h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just had my page hidden because some links are said to be broken.

Two of the 4 are fine whilst the other 2 fail because the target server is obviously down.

So why fail on two valid ones? Any link with the problems the BBC servers are having today?

And is there anyway that broken links can be checked say twice in 24 hours before being pulled in case the target sites are down. My page has been fine until todays update when I guess it went into an automatic process.

Cheers

ChawkE

Hi, sorry to hear you are having problems.

The system used to be that when broken links were found, the offending links were deleted leaving the rest of the page intact but folk objected to that because they sometimes couldn't remember what the urls had been.

Now, the page is hidden until the researcher comes back to sort out the page themselves.

Going back and rechecking broken links within 24 hours would be an impossible task given the available manpower. The instrument is a bit blunt, I agree, but it is manageable. I have learned not to update my page towards the end of the UK working day since my university page will nearly always be down at some point during the night. It's best to catch the day shift.

Links you know to be unreliable are best put on a page other than your user Space.

I hope this helps a bit.



Amy the (Guru) Ant

Err yes but why did valid links get removed, if your quick I am about to unhide my entry with one that has been classed as broken, the link to QinetiQ, try it it works, and yet my page keeps getting bounced.

The other links are well known links to SNOPES urban myth page, they must be having a reare off day, just the same as the BBC online site.

I will re-submit when they are there again.

ChawkE

It works now. I expect your page will stay put unless you change something on it and put it back in the queue for checking.

Good luck!

Incidentally I don't know what you mean by "the valid links were removed". The whole page will be hidden even if only one link fails.

The Snopes ones work but were broken.

The QinetiQ has always worked, what the site have done is put a URL redirect on the original page and flash you to a new page, this may be the prob.

By being removed I really meant they were the ones that were mentioned in my email from the automatic moderator.

Cheers

ChawkE

Nope both the QinetiQ and Plug hole direction links got bounced again despite working when submitted. I think all is not well.



ChawkE

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'h2g2 Feedback - Technical Feedback' to 'Moderation Help Desk'.

This really belongs in the Moderation feedback forum

Hi ChawkE

I've just had a look at your page. All of the links that are there are fine now. I can only assume that the links you mention didn't work when the moderator checked them. I know it's a pain when this happens, but we do have to check the links, and if they don't work at the time, they can't be passed.

By the way, I like the photo of your cat. Cute.

I'm not sure it does belong to the moderation feedback, rather than technical feedback as the point I was making was that the URLs being bounced were all valid and worked at the time of page submission, by worked I mean they took you to a valid web page.

I will foward Peta the auto email with the two links the system claimed were broken.

Cheers

ChawkE

You seem to believe that the links are checked by an automated process on submission of the page. This is not the case. They are checked by hand at a later time, maybe hours after you press the update button.

The email you received is based on a template but has been sent by a human being - it is not an automated response.

If any one of the external links does not work at the time that the moderater check it then the whole page will be hidden until you reactivate it.

In that case the moderation process as a flaw as the links were working all night, one is a major UK government (now part privatized site), I am about to repost one link and watch, I've updated my page with the QinetiQ link and the Plug hole link, both were constantly working fine for me all during Thursday night the actual addresses if the page gets zapped can be found (add the http) at-


http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A598034

We shall see, I suspect the problem was an internal BBC one rather than a prob with the sites.

ChawkE

Well now I am very confused and slightly mad

The page I mentioned above was zapped despite the fact that it was in plain text and non-clickable so in my books not a link.

Also the link STILL WORKS it certainly does when I click on it from the email the mod sent me.

BUT, and this is where I am confused, cut and pasting into the address bar fails.

So what determines if a link is valid or not, its clickability or its typability?

ChawkE

Ah, all comes clear. We've had this problem before. Your machine is fetching the page from a cache (either on your own computer or your ISP's) whereas the moderator - and it will probably be a different one, on a different machine, in a different place each time - will not have the page cached.

It's not an internal BBC problem because the moderators are not all sitting there in a row in a BBC building - the system doesn't work like that.

Oh, and you said: "The page I mentioned above was zapped despite the fact that it was in plain text and non-clickable so in my books not a link."

Now that would be a nice little loophole for the child porn merchants.

Any text identifiable as a URL - whether hyperlinked or not, whether complete or not, counts as a URL and will be checked by the moderators.

Nice try but NO

1) I haven't visited the page in ages so highly unlike to be in the cache
2) the page is different to last time I visited it and
3) zapped disk cache and memory cach and the link still woorks

Something is wrong somewhere and it is NOT the link.

ChawkE

It could still be an effect caused by your ISP's proxy server.

I'm not sure which pages we're talking about now. There is no longer a QinetiQ link on your page. Have you updated the URL? And you appear to have deleted http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A598034 so I can't check it that way.

The shark link requires a / at the end of the address. You have correctly included this in the URL you typed into the page. If I try entering it into the address bar without the / my brower automatically adds it. Could it be that the moderator(s)'s browser(s) are not doing this? Does this explain why clicking the link works but copying and pasting doesn't?

If you want to, forward the email to me on [email protected] Peta won't be back from Scotland for a while so there may not be a quick response from TPTB.



Amy the (Guru) Ant

Cool, many thanks for your time on this, sorry if the last message sounded short, I hadn't had breakfast then, now with breakfast and lunch under my belt I'm more human.

I'll foward the mods email, I removed the Qinetic link and the other page as otherwise my page would be hidden.

It's not an issue really as I will change the page it links to, to a more appropiate one, but I am raising it in case there is a problem with the systems.

Email on its way.

ChawkE

Email received.

At a guess I would say that this page caused the link to fail because it did not go straight to QinetiQ but to a DERA redirection page with more than one option.

It could also be that the QinetiQ site was considered to be too far along the continuum between an information site and a commercial one.

The second reason has already been included in the House Rules.

The first reason is only implied in the House Rules and perhaps needs to be made explicit. It makes sense to me because it closes another loophole that might be used by those hoping to attract attention to unsavoury websites. For example, someone could put a link to a page that they had created which contained one innocent link and half a dozen nasty ones. In their Space they would make reference only to the innocent link but hope that the inquisitve or confused would try out some of the other links.

I'll mail the Gurus list and see what everyone else thinks about this rule.

In your case, this problem is easily solved by linking directly to the QinetiQ and the [dstl] sites separately using their proper URLs.



Amy

PS I saw Peta was away for a few days so dropped Mark the note instead.

ChawkE

Mark is also away.