Having been hanging around here for a few months, I feel it is high time that I suggest some way in which the Halfbakery could be made "better". (Next week: improvements will be suggested for sex and chocolate.)

Due to the dynamic nature of the net, many of the older links are now broken or incorrect. This links cannot be found automatically as they seldom end in a 404, more usually they end in an irrelevant page or "This domain name has been registered by..." message.

A [Broken?] button after links could provide a quick way to alert a moderator that a link has expired and can be deleted. It would be better to avoid bombarding the moderators too much by alerting the link's original author, but I can't see any viable way of doing that.
-- wagster, Nov 12 2004

(??) A Broken Link http://www.brokenlinkemporium.com
To test with. [contracts, Nov 12 2004]

Halfbakery spring cleaning. Halfbakery_20spring_20cleaning
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 13 2004]

Jutta's stale links http://www.halfbake...27s_20stale_20links
An example use of the "flagged links by ..." filter option. [jutta, Nov 16 2008]

//I can't see any viable way of doing that.//
How about a note saying "Hey, [wagster], your link is broken"? Even if the link doesn't get mended, at least people are less likely to follow it.
-- angel, Nov 12 2004


Actually, something akin to that is probably a very good idea. I've posted more than one link that has gone stale, bankrupted, or been vacated over the last several years, but I have had few reasons to revisit those sites and remove the reference from the halfbakery. (In at least one notable instance, I didn't know how to politely remove the dead link after the kind fixer posted his new reference link without drawing undue attention to the original idea, the fixer, or myself.) This could be a good community operated signal system.
-- jurist, Nov 12 2004


you're too polite, jurist.

"Oye, mush,that fecking link is cra...
-- po, Nov 12 2004


OK, I've added something. Right now, any user can click on "flag", and if anyone did that, a little (?) is drawn next to the link name until someone edits the link. That's pretty much all it does. Everybody sees the (?).

Once a link is flagged, it grows an "unflag" button so someone who does find the link working or just hit "flag" to see what it does can clear the flag.

To really be useful, it needs to be accompanied by changes to the view - to allow people to search for "my flagged links" - and we might need some safeguards to keep e.g. a runaway traversal engine from flagging everything by traversing into "flag" everywhere. I haven't done those yet.
-- jutta, Nov 12 2004


Okay [wagster], you're famous now.
-- bristolz, Nov 12 2004


Hm, actually, that "brokenlinkemporium" gives me an idea - how about a central place on the web to collect broken destinations and suggest replacements? Kind of a Google of the Lost? Not archive.org, which looks into the past, but an (automated, webdav, published URLs, yada yada yada) service to centrally figure out where to go next.
-- jutta, Nov 12 2004


I like that. Maybe as an adjunct, one could post a link that, like tinyurl or snipurl, is to a redirection service but with the difference in that if the first choice destination becomes unavailable a second choice destination is provided?
-- bristolz, Nov 12 2004


Would there be a possibility of misuse?
-- Ling, Nov 12 2004


The second choice is a suggestion but, of course, I suppose anything can be misused, abused or weaponized in some way, even the lowly carrot.
-- bristolz, Nov 12 2004


[jutta] "brokenlinkemporium" - I think that should be a separate idea. If you owned a site it would then be an easy task to search for broken links whose source or destination was on your site.
-- hippo, Nov 12 2004


Note that I just flagged a broken link on "Rain Chimes" to test this - The "(?)" appeared and the "unflag" button, but the "flag" button remained which is probably not intentional functionality.
-- hippo, Nov 12 2004


Actually, clicking multiple times on the flag button makes it slightly more flagged, it's just that the flaggedness degree isn't displayed yet.

There, I've changed it to vary from ? through ??? as people hit that flag button again - but I think that'll just lead to the first person who flags something to do it three times in a row for effect, and now I need to keep track of who flagged something, and it really becomes unwieldy.
-- jutta, Nov 12 2004


Jutta, I got a flag, but the link actually does work, so... I don't understand.
-- dentworth, Nov 12 2004


Is there a way for a link to report whether it works or not? Kind of like a backwards referrer. I guess not, though it would be kind of handy in this situation, that way, links that were tried and failed could autoflag themselves.
-- zen_tom, Nov 12 2004


Wow - it got baked! How exciting! Nice one Jutta. <blushes with embarrassment>
-- wagster, Nov 12 2004


And as a newcomer, you have no idea just how incredibly rare an event that is - suggesting something, having neither me nor the collective users go ballistic over the fact that you dare crticise the site, and actually getting something vaguely resembling what you ask for.

[dentworth], I'm not sure I get what the problem is. Are you saying, "Hey, I could flag a link that worked?" Yes, you can.
-- jutta, Nov 12 2004


its often the newesty freshest faces that actually spot things like that! hey, more buttons to press - wonderful!
-- po, Nov 12 2004


[Jutta] I coincidentally had a bad link at the exact moment the flag option appeared. I thought that was how you were going to implement it. But now I understand, it would be my option to flag it; in this case the website has the problem, not the link.
-- dentworth, Nov 12 2004


Hey cool. I like that I can go make little question marks appear all over the bakery links now. They do sorta look like little flags, too.
-- waugsqueke, Nov 13 2004


[Waugs] trouble maker...
-- dentworth, Nov 13 2004


This has already been suggested.

//Also, I wonder if there is a way to help the moderators out by flagging the dead links left by users who are no longer present with an [mfd] link tag?

Jun 09 2004// [link]
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 13 2004


Had to burst my bubble didn't you [2 fries]? :-(
-- wagster, Nov 13 2004


It's not nearly so elegant as your suggestion [wagster]. Burst not your bubble.
-- bristolz, Nov 13 2004


Burst mine. ( :
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 13 2004


:-)
-- wagster, Nov 13 2004


It's a new font for blind people. You can get 'pixel-outshift' monitors that will raise the pixels on these codes so they can be read by touch. Of course it's our secret.

Hey [2 fries], [UnaBubba] ^((_-;-;<) ha ha ()(-_--+= fishbone {-))(=<><)+=( monkey's beard ((_-_+((0)!!!
-- wagster, Nov 13 2004


Nice! Now do a croissant.
-- wagster, Nov 13 2004


What a crap idea. Leave the 'bakery alone. This will be far too difficult to implement, and [jutta] has enough to do.</obligatory>

[jutta] I like the idea of an internet dead letter office. I'm picturing a bunch of robots sitting around reading cached web pages looking for clues as to what might have happened to them.

Interestingly, when you go to Deadletteroffice.com it tells you that the name has changed and directs you to another address.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 14 2004


[UB] - Yep!
-- wagster, Nov 14 2004


Churn churn churn...

Hey [jutta], for our new year's gift, can you add something to do with flags to the view options, so that you could have a view with all your personal flagged links.
-- dbmag9, Jan 02 2006


Oh everything churns, churns, churns...

The Beatles. Yeah.
-- DesertFox, Jan 03 2006


Or, as I wrote in 2004:
// To really be useful, it needs to be accompanied by changes to the view
// - to allow people to search for "my flagged links"

To celebrate the four-year anniversary of that annotation (sigh) it's actually been implemented. You can now filter for ideas with flagged links by <userlist> or just links by <userlist>.
-- jutta, Nov 16 2008


My God! An idea I echoed [jutta] suggesting has been implemented by [jutta] on the Halfbakery! I feel like some sort of divine being has been shining upon me.

[jutta], you are the Halfbakery's (demi, of course) god.
-- dbmag9, Nov 19 2008



random, halfbakery