LISNews: Librarian News

99% of the stuff on the Internet is trash. Don't help make it 100%. Here's some good ways to make the web a better place for all of us.

Remember that the Internet is permanent. When your motivation goes away or you've changed your mind, that piece you wrote will remain.

Contribute:
The best part of the internet is how it enables collaboration on a scale not known before. You can help by working with many of the collaborative web sites and open source projects.

Maintain:
Patch that computer! Make sure all the computers you control are secure, and make sure you help other people stay updated.

Promote Web Standards:
Using standards helps make your site easy to use and accessible to the largest number of users. It also saves you bandwidth.

Mentor:
Think you know it all? Prove it! Share your knowledge with others.

Support:
It takes time and money to make a quality web site. Don't be afraid to provide some financial support to your favorite sites.

Promote Civility:
There's nothing wrong with being nice. Spend some time focusing on the good.

Be a good neighbor:
There are some basic rules that keep the internet running more efficiently.

Write Right:
Give some thought to what you write.

Add to this list:
We missed something, what is it?

Unplug!
We can all use some time off, the Internet will continue to exist without you for a day. Go outside and play!

Details and ideas below... -- Read More

The Foetry Librarian, Alan Cordle, didn’t want his name known. As we all know, one must pay a hefty extra fee for anonymity when registering a domain nowadays. When he registered the Foetry.com domain with GoDaddy.com in March 2004, they directed him to their associate, Domains by Proxy, where they accepted an additional payment to keep his information out of 'who is.' And now he’s out to "out" them.

His website identified Pulitzer prizewinners, Harvard professors, Macarthur Fellows, and Poet Laureates openly engaged in unethical poetry “competitions� involving millions of dollars (see LISNews story from last month). Doing his investigating anonymously, Foetry.com was featured in such places as the Boston Globe, the New York Times Book Review, and on leading literary websites, like Mobylives.com. For a year, Cordle successfully maintained his privacy until one website visitor complained to Domains by Proxy.

In April 2005, while reading a weblog, Cordle discovered that Domains by Proxy had canceled his anonymity, and his name, address, and phone number were available in the Internet Whois Database, and posted on weblogs throughout the world. Emails from Cordle, and certified letters from his attorney to Domains by Proxy and Go Daddy have not properly answered his questions.

Cordle has launched fauxdaddy.org to spread the word about anonymity and the internet. His site details his story and hints at other problems with privacy breaches at Domains by Proxy.

Rosemarie Maldonado writes: Often said is, "Getting from here to there is the journey and that is more important than the destination." While I am no sage, I will tell you a few of my experiences on my journey with research at UB and at the ALA Annual Conference 2005 last month in Chicago, Illinois in which I co-presented a research paper as a University at Buffalo The State University of New York MLS student. I've included som tips if you are thinking about doing a special project, and some tips if you are thinking about going to a conference. -- Read More

emknecht writes "Go to this link for a chuckle (or, adds rochelle, a gross-out or an eye-roll).