylesheet_url = http://stout.rumble.net/openguides/engineer.css
# What's the site called? (should be unique)
site_name = The Tourist Engineer
# Do you want the navigation bar included on the home page?
navbar_on_home_page = 1
# Do you want the ten most recent changes included on the home page?
recent_changes_on_home_page = 1
# Do you want the content to appear above the navbar in the HTML?
content_above_navbar_in_html = 1
# What should the home page of the wiki be called?
home_name = Home
# How would you describe the site?
site_desc = The Tourist Engineer
# What city is the site based in?
default_city = London
# What country is the site based in?
default_country = United Kingdom
# What language will the site be in? (Please give an ISO language code.)
default_language = en
# Contact email address for the site administrator?
contact_email = openguides(a)rumble.net
# What's the name of the node to use for the text formatting rules link?
formatting_rules_node = Text Formatting Examples
# Make node titles link to node backlinks (C2 style)?
backlinks_in_title = 0
# Distance calculation methods available are: 1) British National Grid 2) Irish National Grid 3) UTM ellipsoid. Which would you like to use?
geo_handler = 3
# Which ellipsoid do you want to use? (eg 'Airy', 'WGS-84')
# This is only used if you select geo_handler = 3 above
ellipsoid = WGS-84
# Do you have a Google Maps API key to use with this guide? If you enter it here the Google Maps functionality will be automatically enabled.
gmaps_api_key = ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBSXLzrKmNKzpvJyrJ-WFxDu_E1j9xTk6_rP_17gRIe4rgvV-45p_9GHIQ
# What is the longitude of the centre point of a map to draw for your guide? (This question can be ignored if you aren't using Google Maps)
centre_long = 30
# What is the latitude of the centre point of a map to draw for your guide? (This question can be ignored if you aren't using Google Maps)
centre_lat = 14
# What default zoom level shall we use for Google Maps? (This question can be ignored if you aren't using Google Maps)
default_gmaps_zoom = 16
# What default zoom level shall we use for Google Maps in the search results? (This question can be ignored if you aren't using Google Maps)
default_gmaps_search_zoom = 5
# Would you like to display a Google Map on every node that has
# geodata? (This question can be ignored if you aren't using Google
# Maps)
show_gmap_in_node_display = 1
# Forcibly treat stored lat/long data as if they used the WGS84 ellipsoid?
force_wgs84 = 0
# Do you have a Google Analytics key to use with this guide? If you
# enter it here, then Google Analytics functionality will be
# automatically enabled.
google_analytics_key = UA-1715941-1
# What licence will you use for the guide?
licence_name = Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
# What is the URL to your licence?
licence_url = http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
# What is the URL to your local page about your licensing policy?
#licence_info_url = http://www.example.com/
# Is the admin password required for moderating pages?
moderation_requires_password = 1
# Should nodes be allowed to have an externally hosted image?
enable_node_image = 1
# Do you want a common list of categories shown on all node pages?
enable_common_categories = 1
# Do you want a common list of locales shown on all node pages?
enable_common_locales = 1
# Do you want the "Random Page" link to avoid returning a locale page?
random_page_omits_locales = 0
# Do you want the "Random Page" link to avoid returning a category page?
random_page_omits_categories = 0
# What module would you like to use for spam detection? (optional)
spam_detector_module =
# Should we send email notifications when a moderated node is edited?
send_moderation_notifications = 1
--
Rev Simon Rumble <simon(a)rumble.net>
www.rumble.net
The Tourist Engineer
Geeks need vacations too.
http://engineer.openguides.org/
"If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty,
we encourage it, and involve others in our doom."
- Samuel Adams
