From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: This list is twelve years old today
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:40:16 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Michael Walsh <walshmichaelj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well ... I'll just note that http://www.geoapps.com/nomime.shtml you
> linked to states:

> "Last change:
> 14:10 ET
> Mon 07 Dec 09"

And indeed I don't follow geoapps.com, just as I don't follow
wsfa.org.  I have bookmarked useful archival pages, such as that one,
on both sites.  But I don't *follow* either site in the sense of
checking in periodically to see what's new.  I cease following sites
that have had no obvious updates in over a year.  I suspect most
people do so even sooner.

Wsfa.org is a fine site for viewing old WSFA Journals.  But if someone
wants to know what's new in WSFA, they'll see no WSFA Journals for
2013 or 2014, and only six each for 2011 and 2012, only one of which
is in HTML format rather than just PDF, which many cannot read.

If they look at the calendar of upcoming events, they'll see upcoming
meetings.  But those entries were created years ago, and go through
the year 9999 (!).  Years -- even decades -- after the Madigans and
the Scheiners cease hosting meetings, or move away, are people who
stumble into WSFA's website going to keep going to those houses?  For
all I know, this may already be happening.

(Sure, today it's comical to read that the Madigans will be hosting
on Friday, January 17, 2194.  But if the website still exists in
180 years, it won't be at all obvious to reader that that entry was
written before their grandparents were born, and they'll either be
annoying whoever is living at that address or wasting their time
searching for an address that no longer exists.)

If they look at minutes.htm, intended to hold the minutes of all
meetings not yet in a WSFA Journal, they see the minutes of just one
meeting, which took place four and half years ago.

If they look at wsfahist.htm, the newest entry is six years ago, and
it's written in the future tense.

On Sunday I went to the memorial service for Jeannie Dunnington.
When it was mentioned that she had been a WSFA member, in a way that
implied that WSFA was long defunct, I pointed out that WSFA still
existed.  I was met with incredulity.