The Internet Shadowrun Conservation Project (ISCP), Fighting link rot the crowdsourcing way Options

[Bull]

Frankly, I'd go with something closer to the structure of the original archive. I'm really finding this whole Web 2.0/Blog ENtry format for everything to be pretty lame. Not to mention extremely cookie cutter.

[ThatPaolo]

Frankly, I'd go with something closer to the structure of the original archive. I'm really finding this whole Web 2.0/Blog ENtry format for everything to be pretty lame. Not to mention extremely cookie cutter.

I didn't ask *you* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I agree somehow, but when we have a custom theme (in development) and some decent information architecture in place, Wordpress can look as functional as the old Archive (that didn't have a lot of functionality that I'd like to have now, such as user comments on articles, both IRL and as shadowtalk).

[Bull]

I didn't ask *you* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I agree somehow, but when we have a custom theme (in development) and some decent information architecture in place, Wordpress can look as functional as the old Archive (that didn't have a lot of functionality that I'd like to have now, such as user comments on articles, both IRL and as shadowtalk).

Yeah, I've heard you can do a lot more with Word Press, just... Generally you see that same generic WP design, and it sucks balls.

Plus, it'd be nice if WP could scale for different resolutions better. Like I think I was telling you, I end up with a silly amount of "dead space" because I have a 22" Widescreen monitor.

Bull

[Krypter]

Something with nicer graphic design is what I'd recommend. Here's my CthulhuTech placeholder site that I whipped up in an hour: http://www.portalseeker.com/misc/ctech

The Shadowrun Image Archive is simple but funky: http://sria.litbo.org/display.php?entry=07326

Thinkmap has a very nice, simple but aesthetically pleasing design: http://www.thinkmap.com/

I'm not familiar with WordPress so I wouldn't know how to skin it, unfortunately.

[ThatPaolo]

Yeah, I've heard you can do a lot more with Word Press, just... Generally you see that same generic WP design, and it sucks balls.

Oh I know. The vast majority of the time I spent last week on the archive was to recover old content and clean it up, converting it to xhtml, figuring out unique authors and categories, that sort of stuff. I paid very very little attention to presentation issues.

Plus, it'd be nice if WP could scale for different resolutions better. Like I think I was telling you, I end up with a silly amount of "dead space" because I have a 22" Widescreen monitor.

Itr's not a problem with WP per se, it's just a choice of them developers. I am thinking of what would it take to "unify" the look and feel of all dumpshock sites and clearly there are advantage with both fixed and flexible widths,n we just have to figure out a reasonable compromise.

[ThatPaolo]

Something with nicer graphic design is what I'd recommend. Here's my CthulhuTech placeholder site that I whipped up in an hour: http://www.portalseeker.com/misc/ctech

It looks very cool, but I'm not sure how it would scale to 20+ categories and columns...

The Shadowrun Image Archive is simple but funky: http://sria.litbo.org/display.php?entry=07326

Thinkmap has a very nice, simple but aesthetically pleasing design: http://www.thinkmap.com/

I'm not familiar with WordPress so I wouldn't know how to skin it, unfortunately.

It's very easy to both skin and change basic functionality. As I said, I spent a lot of time cleaning up HTML and creationg a decent information architecture, I'll do the design later.

[Krypter]

Well, it looks pretty decent now! Some of the NPC stats are a little too big for the width of the main column though.

[Delarn]

Question to Paolo, did you find any rules in .txt format for the Doppelganger from 98?

[THENEWBIGD]

I'd love to help out with this project. Let me know what I can do (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Vegetaman]

Ah, crap. I just realized that my Shadowrun website that had tons of information about the SNES/Genesis/Sega-CD games that was on geocities is now gone from the face off the earth! Dang. I even had a bunch of info and custom stuff (including games I ran with notes and maps) with SR3...

I bet ye olde Shadowrun webring is mostly 404'd.

[ScooterinAB]

I've started doing this for Deadlands, which is facing near extinction online. It breaks my heart to think that all of this work, and all of this material for roleplaying games is simply lost because a site decides to go offline.

If I can help, I'd love to. I have a little bit of a background in museum work, which usually ends up at preservation and archiving at some point. Personally, my approach is, after things are collected, to set up several archives. That way, you don't have to worry about one going down and losing the whole deal.

Vegetaman: Try entering the old url, but changing "geocities" to "reocities". A great little achive project I stumbled across while looking for old Deadlands sites. Not everything is there, but you'd be surprised what is.

[LowKey]

Now this is a blast from the past, I remember using and abusing the good old archive when iI was playing 3rd ed.

I'm in if you need the hand, I'm a web developer so should be able to give some advice on the technical side if you need it

[MJBurrage]

Looking only at potential longevity online, I would think that something hosted at Wikia would be the best choice.

[Platinum]

Winhttrack is a great application that will copy an entire website to a location for you. I have used it in the past for client sites that want to move.

I would keep all of the websites together in 1 place, and have different subfolders for each site. The software does a great job of managing it all for you.

[Fyndhal]

Paolo, if you still have the links that lead to the dreaded 404 from he original post, you *may* be able to recover some of those lost pages via the Internet Way Back machine (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php)

I've used it to track down some lost pages in the past. Hopefully, it'll be as useful for you!

EDIT: I was totally scooped by Xerxos. I really should have read all the posts beforehand.

[Macavity]

Ah, crap. I just realized that my Shadowrun website that had tons of information about the SNES/Genesis/Sega-CD games that was on geocities is now gone from the face off the earth! Dang. I even had a bunch of info and custom stuff (including games I ran with notes and maps) with SR3...

I bet ye olde Shadowrun webring is mostly 404'd.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, if you still have the old URLs, you can use the Internet Archive WayBackMachine to retrieve old pages.

http://www.archive.org/index.php

And people are still playing SR3 and SR2. Possibly even SR1. All of that old material is still useful today even if only as inspiration. I hope the ISCP is going well. I have a ton of stuff saved onto hard drives from back in 1996-2000. Paolo, if you're still having problems finding old material that was on the Archive, can you post a list here of missing articles/websites/items?

[LoveMutt]

I'm just reacquainting myself with SR and ran across this project. I'm pretty tech savvy and would like to know if there's some way I can help. This thread doesn't really give a good feel for the current status of the project. I saw the new archive site and noticed there are dead links there. I also noticed that some are cached on the Way Back Machine/Web Archive. Can you give a quick update and outstanding tasks?

Thanks!

[warrior_allanon]

i might have some old data lying around in a hard drive that i need to get recovered anyway, that said, (and this stuff might be copied to it also) does anyone have the data on "Tallahassee 2050" that used to be out there, the site is now down and i need the data or at least a portion of it.

http://scorpienne.freeservers.com/tallahassee2050.html

[Vegetaman]

Vegetaman: Try entering the old url, but changing "geocities" to "reocities". A great little achive project I stumbled across while looking for old Deadlands sites. Not everything is there, but you'd be surprised what is.

Most excellent! Looks like the Shadowrun webring archived it for me, or else maybe it was reocities. At any rate, I managed to get what I thought was relevant and decent information and moved it to my google site where hopefully it will be more secure for the future. I find that most of the stuff I had on there was... Well, junk, mostly.

Still, this whole project is a great idea and I support it fully -- especially after all the 404 errors I got yesterday while reading into some Shadowrun stuff in my free time on the internet.

[dog_xinu]

if we need "web space", please let me know. I have plenty (within reason) of space both disk space, and network bandwith. The webserver has php/perl/ruby and we can use whatever software we want (as long as it isnt Windows based).

If we want the space, let me know.

[Gibbersan]

Is Paolo's archive still around somewhere? Just doing a quick look I couldn't find it.

[Vegetaman]

Just curious of the current status of this project... It seems to have stalled out about six months ago...

[Valentinew]

Is this project gone the way of other dead links?

[Stahlseele]

pretty much, it seems.

[pbangarth]

Until someone initiates a conservancy project for the conservancy project.