Landships II

James H · Legend

Greatwardifferent Down.

Rectalgia · Legend

Good heavens, no. The index pages appear to have evaporated - I can get neither http://www.greatwardifferent.com/ nor
http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/index.htm

"Requesting the server's default page.
The server returned the following response headers:
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:53:56 GMT"

The sever is alive and well, it just doesn't want to serve up any top-level index pages right now, to anyone:

http://www.watchmouse.com/en/checkit.php

It is responding to 'pings' from anywhere on the globe, so that much is fine:

http://just-ping.com/index.php

And, as you've found it is currently serving up individual/subject pages just fine.

I've e-mailed the site's maintainer but I suspect he might know all about it already. I think it's a matter of re-trying every now and then until it comes up again. If I hear back I will advise further.

We can drag up the comprehensive list of individual/subject page addresses (at least those which were in place up until mid 2008) from the Internet Archives but that is a bit of a drag and I'm hoping it is only temporary. If not, then the archives themselves might end up as all that we will have.

This internet business is all very shaky - just when one comes to rely on a resource ... pfft, it squibs.

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Sunday 25th of April 2010 09:28:08 PM

James H · Legend

Ta, Stephen. Although I understand scarcely a word of the above, I am confident that you are taking all possible steps.

Ironsides · Legend

I had it earlier today but its gone again clearly their having problems... this has been on my favorites menu for years, I visit fairly frequently some good stuff on there hope they get it sorted.... seems to be a rash of this at the moment...

Cheers cry

Rectalgia · Legend

Darn, I was so hoping it would come back (and stay back). Needless to say I've had no response to my query.

As a stopgap, I have re-created the expanded index, as it was in June 2008 from the internet archive. James, Ironsides, I will PM you the address of the index which is presently on my personal webpage (I don't want to post it in public), and would ask you to try it out.

'My' index page will look like a very basic copy of the index page from greatwardifferent.com (GWD) - with only the links. If it works, you just click on any link there and it will take you to the corresponding page on greatwardifferent. Any further links to other GWD pages (except the top-level index) should work from within the GWD pages. To get back to 'my' index page you can use your browser 'back' button and step back to it.

If you tell me it works I can PM the address to others desperate to get back in - but I would caution not overdoing it if they are having problems. Maybe the last thing they need is a heap of users thrashing away.

Or maybe there's some limit to how much an index to a single directory can handle and they've exceeded it in their latest version of the site. In which case they will be re-organising their directory structures and 'my' index of their site will rapidly fall apart.

Ah, the joys of 'teh interwebz' as they say. Let me know how it goes, if you would.

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Tuesday 27th of April 2010 12:00:02 AM

Rectalgia · Legend

I have confirmation that the 'remanufactured' index works fine. There are 807 links to 807 different pages of greatwardifferent.com which is probably not quite all of them. If anyone wants the link to the index (as discussed above) please post here or PM and I will send it by PM.

Please keep it to yourself or to other users of the forum here.

Regards,

Steve

Rectalgia · Legend

Just to note that GWD themselves have posted a work-around:

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Copy_index.htm

I was about to let those with a copy of "my" index know that the apparently broken links

British Naval Brigade Interned in the Netherlands
Frederick Palmer : an American Reporter on the Western Front

are also 'broken' in the archived versions (apparently all versions). They are also MIA in the above as well. With the discovery of that 'copy index' I won't bother with individual alerts.

Pity about the Naval Brigade, AKA 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. That story is out there somewhere. Palmer, on the other hand, has several other entries under the index so maybe the 'broken' link (actually non-existent) is simply redundant.

Rob · Legend

Glad it's back - love the site, very atmospheric

Rectalgia · Legend

Yes, it is great.

Although it is rare for a site to lose its index, those cherishing this one might like to take the precaution of saving a local copy of Copy_index.htm (a copy on your own computer). That way, if it gets lost again (and that's all that is wrong) you can access the site through the local copy.

With the page displayed in your browser, just use File - Save Page As and file type is "Web Page, Complete" - or "Web Page, HTML only" would do - but the complete file is small by current standards - 219 KB.

That's under "Page" instead of "File" for OE8 and there's an added option (the other two are available as well) of file type "Web Archive, single file (.mht)" which I don't know about but presumably saves all the images and other bits and pieces that make up the total 'browser experience' so beloved of these benighted technocratic, planet-devouring, latte-sipping, chardonnay-swilling, serial-partnering, body-parts-piercing tree-huggers who call the shots these days. No, no, I *love* the little buggers, srsly.

James H · Legend

It's gorn again.

Rectalgia · Legend

James H wrote:
It's gorn again.

Ah, I've been looking out for its triumphant return but missed it somehow, now too late. Well, the copy index (as above) - and mine - both appear still to work.

I suspected they may have tried to add some more content which might have broken the camel's back in terms of the index - but can't understand how it is taking so long to at least put up a temporary page with a link to their copy index.

Nevermind - gaze in awe instad upon the Church tank until something better comes along. No not Churchill, church (scroll down the page a way).

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Tuesday 4th of May 2010 12:57:35 PM