Today I received an email to an addy that I only use with PayPal, so of course it is reflected in their code on the buy buttons I use. The only people that would use it would be someone who had illegally spidered my addy.
This email was from someone who used this email addy. It was about Genealogy and since I belong to a FP and EW lists on Rootsweb and two of the help lists there I thought it was someone from the lists emailing me and it was not marked spam by my spam checker so I opened it and read it.
The email was touting a new book about how to make a site and publish it as a book also. Admirable you might think, that might be so if they had told you how to do this with a Web or Text Editor. However they were touting a Word Processor and a Desktop Publishing Editor, namely Word and Publisher.
How simply awful. The mere thought sent me to shuddering at the thought many people that will read that and produce sites that web users will not be able to read. Either because it will crash browsers or cause untold accessibility problems not to mention TEACHING this method.
I believe when you teach, no matter the subject you should be ethical in your practices, every single time.
In my humble opinion this is not the case here.
Make a book yes but please, please, please do NOT publish the output as a web site. That is what Expression Web is for. Or there are plenty of free Web editors around to produce your site in the correct way.
I won’t advertise their book for them so in order to recognise the book and site I am talking about .. this is a quote from their pdf file they ask you to look at.
“This appendix presents detailed information on the two website authoring applications we recommend, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher, and how to use them to createa genealogy website. A website authoring application creates the HTML files of the website. Also, the website authoring application should be capable of producing, in a straight-forward project, the genealogy book from the genealogy website. “The Book” as it is called in this guide is the traditional product of genealogy research and the dream of many genealogists.”
Start as you mean to go on and learn the right way when it comes to coding your site and the correct editors to use. If you are going to teach people how to create a book you do it one way. If you teach them how to create a website you teach another way. The two do NOT go hand in hand.
So what is the lesson here?
Firstly, kindly don’t spam. Spamming is liable to backfire on you.
Secondly if you are going to teach a method make sure your not promoting bad practices to those people who have the least idea on how to proceed in a new and scary genre.
Lastly the owners of this book and site sent the email to the wrong two people who feel strongly about valid and accessible code. (My good friend Pat Geary also received this email). Hence this post from two irate web designers!
Thank you very much for letting us know about this possible intrusion into our lives. Illegally spidering your addy, just shows what kind of character this person(s) has.
I really appreciate having this information so I don’t get hooked into buying something so detrimental to my hard work.
[...] Today I received an e-mail touting a new book and website hosting service that I consider not only spam but very poor advice for budding website designers and genealogists. My friend Tina Clarke wrote about it on blog Bad Practices, Spam and Irate Web Designers. [...]
Hear! Hear!
Books & the Web are radically different media, requiring different approaches, techniques, tools and processes. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other.
These folks are demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding, both in their marketing and in their content. One should be wary of their “guidance”.
Hi folks:
As the author of the subject book (“[removed]“), here are some additional thoughts on the issue (i.e., should genealogists use Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher?) as their website authoring application. Also, a related issue is can a genealogy website even become a book?
IMHO – the answer is yes and yes.
First the issue of the website authoring application: The major problem facing most genealogists as potential webmasters is the huge gap in the expertise required which is seldom part of the genealogist’s expertise. That is, web technology has its own pecular jargon, tools, and procedures. However, all the genealogists wants to do is tell his or her story. This is why Microsoft Word is perfect for them – it is a way to quickly create a hypermedia-based genealogy “document” which then can be shared with the world and which is easily in the expertise of most genealogists. By using Microsoft Word, genealogists can just “write” rather than continually having to contend with the minutia of web technology.
As far as Microsoft Publisher as a website authoring application, it is nothing short of awsome! Actually, I do all my commissioned websites in it. I’ll admit that these are all commercial static (text and images) based in which the creation and sharing of complex hypermedia-based documents is the requirement.
One of the really interesting issues brought up is whether a genealogy website can even be turned into a hardcopy book or are they just too different? Well, first the biggest part of the work of creating a genealogy book from a genealogy website has already been completed – the research and synthesis of the information. This is 80% of any book effort (take my word for it as I’ve written two big ones).
But what about the structure of the two? In the “[removed],” there is an extensive explanation of the use of multilayered structures (an information structure) for a non-fiction literary work such as a genealogy website or a genealogy book. That is, if one observes some design principles, the two projects (website vs. book) can be made to be compatible structurally from an information content standpoint. However, the actual project to create a genealogy book from a genealogy website is still a major, time-consuming effort of reformatting and tweeking. In the “[removed]” book, there is an explanation of how to proceed. Also, we have written an article on the multilayered structure (see [removed]).
I know these are highly controversal issues. Thank you for your time.
Thornton Gale
ps – as these are the holidays, my time is limited now but I will have more time after the new year to discuss these matters.
ED NOTE: Hyperlinks and the book name have been deleted, as I said I won’t be advertising it on my blog
How can people still advocate using MS Word to build webites? Expression web is not much better and still uses proprietary MS code in the pages it produces.
Ann I emailed you but have not gotton a reply yet. I agree with you about Word, however I require some examples of proprietay code that ew produces to understand what you are talking about. Expression web is a web editor, Word is a word processor… they are tons apart.. like any tool any web editor is only as good as the user… that goes for dreamweaver as well.. its case of showing what your talking about otherwise what was the point in commenting?
Thornton Gale…. you are so far off the mark… and you also highlight yourself again as a spammer by including the references to the name of your book and your link, and not addressing half of the main point of my post. You did not address the fact that you spammed myself and Pat Geary amongst others on the genealogy list nor did you say sorry either. Secondly just because something appears ‘easy’ for the writer to do…does not mean it will benefit them in the long run. Use the correct tools for the correct job or your reputation will be down the drain… be ethical…or it will end up biting you back.
Note: There was a delay in posting moderated posts, as I have not been able to see to the blog due to offline life.
I actually had sort of given up on having my post of December 28 actually approved by you guys. I certainly do apologize for any spamming activity and I know it wastes people’s time and it is unfair to consume another person’s time against their will.
As for the controversy, I don’t think the tool whether it be Microsoft Word or Expression Web is the real issue for genealogists. The real issue is that genealogists want and need to “publish.” To me, “publishing” means creating a finished document then making it available to the public. That is, genealogists want to write about their family history and publish it so others can (hopefully) appreciate it too. The publication is the product. In our modern age, the web is the media. How the average genealogist can actually achieve publishing a document is our question (IMHO).
I recommend that genealogist start out with a “genealogy essay” which they carefully write over several weeks using their word processor. Once completed, how can the genealogist put his or her essay on the website? It’s true, many genealogists are computer power users and may already have and know-how to use an HTML editor such as their Microsoft Office component Frontpage. However, for most genealogists, actually putting their essay on a website is a show-stopper. Not only do they not own an HTML editor but they don’t know how to use one either. All the genealogist wants to do is write then publish his or her essay.
My point is that if they used Microsoft Word to write their essay as an HTML document then they can simply copy it to their website. The act of copying their essay to their website using FTP is the only new skill but it is straightforward. In this way, they can create their essay using skills they already have for the most part and without incurring additonal expenses.
Once published, the genealogy essay is the starting point of their genealogy website. I call this the “top layer” of a multilayered structure (an information structure). As time passes, they can create two other layers of the information structure to complete their website: a middle “synthesis” layer and a bottom “documents” layer. The “documents” layer contains the scans or snippets of historical documents. The “synthesis” layer brings together the information of the “documents” into meaningful generalizations. Microsoft Word also works fine for these two other layers.
I know that advocating the use of Microsoft Word is highly controversal and I appreciate your time reading this.
The reason NO comments or even new blog posts were posted was because my offline life took the lead. Your post was not singled out.
Re the spamming, this thread post would never have happened if you had not done that, bad karma, bad ethics.
Just because something is ‘easy’ or ‘cheap’ does not make it ‘right’ or the ethical thing to advocate. Especially when there are alternative tools that will do exactly the same thing and are free. I think we have exhausted this thread now.
As a frequent volunteer on the RootsWeb FreePages mailing list, I see quite often genealogists who have used Word or Publisher to create their web pages. The code is horrendous and it is hard work and very time consuming to clean it up. It is also difficult to try and weed through the code when you try and help them clear up display problems caused by some of the code.
There are much better tools for working on websites, some of them are free. By all means advise genealogists to use Word or Publisher if they are working with a print medium but NOT to design websites. There are many more genealogists designing websites to share there information that have no intention whatsoever that the info will appear in print.
Tina,
BTW – love your art work. It is very good! Easily the best I’ve seen on the web!
Have a good one.
It seems to me that using genealogy software is much more efficient in developing a web site than using Word or Publisher. I have used two different software packages in the past (the first one a free one and the second something I purchased) and both were good in laying out my family’s genealogy in multiple ways. Using Word or Publisher, it seems to me that you would have to re-edit your entire listing if you decided you wanted to change your layout.
My current package has what I regard to be powerful tools to convert my data into various reports or documents, including book form, so I fail to see why you would want to restrict yourself to using a word processing package which is not, IMHO, all that great in generating web sites.
But, then, each of us has our own preferences. I, too, received Mr Gale’s email and was curious to see how the method he wrote about in his book worked for his genealogical website so I googled his name. Unfortunately, so far, I have not found it yet.
Hi Ron, you could try emailing him/her? direct I guess?
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