Proposal to gauge usefulness of having deadlink detection in TWiki

Google:cpan%20dead%20link reports:

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/dlc/

HTTP link checker written in Perl. Can generate HTML output for easy checking of results and process a link cache file to hasten multiple requests. Initially created as an extension to Public Bookmark Generator (PBM); can be used alone. {(L)GPL} At Sourceforge (Production/Stable). (based on CPAN:LWP)

-- MartinCleaver - 03 May 2003

Are you suggesting this as an external tool that runs from cron and mails the result to the administrator?

-- AntonAylward - 03 May 2003

Mailing to the administrators is one way. I was thinking that it could run in batch like the 'force' option on the WebStatistics page, only from the DeadLinkDetectionPlugin plugin home page.

Let's brainstorm. Here's a bunch of questions to get us going:

• How should it get invoked?
  • By cron job, by 'force' like on the WebStatistics page, on saving a page
• When should it run?
  • If its a cron job, where can I specify how long between runs?
• How should it show its results?
  • Mail it, put on a Wiki page?
• What should it do when it finds a deadlink?
  • Should it mark the link dead? Should the deadlink marking occur on the page with the error or on a separate page or in a database?
• What should it do with a 304 moved response?
  • Should it update the link?
• Over what communications mechanism should it notify?
  • By mail, by instant message, on a Administrators page?
• Who should it notify?
  • Is it the page originator? The last author? The web administrator? The Twiki Administrator?
• What should it say?
  • Is it a link to the page? A summary of the changes made?
• How should it be configured?
  • All in a Wiki page? In external text files (a la TWiki.cfg)?

-- MartinCleaver - 04 May 2003