Day: February 23, 2011

Convo we're having about Rhizome.org Relaunch Bugs. A commenter says it's "a tad mean spirited" to publicly point out broken links. It's been a month now and it was supposed to be a week; some people care.

tommoody | Sat, Jan 22nd, 2011 2:12 p.m.
Hi, Nick,
[...] Some bugs:
The reblog posts are now tagged as "reblog archive" but archived as "editorial"--this breaks incoming links.
Here are a handful of links from my site and elsewhere that no longer work:
http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/reblog.php/1853/ (announcing Marisa Olson's "The GIF Show")*
http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/reblog.php/2299/* (Marisa reblogged my Time Lapse Molecule 2 .gif - the post still exists but the URL to my site is gone from the post so it appears Marisa made the GIF. Here is the current location: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2006/jul/19/time-lapse-molecule-2/)
http://www.rhizome.org/events/gifshow/*
I will look on my blogs and see what else may be broken.
Best, Tom

root | Tue, Jan 25th, 2011 1:48 p.m.
Hey Tom,
I'm working on fixing old linkbacks, and other bugs as well. Hopefully we'll have all the kinks work out in a week or so.
Thanks for your patience everyone!
Nick

tommoody | Wed, Feb 23rd, 2011 10:14 a.m.
Hi, Nick,
It's been almost a month and the above links still aren't working. Paddy Johnson noticed some other errors and mentioned them on her twitter, specifically that the "Rhizome exhibition archives now almost all lead to dead links": http://rhizome.org/exhibitions/?page=3
The page above includes the "Professional Surfer" exhibit, which Brad Troemel and others have claimed as an example of the institutionalization of surf clubs. Right now that exhibit can't be found anywhere on Rhizome:
http://rhizome.org/events/timeshares/professionalsurfer.php*
So it's impossible to prove Troemel correct or incorrect unless someone made a screenshot or probes the haze of collective memory via interviews with people who might have witnessed the page.
We went through this a couple of years ago and you did get the redirects fixed fairly promptly. I will continue to note broken links here.
Best, Tom

michaelszpakowski | Wed, Feb 23rd, 2011 11:08 a.m.
Why do this in public? - I'm sure it's all in good faith but it comes over as a tad mean sprited [sic].
michael

tommoody | Wed, Feb 23rd, 2011 11:33 a.m.
Michael, it's a public website and a public record, and these links aren't being fixed. If someone follows a link from my blog and it doesn't work, it's easier to "get the word out" via blog posts than email everyone who might have ever read my blog and been annoyed by link rot.
Also, this is the second round of broken links we've had to deal with in a couple of years. See http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2009/12/19/fundraisers-afc-and-rhizome/ Sorry if my peevishness about that comes off to you as mean-spirited.
Correction to above: Troemel's claim of museum support for surf clubs was based on certain of their members being included in the "Unmonumental" show in 2008. (See http://fourninetyone.com/2011/01/06/fromclubstoaffinity/ - but beware that [the essay] has many inaccuracies, as Michael Manning and others have noted.) Troemel may not have been aware of the "Professional Surfer" exhibit in January 2007, since he is claiming the clubs had "underdog" status at that time. In any case, it would be good to have the record of what actually happened restored as soon as possible. (This stuff is still being argued about.)

Here's just a sampling of other broken links to Rhizome content, from my Digital Media Tree blog (I searched "Rhizome" to generate this list and will continue to add to it from my current blog and other sources):

http://www.rhizome.org/fp.rhiz?id=3860*
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=26212*
http://www.rhizome.org/fp.rhiz?id=3616*
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz/?thread=24996&page=1#47095*
http://rhizome.org/fp.rhiz/?id=2463*
http://www.rhizome.org/fp.rhiz?id=1853*
http://rhizome.org/events/net_aesthetics_2_0/*
http://www.rhizome.com/fp.rhiz?id=1416*
http://rhizome.org/fp.rhiz/?id=898*
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=19080&page=1#36375* (changed at some point to http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/19080, which works, but please note HTML formatting errors are breaking almost every link on the page now)
http://www.rhizome.com/fp.rhiz?id=666*
http://www.newmuseum.org/now_cur_RhizomeArtBase101.htm
http://rhizome.org/netartnews/story.rhiz/?×tamp=20050518*
http://www.rhizome.org/rsg/*

Eventually my own links will break--although so far ten years of blogging has managed to be preserved with no redirects, thanks to Jim, Barry, and Ed--but I'm not a public institution.

*Update, March 10, 2011: Am using this post to test links - some of them are working now, and this Archive Page restores some missing content. Links mentioned in the post above that have been fixed (am adding to this - work in progress):

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2006/apr/29/gifs-galore-and-more/

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2006/jul/19/time-lapse-molecule-2/ (but my reblogged GIF still appears to be Marisa's)

http://archive.rhizome.org:8080/exhibition/gifshow/

http://rhizome.org/events/net_aesthetics_2_0/

http://rhizome.org/events/timeshares/professionalsurfer.php has been semi-fixed - it takes you to the Time Shares page and from there you click on a link to the Professional Surfer exhibit page

http://www.rhizome.org/rsg/ now redirects to the RSG (Radical Software Group) homepage

The links above without asterisks are still broken.

Update, March 24, 2011: Post announcing the Rhizome Archive (with my feedback)

Update, July 2011: The links listed above have all been fixed by Rhizome (thanks!) with the exception of one New Museum link. I added asterisks to all the posts listed above where the links were fixed.