Purpose

• Develop WWW directories and other online resources for people in the Greater Toronto Area.  Decide what gets listed.
• Maintain data libraries bequeathed to TFN.  Decide what's worth keeping.

The Information Resources committee (IR) fulfils the part of TFN's mission which says that TFN "is a central point of reference about the GTA".

Status

The IR committee is inactive.

The committee's participants scattered around the year 2000.  It remains listed because it built resources which remain relevant.  They are relevant because TFN members continue submitting updates & requests for those resources and because TFN's mission mandates it.

Since the committee lost critical mass, its data is maintained by TFN's operations staff.  They try but are not equal to the task.  Thus, the Toronto directory and other resources developed by the committee do not receive the attention they should.  Another consequence is that content decisions are being made by fiat, since TFN operations is not and cannot be a democratic body.

History

This committee was created around late spring of 1993.  It actually predates TFN's incorporation.

Assets & deliverables

• The committee's documents & databases.
• Archived copies of DMOZ data (on esplanade, hestia).
• TFN's history archive (history of TFN, the Internet industry, etc) is developed by TFN staff but perhaps should be assigned to IR.

Other assets:

• Independent subtree within TFN's website.  Distinct account (tfn-irc) on sheppard, equipped with ~/h/.
• Several todo lists.  Some instructions/policy notes.  They are scattered in the committee's home directory, source tree, publication tree.

Plan

• Maintain and expand the Toronto directory.  I.e:
  • Resume proactive development of the directory by seeking-out websites to list.
  • Handle requests for new entries, as they arrive (review website, determine relevance to GTA, choose category, write descriptive text, publish).
  • Periodically review existing entries for link-rot and for continued relevance.
  • Setup software to exchange data with ODP (Open Directory Project, aka Directory MOZilla, formerly dmoz.org).  See work notes on DMOZ.  Any other directories?

• Deal with link-rot in the free-nets list.
• Convert all materials from hand-coded HTML to Markdown or to a specialized format.
• Find out what happened to Sam Sternberg's data libraries, and publish them if still relevant.

Needed skills

These skills aren't required but they sure are useful:

• Ability to read the web critically.  To judge a site's value and its relevance to an audience.  To identify disingenuous content.
• Ability to organize information into categories which other people find useful.
• Basic knowledge of HTML.
• Unix commandline skills.

TFN teaches all these skills.  Please plan to learn at least some of them when you join the committee.

Time commitment

Currently, the committee holds no meetings.

Contact

To join the committee, contact the TFN office.