Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00137)

To Daniel and everyone who sometime create and use tiny links from this
web site: http://tinyurl.com/

Daniel: In your article number 18471 here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/18471
...entitled, "Another article by Blavatsky on Christ", you provided
selections of this article from my web site, and then at the bottom of
it you put a tiny link to it without also putting the actual long link.
When I saw that it instantly made me think of what would happen to your
message in the archives if one day that tiny link web site ever ceased
to exist for some reason. I immediately composed the letter that follows
this short section from your message, and sent it to the owner of the
tinyURL.com web site (a copy of his reply, which shows that those tiny
links can become invalid, is at the end of it):

=========================
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel H. Caldwell"
<danielhcaldwell@y...> wrote:
> FROM "REPLY TO THE MISTAKEN CONCEPTIONS OF THE ABBÉ ROCA ..."(1)

[I cut out the copy of the article here.]

(1) NOTE--These are selections taken from an article by H. P. Blavatsky,
originally published in the French journal Le Lotus, Paris, April, 1888.
It is one of a series of essays and replies written by H.P.B. and Abbé
Roca on Christian Esotericism. Reprinted in H. P. Blavatsky Collected
Writings, Vol. IX, 1962. Quoted from: http://tinyurl.com/58cxb
==========================

This is a copy of my letter to him:

=======================================
Subject: An important technical concern
=======================================

Hi,

You say on your web site that the tiny links "never expire". I want to
make sure that this is so from the following point of view:

What would happen to every single tiny link in e-mails and on web sites
if you either got old and sick, or died in an accident tomorrow, or
simply got tired of doing what you are doing and your tinyURL web site
disappeared off the internet because no one continued it?

I ask this because I, and a lot of my family, friends, and associates
wonder about this. Whatever the answer is, could you maybe address this
concern on your web site in some way so that everyone knows the future
possibilities -- and what to do about it just in case all of the small
links that people made someday became invalid.

Because I'm afraid of the possibility of all the small links not working
if your site went off the air, so to say, I always provide two links.
The first one is the long link that people can see, even if it breaks
into 2 or more lines at some point, so it can be copied and
reconstructed, and just under that I put the tiny link. Is this a
necessary safety-valve back-up, or not?

I look forward to your reply.

Most sincerely,

John DeSantis
=========================

This was his reply that I got this morning. It's followed by a sample
2-link approach that I suggest everyone should use whenever providing a
tiny link:

=========================================
Subject: Re: An important technical concern
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 08:49:32 -0500
From: Kevin Gilbertson <email@gilby.com>
To: Compiler <compiler@wisdomworld.org>
References:
1
Compiler wrote:
> What would happen to every single tiny link in e-mails and on web
sites
> if you either got old and sick, or died in an accident tomorrow, or
> simply got tired of doing what you are doing and your tinyURL web site

> disappeared off the internet because no one continued it?

It's worded as never expiring instead of always existing, as the above
is possible. Just the death one is an issue right now. I am working on
expanding TinyURL more and will then have it be a business entity where
more than just myself works on it. If I got tired of it, I'd either let
someone else manage it or just leave it up where no new TinyURLs can be
created and just allow the old ones to redirect.

- Gilby
===============

Finally: Using the article That Daniel pointed to with only a tiny link,
this is the suggested 2-link solution to use with each and every article
or web page that you ever provide a tiny link to:

http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/ListOfCollatedArticles/FromReplyToAbbeRoca.html

http://tinyurl.com/58cxb
========================

I most sincerely hope this was helpful to everyone.

John DeSantis
(Compiler)
http://www.wisdomworld.org
http://www.wisdomworld.org/setting.html
http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/index.html
-------
http://www.PublicAndPrivateEnterprise.org