a site I've written for is being taken for a ride

by their webmaster (or else he's just completely incompetent.) The
search button has been broken forever. I mentioned it to the editor
when we were emailing about the money they own me. Her response?

>I completely agree, and have been frustrated about that for years. But
> tweaking can't be done. It is incredibly time consuming to set up a search
> capability and it all depends on funding...

!!!!

I wrote back suggesting that they at least have an index of past
issues, plus mentioned free or cheap search engines they could add
easily. Reply to first point?
> There's no way to do that index--no record of each issue...

Amazing.

To second point:
> But how would that free site search through all our old articles and find
> them? I can see how it could search from now on, but finding the old ones is
> nearly impossible cause nothing has been meta tagged for key words. That is
> the project that needs to be done...

I politely told her that there's no need to do all that, the search
engine will spider automatically. I also pointed out that a broken
search box is worse than no search.

Wonder if they're interested in buying a bridge in Brooklyn?

MGW wrote

> by their webmaster (or else he's just completely incompetent.) The
> search button has been broken forever. I mentioned it to the editor
> when we were emailing about the money they own me. Her response?
>
>>I completely agree, and have been frustrated about that for years. But
>> tweaking can't be done. It is incredibly time consuming to set up a
>> search capability and it all depends on funding...
>
> !!!!
>
> I wrote back suggesting that they at least have an index of past
> issues, plus mentioned free or cheap search engines they could add
> easily. Reply to first point?
>> There's no way to do that index--no record of each issue...
>
> Amazing.
>
> To second point:
>> But how would that free site search through all our old articles and
>> find them? I can see how it could search from now on, but finding the
>> old ones is nearly impossible cause nothing has been meta tagged for
>> key words. That is the project that needs to be done...
>
> I politely told her that there's no need to do all that, the search
> engine will spider automatically. I also pointed out that a broken
> search box is worse than no search.
>
> Wonder if they're interested in buying a bridge in Brooklyn?

Is there a prize for guessing who you are quoting?

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

On 26 Oct 2005 0853 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
scrawled:

> Is there a prize for guessing who you are quoting?

Sorry - I'm quoting an editor for the site (which I'm not naming to
protect the clueless.)

On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 0956 -0400, MGW <mgw1979@hotmail.com>
scrawled:

> On 26 Oct 2005 0853 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
> scrawled:
>
> > Is there a prize for guessing who you are quoting?
>
> Sorry - I'm quoting an editor for the site (which I'm not naming to
> protect the clueless.)

Guess I shouldn't have been posting late at night while on cold
medicine ;-(

Basically, I've written a few articles for an online magazine. It has
been driving me crazy that there's no way to find past articles, the
search box has been broken for at least a year, and email to
webmaster@... go unanswered.

I emailed the editor about something else and mentioned the search
problem. She said it's been upsetting her but it would cost too much
to fix without additional funding (!) Turns out the so-called
"webmaster" had sold them a bill of goods, claiming they'd have to add
appropriate keyword meta-tags to every page they wanted searched. (of
course, this is also the site that's publication date isn't the 1st of
the month, but "when the webmaster finds time to put up the new
articles."

MGW wrote

> On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 0956 -0400, MGW <mgw1979@hotmail.com>
> scrawled:
>
>> On 26 Oct 2005 0853 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
>> scrawled:
>>
>> > Is there a prize for guessing who you are quoting?
>>
>> Sorry - I'm quoting an editor for the site (which I'm not naming to
>> protect the clueless.)
>
> Guess I shouldn't have been posting late at night while on cold
> medicine ;-(
>
> Basically, I've written a few articles for an online magazine. It has
> been driving me crazy that there's no way to find past articles, the
> search box has been broken for at least a year, and email to
> webmaster@... go unanswered.
>
> I emailed the editor about something else and mentioned the search
> problem. She said it's been upsetting her but it would cost too much
> to fix without additional funding (!) Turns out the so-called
> "webmaster" had sold them a bill of goods, claiming they'd have to add
> appropriate keyword meta-tags to every page they wanted searched. (of
> course, this is also the site that's publication date isn't the 1st of
> the month, but "when the webmaster finds time to put up the new
> articles."

Wouldn't be on Google?

site:example.com "your query"

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

On 26 Oct 2005 1713 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
scrawled:

>
> Wouldn't be on Google?
>
> site:example.com "your query"

Of course they could use the Google site search or something similar.
As I said, they are a bunch of bozos with an incompetent webmaster.
This site, btw, also uses frames <ugh!> and a horrific color scheme.

It's not clear to me how many back articles they have still on the
site - the place is pretty unnavigable. I got the impression a couple
of years ago that the "webmaster" is a friend of the site's founder.
<sigh>

--
MGW
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've
always got.

MGW wrote

[sig]

> If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've
> always got.

That I like!

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com