I am curious if there is any good 'link checker' which can be used on the entirety of the river pages (or, for that matter, the entire AW website).

I am aware that (here in the 'upper Midwest') a significant number of reaches have old, dead links, due to a couple of (external) websites which no longer exist. (Specifically, Tom O'Keefe used to have a 'paddleguides.com' website, which he has now apparently 'abandoned', and I used to have my 'MRI' (Midwest River Inventory), which geocities hosted free for nearly nine years, but as of last month no longer does.) In addition, a few other websites which were linked to (for info or photos) have either 'gone away' or have been restructured so that links no longer work. Even internally, AW did a considerable restructuring of its website and files a good while back, causing changes to addresses (URLs) for rivers/reaches, archived articles, photos, and so on. (In fairness, SOME of the old links manage to 'transfer' or 'forward' to the new structure, but many do not!)

The situation cited (for the upper Midwest) is hardly unique. I have no doubt that there are any number of reaches throughout the database containing links which the StreamTeamers have not checked since they did their original write-up. And, even as conscientious (dedicated, anal-retentive) as I am, it is still a daunting task to parse every reach (not only those I am 'on record' as StreamTeamer for, but also, (to be thorough, throughout my region) those with no StreamTeamer on record), manually checking each link and (manually) fixing them.

So . . . I am wondering if there is any convenient way that one of our tech-geeks could run a 'link checker' (on the entirety of the river pages), and create a report of broken links. It would be awesome (though maybe asking an awful lot) if it could list (and be sorted by) state, reach number and/or name, and each failed (dead) link. If such a report could be created, perhaps it could be available in some online repository (accessible only to StreamTeamers) for them to check (and then fix) their reaches. More awesome still (again, maybe asking an awful lot) would be if broken/dead 'internal links' (links to AW articles, other reaches, photos, etc) could be updated 'automatically' to reflect the new URLs (now, and any time in the future if/when internal file structures and URLs for AW change).

Broken links just seem a bit frustrating, and end up reflecting poorly upon the owners/maintainers of the website. Concurrent with the decision to have a website should be the responsibility and dedication to ensuring its overall integrity, part of which is having no dead links. Running a link checker 'periodically' needs to be part of that discipline. (Please, all, take no offense where no offense was intended. Not meaning to be a crochety old fart, not meaning to rant or preach or get on anyone's case, just (as ever) making a statement, explaining a position, and hopefully providing constructive/instructive comment.)

(This has also been logged as a new ticket in the 'bug tracker'.)

Rob Smage
AW member since 1992, volunteer since 2000, Midwest Regional StreamTeam Leader