Site archiving initiative
Steve Curb
universe that could be potential candidates for archiving/closure. An
example of such a site would be firefoxfestival.com – a festival held
in 2007, where the content is still live, but the continued relevance/
value is weak.
The aim here is to reduce "noise" and enhance the user experience by
presenting content that is relevant and current.
A potential source that has been suggested is around marketing sites
that may have been related to a campaign with a specific duration, but
there is no longer a need to support the content.
What am I requesting? If anything that is a fit with the above that
immediately come to mind can you please:
Forward me the link - ideally with a short explanation/rationale, or
alternatively;
Any other suggestions that may lead to identifying content with
similar archiving potential.
Thanks in advance for your assistance,
Steve
davidwboswell
topic and right now there's really no framework or process for dealing
with out of date content.
For some more examples of sites we think might fit into an archive
category, take a look at the new Archive section on the directory
page:
http://www.mozilla.org/community/directory.html#Archive
I think these sites are all very important parts of Mozilla's history
so it's a good thing they are still around, but does it cause
confusion for people who happen to come across these old sites? Would
marking them as historical and pointing to where to find the latest
and greatest information about Mozilla and Firefox on those pages be
helpful?
David
Ryan Snyder
I definitely like the idea of allowing people to point out
discontinued sites or nominate sites to be decommissioned. I think
it's good for an organization to prune its branches, so to speak, so
that employees and community members aren't supporting sites that no
longer serve the mission.
A good example of retiring a site is the Jetpack Gallery, which was
recently retired because Jetpacks may now be hosted as add-ons in
AMO. They wrote a blog post describing why the site was
decommissioned, and if you try to access the Jetpack Gallery site, you
will be redirected to the blog post:
http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2010/08/03/the-jetpack-gallerys-final-flight/
A blog post would suffice, but I also like the idea of creating a wiki
page for each decommissioned site on wiki.mozilla.org. The wiki page
could detail purpose of the site, a screenshot (if available), links
to the archived subversion or github repository (if available),
estimated creation and shut-down dates of the site, as well as reason
for discontinuing the site. When the visitor attempts to visit the
site and is redirected to the blog / wiki, all of the pertinent
information as to why the content is no longer available will be on
that page.
Ryan
davidwboswell
> recently retired because Jetpacks may now be hosted as add-ons in
> AMO.
That sounds like a good example to use with other sites. It looks
like firefoxcup.com did something similar with repointing to a blog
post after the campaign was over.
> A blog post would suffice, but I also like the idea of creating a wiki
> page for each decommissioned site on wiki.mozilla.org. The wiki page
> could detail purpose of the site, a screenshot (if available), links
> to the archived subversion or github repository (if available),
That all sounds good -- my one concern is that browsing a source
repository isn't the friendliest way to give people access to this
historically interesting content. What we did with the www.mozilla.org
site archive at www-archive.mozilla.org might be another model to
follow. The content is there and can be browsed, but there's a big
note at the top to let people know this isn't current information.
When we archive something maybe the original URL points to the wiki or
blog post and from there someone can click through to the archived
pages (archive.firefoxflicks.com, etc.)?
David