Webmastering the Worldcon

This web page consists of a series of articles written from my point of view as webmaster for L.A.con III, the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon).

Under Construction

• Introduction; Assistants Needed
• Infrastructure
  • Choosing an ISP, and/or obtaining an e-mail alias
  • Storage space
    • (It's almost a year after the convention, and I've got about 125 MB of stuff on lacon3.worldcon.org. But a lot of that is redundant copies or temporary files that haven't been cleaned up, because there hasn't been a need. And a whole bunch of pictures, too. I'll do a general garbage collect - well, actually, I'll itemize all of the directories and purge the excess - and report back.)
    • Web storage
    • FTP server
    • Tools
      • Perl
      • Graphic manipulation packages
        • Giftool (on-line)
        • GD (on-line)
        • Paint Shop Pro (off-line)
        • L-view (off-line)
        • WordStar
          • That's right, WordStar - I edited a lot of graphics using a plain vanilla ascii text editor.
    • Access logs
      • Our access log for the peak week - the week of the convention - exceeded 60 MB in size.
  • Server statistics and peak demand
  • Dedicated (virtual) servers
    • worldcon.org/wsfs.org domains
    • .org and geographic domains
    • Backup Servers and Mirror Sites
  • E-mail services, part 1
    • Access to E-mail alias file
    • Programs by e-mail: Infobot
    • Programs by e-mail: Mailing list services
  • Database for search engine
  • Cron jobs - run a program on a regular schedule
    • Countdown update
    • An alternative to the "hits" counter: hits-per-week
    • Mirror scripts and plain-text file indexing
    • Search Engine Database update
  • Server-side executables (CGI and .SHTML)
    • Server load: an argument against server-side include-files, .shtml, and graphics generated on the fly
• Content
  • Basic Services and Philosophy - If it's official, put it on-line
  • Snail Mail Registration Form
  • Hotel Booking Forms
  • Additional Paperwork: Dealers Rules
  • Exhibit Info
  • Art Show Basics; Rules for Artists; Artist Forms
  • Masquerade Rules
  • Exhibit Hall/Dealers Room Layout Diagram
  • Hugo Nomination Ballot
  • Hugo and Site Selection Ballots
  • Pocket Program Schedule
• Related Services
  • Basic Services and Philosophy - Text Files for all topics
  • FTP
  • E-mail Infobot
    • Files by E-mail
    • Membership Lookup
    • E-mail Infobot: Mreply and mreply.rc
  • Using a Mail Domain
    • E-mail Alias Addresses
    • E-mail Auto-Acks
  • Mailing Lists
    • Mailing Lists: The Infobot News
    • Mailing Lists: Staff Discussions
  • BBS Publicity
• Web Services
  • Content is King; Text Browsers and Accessibility; Frames and Javascript
  • Naming Conventions
  • Directory structure
  • Site Table of Contents
  • Web-site Tour
  • Cross-link Keywords
  • Site-Wide Consistency: standardized chunks of HTML
  • Maintaining parallel pages
  • Macro processing
  • Stand-alone Web Page Demo Project
  • Off-site Links
• Graphics
  • Icons and Cross-Links
  • Icons for Every Topic
  • Icons for Updates
  • Countdown Graphics
  • Imagemaps: server-side and client-side
• Forms, Scripts, and CGI Programs
  • Membership Lookup Form
  • Charge-by-email form
  • E-mail CGI form: The Unconfigured Browser problem
  • E-mail CGI form, implementation
  • Easy-Signup for the mailing lists
  • Volunteer Sign-ups
  • Access Sign-ups
  • Search Engines

Next: Part 1