[595] in IS Home Pages
Re: Correction necessary on IS web page
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin M. Cunningham)
Thu May 27 11:38:26 1999
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Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 11:38:14 -0400
To: is-home@mit.edu (IS Webmasters)
From: "Kevin M. Cunningham" <kcunning@MIT.EDU>
At 10:16 PM -0400 5/19/99, anonymous@MIT.EDU wrote:
>Please provide as much information as you can. Thank you.
>
>** Incorrect information:
>Last modified date is actually current date.
>It's misleading
>
>** Location (URL):
>IS Staff Directory
>
>** Do you have a special interest in this information (i.e. owner, frequent reader, etc.)?
>It's useful to know when the directory was last modified.
I have revised the Staff Directory pages to say "This page generated [today's date/time]" rather than "Last modified [today's date/time]". This is more accurate, and may help avoid the mistaken inference that the date refers to when the DATA was last updated.
This of course does not address the anonymous user's real interest, but at least resets the expectations for the pages.
As far as meeting the user's desire is concerned, I'm not clear what if anything we ought to do. If we put a mod date on the bottom of the page, what date should it be? If it is the time the database was last modified, it may lead to the false idea that all the records listed were updated at that point. Same thing if we put the mod time for the most-recently-modified record in the found set -- people would think that one mod time applied to all the records listed. If we put up mod dates for *each* record shown, it would clutter the screen and mislead the user into thinking we have a far more precise process for tracking these entries than we actually do.
I think it's best to provide people/team *content*, but to set low expectations about how often the data is verified. We do not in fact yet have a precise and fail-safe process for maintaining it, and it would create a false impression to put precise update statistics on them. If you see what I mean...
--Kevin
