RE: Judges, Web Links, and more

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, James Purchase wrote:

>... I don't see this as a place for every Tom, Dick and Harry to
> get publicity for their "look at me, I'm on the web" sites. Unless a web
> site contains signifigant original material (eg. Steve Pushak and his
> substrate research, George Booth and his personal experinces with the Dupla
> system, I tend to quickly loose interest in most personal web sites, and we
> run the risk of diluting the "information factor" of the sites we have
> listed if we open it up too much.
> 
> Another issue is maintainability - it's a bit of a pain to have to
> constantly check a huge number of web links and ensure that they are all
> still valid and on-line. I just don't have the time and we don't have the
> volunteers.

This is the same problem I have on The Krib as well -- people want to
"exchange links".  I usually look at the site, and if it's relevant to
aquatic plants, original (which could be just because it's THEIR tank) and
reasonably good, I may add it, but otherwise I must politely decline, and
redirect them to a more appropriate site that is more into keeping lots of
links (i.e. Fish Link Central).  Why would I want to duplicate that
effort?  

The showcase has ample opportunities, btw, for the Tom Dick and Harry
types... if they enter.  Remember, there's that "HomePage" field you guys
wanted! 

It's easier to detect dead links out nowadays, because I have a program
that checks all the link validity on a range (i.e. a whole site).  But it
still is time consuming to actually DELETE them from the code.


> I don't know how free a commercial enterprise would be with their support.
> I'm not interested in having to have banners splashed all over the web site
> advertising any particular company. The letters I am sending out to
> companies looking for their donations/support for prizes do say that we will
> acknowledge them on the web site, but I intend to see that this is limited
> to one area (i.e page) of the site dedicated to the prizes, giving a list of
> companies who have donated prizes - there won't be any flashing, scrolling
> banners (I'm sure that Erik will agree with this, at least I hope that he
> will).

Bingo.  The AGA is financially supporting the endevour.  It's not a
moneymaking venture.  We can do this without requiring any commercial
influence, banner ads, click-throughs.  I like this.  I want to keep it
that way.  I do not think that we will have any less publicity if we don't
participate in corporate banner ad exchanges.  Heck, a friend of mine said
they actually saw the blurb in their POODLE club e-mail bulletin last
week.

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

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