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Should I Get Hit By a Truck . . . Orphan Web PagesAs a consultant, I've always made a point of keeping my clients informed of my progress, and of sending them copies of my work on a regular basis. Many of them resist, saying, "Just send it all at once." I say, "But this way, should I get hit by a truck, you'll have the work I've done for you to date." The client won't be left holding a bill for my services with nothing to show for it.Of course we all know that the "should I get hit by a truck" principle applies to everything in our lives. But I've become a bit sensitive this year on how it applies to information resources that thousands of hobbyists have been providing for free to our friends on the World Wide Web. It Happens More Than You Might ThinkSince January, three train-related web pages that I provided links to for their unique, helpful information have gone down. By themselves, they won't really bring anybody's hobbies to a screeching halt, but certain groups will miss their content very much.A worst case scenario struck the online Christmas collector's community this year. A unique and comprehensive reference site went down without warning. As a favor to my friends in that community, I spent countless hours restoring the site's 110 pages and nearly a thousand photographs. (For the full story, visit OldChristmasTreeLights.com.) Yes, I know that the content of that site won't seem important to many of the hobbyists who read this, but the principle applies: A large online community was left without its principal resource because the site owner didn't make any provision for what would happen if he suddenly became incapacitated. Are My Articles Really THAT Important?Some hobbies like Garden Railroading literally grew up on the Internet. There are so many great resources* that the hobby would not exactly be crippled if any one - or even any three - went down tomorrow.But many personal hobby web pages include the valuable results of painstaking experimentation or research through materials that aren't available to the average person - work that other folks may have to do without or redo from "scratch" if the web page goes down. How-to articles are especially important, even if you're "redesigning the wheel," or doing what I do and trying something anyone (else) would be an idiot to try. Just as important are pages that publish research into little-known areas. Lots of folks who are thinking about getting into a hobby or getting into a new phase of a hobby read literally everything they can find on a subject, and even the "silliest" articles may be the "tipping point" that gives them confidence to try. Plan NowMany of us have already made out lists or at least told our family what to do with our "stuff," once we're gone. But if we don't have any family members who are interested in receiving our Internet torches, maybe it's time to contact one of the resources you like and ask the site owner if he or she would like to be the "caretaker" of your own web resources in the event that you suddenly can no longer keep them going. You might even set up a system where you and other friends occasionally trade CDs of each others' sites. If nothing else, someone you trust should have a copy of your FTP and login information. Giving someone "permission" to republish your site should you fall off the grid is not enough - if the person doesn't have access to your source files, it could be more trouble to republish your stuff than it's worth.Who Ya Gonna Call?There are certain other hobby webmeisters that I trust to do right by my hard work, and who trust me to do right by theirs. It's kind of a mutual "insurance policy" that will keep our online "legacies" from disappearing without a trace if one of us becomes uncapacitated without warning. If you have a personal hobby web page that includes how-to articles and or the results of original research or other unique material, you owe it to your fellow hobbyists either to:
P.S. If the webmeister you contact isn't me, and they think you're crazy, tell them to read this article. If it's me, I may still think you're crazy, but at least I'll know what you're talking about. ConclusionThe good news is that in some of my favorite hobbies there are hundreds of small, but helpful resources I count on, and often link to for more (and in some cases, better) information. The bad news is that unless I revisit the article where I put the link, a site can go down for months without me realizing it. Again, it's happened far too many times this year alone. In at least one case, could have set a whole hobby back literally for years.I hope you all take this as a positive - my conviction that so many of the personal hobby sites on the web have information worth preserving indefinitely. I'm certainly willing to do my part, and I know that most other of the "serious" hobby webmeisters are willing to do theirs as well. Your questions, concerns, insults, faint praise, etc. welcome as always, Here's hoping that every one of you lives a very long productive life, and that the topic of this article is never an issue for you. :-) Best of luck, Paul Race
* These include Family Garden Trains?, Large Scale Central?, George Schreyer's Technical Tips Page, and MyLargeScale.com?. We also have the subscription-based resources Large Scale Online? and the Garden Railways? web pages. Obviously there are hundreds more sites that have useful information, many of which I frequently link my pages to for readers who wouldn't find them otherwise.
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